Posts tagged as:

schools

“[Diane] Tran said she works both full-time and part-time jobs, in addition to taking advanced and college level courses,” and her parents have “split up and moved away” leaving her in charge of a younger sister, which make it hard to keep to the exact school day. Judge Lanny Moriarty did not seem sympathetic: “If you let one run loose, what are you gonna’ do with the rest of ‘em?” [CBS Atlanta]

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Following the rules in Florida: a 17-year-old high school student “very nearly died because the school nurse refused to let him use his inhaler because his mother didn’t sign a form.” [Isa-Lee Wolf, Yahoo via Free-Range Kids]

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Brian Banks served more than five years in prison after an old friend “falsely accused him of attacking her on their high school campus”:

In a strange turn of events, the woman, Wanetta Gibson, friended him on Facebook when he got out of prison.

In an initial meeting with him, she said she had lied; there had been no kidnap and no rape and she offered to help him clear his record, court records state.

But she refused to repeat the story to prosecutors because she feared she would have to return a $1.5 million payment from a civil suit brought by her mother against Long Beach schools….

It was uncertain Thursday whether Gibson will have to return the money.

[AP via Balko, Volokh; & welcome Reddit readers]

Meanwhile, on the opposite coast, high-profile Brooklyn sex crimes prosecutor Lauren Hersh has resigned following a furor over a sex trafficking case in which “prosecutors had held on to documents showing the victim recanted rape allegations one day after making them.” [NY Post, more] P.S. Daniel Fisher reminds us of Hersh’s “starring role in New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s expose of Backpage, the Village Voice’s online personals section.”

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Education roundup

by Walter Olson on May 9, 2012

  • Thomas Cooley Law School in Michigan, facing class-action suit, subpoenas Colorado lawprof Paul Campos, vocal critic of schools’ disclosure policies [Campos, Scott Greenfield]
  • “Maintenance of effort”: Yielding to special ed lobby, feds won’t let local school districts cut outlays [Nirvi Shah, Ed Week] “Havoc in classrooms” feared as NYC pushes least restrictive placement of disabled students [NY Post] Feds to universities: it’s an ADA violation to ask suicidal students to leave [WFAE, Popehat]
  • Arizona lawmaker proposes ban on political viewpoint discrimination in faculty hiring [Inside Higher Ed]
  • “University of Maryland Cuts Varsity Cheer Program” [Washington Post] Title IX competes with true gender equality
    [Doug Robinson, Deseret News via Saving Sports]
  • Due-process revolution in school discipline hasn’t worked out as intended [Richard Arum, The Atlantic] Heavy police presence in schools is something new [J.D. Tuccille, Reason] “Education Department Pushes Racial Quotas in School Discipline” [Hans Bader, CEI]
  • “What Yale and the Times Did to Patrick Witt” [KC Johnson, Minding the Campus]

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“The parents of a Peninsula high school sophomore are suing the school district for kicking the teenager out of an honors class because he cheated.” Jack Berghouse and his wife do not dispute that their son committed plagiarism, but their lawsuit claims “the school’s policies regarding punishment for cheating are vague and contradictory and shouldn’t be enforced.” [KCBS, KGO, San Jose Mercury News]

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As Radley Balko notes, it seems to vary rather widely depending on whether the wrongdoer is a student or an educator.

Assemblyman William Monning (D-Carmel) wants to ban food trucks from parking anywhere near where schoolkids might be; under legislation he has proposed, they would need to keep even farther away from schools than medical marijuana dispensaries. Since schools dot the urban scene, a side effect would be to seriously curtail adult access to the trucks, which serve a large population of working adults and have lately found new popularity among foodies. [L.A. Times via Heather Mac Donald, Secular Right, earlier]

Mark Steyn on the paradoxes of our contemporary proliferation of rights-coinage, in which even being deprived of a choice can count as a right [NRO]

“It may be better to live under robber barons,” wrote the British author, “than under omnipotent moral busybodies.” [Barton Hinkle, Richmond Times-Dispatch] The federal government is preparing new rules restricting snack foods available through local schools, “which could include banning the candy sold for school fund-raisers,” notwithstanding a recent study finding no link between vending machine availability and child obesity [New York Times] And a blog supporter of bans on birthday cupcakes and soda machines in schools responds to her critics [Bettina Elias Siegel, "The Lunch Tray" and more]

P.S. And thanks to Pete Warden in comments for the relevant George Orwell quote.

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Steve Malanga on New Jersey’s perennially activist Supreme Court [City Journal]. We’ve periodically discussed the court’s lamentable jurisprudence in its Abbott (school finance redistribution) and Mount Laurel (towns given quotas to build low-income housing) decisions. The court has also nullified constitutional limitations on borrowing by the state.

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Walter Russell Mead notes a reformist initiative on teacher certification with perhaps an unexpected sponsor, the Democratic governor of Connecticut. [The American Interest; CTNewsJunkie.com]

P.S. On the ultimate frontier of teacher reform — the firing of bad teachers — see new reports from Troy Senik [Public Sector Inc.] and Marcus Winters [NY Post].

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Having decided to cut classes, a 15-year-old student at Mitchell High School in New Port Richey, Fla. was fatally struck by a car one morning last year about a mile from school grounds. “Her mother says school officials could have prevented her death — and she’s pursuing legal action with the hope of changing their supervision and tardiness policies….The notice, drafted by Mamonoff’s attorney Stacy Kemp, offered to drop the matter and settle out of court for $1 million.” [St. Petersburg Times]

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February 1 roundup

by Walter Olson on February 1, 2012

The New York Post checks on on some unfireable teachers.

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Aside from the wisdom of obliging every single young person to serve out such a sentence — conveniently, until draft age, when the State may have other plans for their time — there’s an interest-group angle. Ira Stoll traces it to the National Education Association, which stands to gain from the idea a measurable boost to its dues-paying ranks, and which has in fact proposed mandatory schooling for nongraduates up to age 21. More: Hans Bader, CEI (quoting Overlawyered commenter Kurt); Nick Gillespie, Reason.

P.S. Watch out for the truancy cops, too [Free-Range Kids; Loudoun County, Va. mother says she was handcuffed and arrested after fifth instance of school tardiness]

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January 18 roundup

by Walter Olson on January 18, 2012

  • A federal fishing raid, the Pew Charitable Trusts and a biased Business Week account [Nils Stolpe on Gloucester, Mass. fisheries, via Stoll]
  • Intimidating the judiciary? “Group Opposing Citizens United Pushes ‘Occupy the Courts’ Protest” Jan. 20 [Debra Cassens Weiss, ABA Journal] Mob rallies at Michigan governor’s private home [Meegan Holland, MLive] “Occupy” forces Gingrich to cancel event [Daily Caller] Earlier here, here, here, etc.
  • “Paper Airplane? Late for School? Shouting Too Loud? You’re Under Arrest!” [Free-Range Kids, Texas]
  • Spielberg in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” paid homage to earlier movie sequences without sweating permissions. Oh, for those days [Joho] “Cultural gems that should be in the public domain today” [Atlantic Wire, Tabarrok]
  • UPS settlement exaggerates benefits to class members [Ted Frank; related, CCAF] “Federal Judges Have Harsh Words, Rulings for Class Action Plaintiffs’ Lawyers” [Lammi/WLF]
  • “Justice Breyer Calls Recusal Controversy a ‘Non-Issue’” [ABA Journal]
  • “Add Plaintiff-Lawyer Fees To The Cost Of Most Mergers” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes on Cornerstone Research report]

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January 16 roundup

by Walter Olson on January 16, 2012

  • Per Chevron, Kerry Kennedy getting undisclosed percentage of the take, potentially in millions, to side with plaintiffs in Ecuador suit [NY Post] Long New Yorker take-out on case [Patrick Radden Keefe]
  • Freetail Brewing fields a nastygram: “How to Comply With a Cease-and-Desist Letter But Still Win” [Lowering the Bar]
  • I.e. boycotts illegal? Odd Minnesota law bans economic “reprisals” based on “political activity.” [Volokh]
  • “Chris McGrath v. Vaughan Jones: An Unpleasant Peek Into U.K. Libel Law” [Popehat; suit over science-and-theology book review] Related: “You Can’t Read This Book: why libel tourists love London” [Nick Cohen, Guardian, on his new book]
  • Business experience isn’t be-all or end-all for presidential qualifications, but might avert some policy howlers [Kling]
  • “Arbitration Is Here to Stay and One Lawyer Says That Is Good for Consumers” [Alan Kaplinsky interview, Mickey Meese/Forbes, PoL]
  • Off-topic random thought: “Iranian nuclear scientist who moonlights in Broadway Spider-Man cast” must be world’s most uninsurable job description;
  • “D.C. Lawmakers Propose Requiring Students to Apply to College” [Fox]

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