Overlawyered » schools

“The court that broke Jersey”

Walter Olson — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:58:28 +0000

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.

Tags: fair housing, New Jersey, schools

“Democrats vs. Teacher Unions: The Battle Heats Up”

Walter Olson — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:11:22 +0000

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].

Tags: Connecticut, labor unions, schools, teacher tenure

Hit by car playing hooky, suit blames school

Walter Olson — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:04:43 +0000

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]

Tags: Florida, personal responsibility, schools

February 1 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:03:31 +0000

“Hawaii may keep track of all web sites visited” [Declan McCullagh]
NEA (and now Obama) answer to public education woes: lock the exits by hiking school-leaving age [Steve Chapman, earlier]
On nomination filibusters, New York Times editorial policy has pulled a 360, not just a 180 [Whelan, 2003, 2005, earlier]
English copyright ruling “creates ownership in the idea of a photo’s composition” [Doctorow, BB]
New Maryland push for same-sex marriage will include stronger religious exemptions, a course I urged last year [Sun, my view] Detailed inquiry into the law of interstate marriage recognition and DOMA [Will Baude, Volokh]
When lawyers face prison for the advice they give [Jack Fernandez, Zuckerman Spaeder via Legal Ethics Forum]
FDA regulation of pharmaceuticals: “More reasons to discount adverse event reports” [Yeary, Drug & Device Law, the CPSC database analogy]

Tags: copyright, judicial nominations, Maryland, pharmaceuticals, photography, same-sex marriage, schools, United Kingdom

Tales from NYC’s “rubber room”

Walter Olson — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:39:34 +0000

The New York Post checks on on some unfireable teachers.

Tags: NYC, public employment, schools, teacher tenure

Obama proposal: no leaving school until age 18 or graduation

Walter Olson — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:19:42 +0000

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]

Tags: Barack Obama, schools

January 18 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:11:45 +0000

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]

Tags: class action settlements, environment, Massachusetts, movies film and videos, police, recusals, schools, securities litigation, Texas

January 16 roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:42:18 +0000

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]

Tags: arbitration, beer and brewers, Chevron, Minnesota, nastygrams, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., schools, United Kingdom, Washington D.C.

Schools roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 11:54:46 +0000

Students respond to L.A.’s “healthful” school lunch initiative with a loud “yuck” [L.A. Times, Michelle Malkin/NRO]
L.I.: School suspends students for “Tebow” kneeling in hallway [Newsday]
“Growing number of college students asking for wiggle room with their academic workloads due to mental health issues.” [WSJ]
Proposal to address “learning disability” tangle: give all test-takers extra time [Ruth Colker, SSRN, see p. 126] A.D.H.D. diagnosis and the academic struggle for advantage [Melana Zyla Vickers, NYT "Room for Debate"] “Pediatrician Group Seeks to Boost ADHD Diagnoses” [Sullum]
Will distance technology defeat the teachers’ union? [Larry Sand, City Journal]
Time to repeal Maryland’s awful “maintenance of effort” law on school funding [WaPo, Baltimore Sun] Contra: MSEA, PDF.
French-language cops: “Montreal schools move to scan playground chatter” [Ottawa Citizen]

Tags: Canada, colleges and universities, disability & schools, labor unions, obesity, schools, testing

Food and agriculture law roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 05:40:59 +0000

Just as FDA begins laying groundwork for mandatory salt reduction in prepared food, research raises new doubts about the science [Reuters, Atlantic Wire, Alkon]
Feds now scrutinizing “everything about kids’ food” [Star-Tribune] Top-down remake of school lunches runs into trouble in Congress [AP]
“Christmas tree tax”: blame big growers and GOP lawmakers, not White House [Tad DeHaven, , Mark Perry]
Living right by a USDA-designated “food desert,” she’s “never had better access to food in my life.” [Angie Schmitt, Urbanophile] “As income rises, so does fast-food consumption, study finds” [L.A. Times, Sullum] “You can eat local, or you can eat organic, but it’s very hard to do both.” [Felix Salmon]
Bloomberg News (not Bloomberg Hizzoner) hypes food-as-addiction, child obesity figuring in more custody battles [WSJ] Michelle Obama on the role of personal responsibility, alas not in this realm of life [Andrew Coulson, Cato]
Private bed-leasing law is finally restoring Maryland’s depleted oyster stocks [Rona Kobell, Reason] Catch shares for Alaskan king crab might even be saving human lives [Adler]
Why bother cooking for your kids at all? Feds ramp up program that serves them dinner as well as breakfast, lunch [Stoll]

Tags: agriculture and farming, Alaska, eat drink and be merry, Maryland, obesity, salt, schools

Overlawyered » schools

“The court that broke Jersey”

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