Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Schools roundup

  • Excellent Mark Oppenheimer column cites new Cornell study: students deprived of whole milk and chocolate milk as choices “drank less milk, threw more milk away, and bought fewer school lunches over all” [New York Times]
  • “The process of tying curricular standards to federal money actually helps create the ‘ideological circus’ that [David] Brooks decries.” [Rick Hills, Prawfsblawg on Common Core]
  • School choice lawsuits and legislation news updates from Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, and elsewhere [Jason Bedrick, Cato]
  • More applications of New Jersey’s pioneering “anti-bullying” law. And will it stand up in court? [Hans Bader, earlier here, etc.]
  • “When one New Zealand school tossed its playground rules and let students risk injury, the results were surprising” [Sarah Boesfeld, National Post (Canada)] Plenty of discussion of new Hanna Rosin piece “The Overprotected Kid” [Atlantic via Tabarrok; a contrasting view from Max Kennerly]
  • News you can use about applicability of Institutional Review Board regs to research on oneself [Michelle Meyer, Bill of Health] Another new blog about IRBs [Suffocated Science via Instapundit]
  • Community college suspends professor over Google Plus share of Game of Thrones quote on daughter’s T-shirt [Bergen Record]

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2 Comments

  • As the parent of two sons, who are now 20 and 17, I have this to say about the story on milk…DUH! I have this to say about the playground in New Zealand…DUH! Any parent with two active brain cells to rub together knows both of those things would happen, and it’s a pity that “professionals” are surprised by it…

    Oh, and regarding the NJ laws…DUH! This was predicted by Reason and probably on this site, too.

  • I’d also venture to guess that somebody who faceplanted on asphalt when they were 6 or 7, and remembers it well, and remembers that they did it to themselves by making a mistake, is much less likely to think they’re invincible when they’re 18 and away from home for the first time than someone who has always been protected from petty failure.

    Gotta let kids make mistakes early and in a setting where the consequences are low.