- Compulsory chapel (as you might call it) returns to British university life, this time in hopes of extirpating “lad culture” [Brendan O’Neill]
- “Environmental history errors in a high school textbook” [Jonathan Adler] “Teachers’ union propaganda is creeping into California’s public school curricula.” [Larry Sand, City Journal]
- University of Texas scandal included “attempt to get UT Regent…indicted for doing the work a regent is supposed to do” [Dallas Morning News] FERPA privacy angle: “UT-Austin Slapped Down for Withholding Docs in Admissions Scandal” [Greg Piper, The College Fix]
- A proposal for reining in Rule By Dear Colleague Letter at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights [Mike Rappaport/Liberty and Law, earlier, more from Michael Greve]
- Not a parody: “Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’… contains triggering and offensive material” [Columbia Daily Spectator, Legal Insurrection] “A new age of campus censorship” [Greg Lukianoff (FIRE), Minding the Campus]
- “The statement is suggesting that, in CAIR’s view, ‘anti-Muslim speakers’ may already violate campus speech codes” [Volokh]
- Quit giving your kid such a good start in life: two academics pursue egalitarian premises to their joyless conclusion [J.D. Tuccille, Crooked Timber riposte via A. Barton Hinkle, James Devereaux/Reasoned Liberty, Damon Root (on banning private schools)]
Posts Tagged ‘schools’
Children and schools roundup
- Story of free-range Meitiv kids goes national, cont’d: “Bystanders are forced [sic] to step in and enforce discipline because the parents aren’t around.” [Slate via @bibliographing] Yes, the cited “National Association to Protect Children” is a real group, I looked it up [Washington Jewish Week] “Epidemic of moms getting arrested for leaving children in car 5 mins to run into store.” [Kim Brooks, Salon via @Lorettamalakie]
- What got buried in a WaPo column arguing that standardized tests for schoolkids are “a civil right.” [Ann Althouse] Testing issue allows teachers’ unions to make friends on the conservative side [NYT via same]
- Legal costs exceed $100 per student at some Chicago-area public schools; $23 billed for one lawyer’s phone message [Tribune via ABA Journal]
- Maintenance of Effort laws, meant to insulate school budgets against local voter control, might backfire [Free State Notes post by me, channeling my letter to the editor]
- A dissent on liberalizing school discipline policies [Paul Sperry, New York Post]
- Colorado school shootings: why is GOP leading push for emotion-driven, public-fisc-endangering lawsuits? [John Frank, Denver Post]
- Expensive new playground mandates [Paul Best and Lenore Skenazy, more from Skenazy, Tim Gill via Common Good]
“Will youth sports disputes be improved by the intervention of the courts?”
Writes Tyler Cowen, about a lawsuit filed by a benched 16-year-old club volleyball hopeful in Chantilly, Va.
School permission slip for eating an Oreo
Yes, the school permission slip for letting a kid eat an Oreo is a real thing now [Lower Merion, Pa.; Lenore Skenazy; Laura McCrystal, Philadelphia Inquirer]
“Slain basketball player’s family files suit against Dallas ISD”
“The mother of slain Wilmer Hutchins basketball star Troy Causey Jr. has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that illegal recruiting practices at Dallas ISD schools led to her son’s death a year ago. … [She] alleges that coaches visited her 18-year-old son while he was in custody at Dallas County Youth Village during an eight-month stint there following an assault arrest and convinced him to play basketball.” Subsequently, Causey died after a beating at his residence, and a roommate who also played basketball for another Dallas school was charged with manslaughter in the case. Lawyers for the mother, Tammy Simpson, said school sports officials had helped place many players in such private living arrangements and should have known they were dangerous. [WFAA]
School bake sales defended in Virginia
S’more local autonomy that way: despite federal pressure in the other direction Virginia lawmakers are moving to enable more school bake sales [Laura Vozzella, Washington Post] Columnist Petula Dvorak finds the debate “ridiculous”: “The classic school bake sale to raise cash for sports equipment, class trips or charitable causes is actually an essential part of a curriculum,” teaching lessons of “entrepreneurship, independence, self-reliance, creation of a product.” Earlier on school bake sales here, here, here, here, here, here, etc.
February 19 roundup
- Sheldon Silver’s law firm reportedly loses its special status in courts [New York Post] “Ex-congresswoman could get payout from court tied to Silver” [same; former Rep. Carolyn McCarthy]
- “High School Teacher With Fear of Young Children Loses Disability-Bias Case” [EdWeek, h/t @aaronworthing]
- “Worth remembering that, if they had the power in the 1980s, the public health lobby would have forced us to eat a diet they now say is bad.” [Christopher Snowdon, earlier]
- Numbers confirm that AG Eric Holder’s forfeiture reform won’t directly affect great majority of cases [Institute for Justice via Jacob Sullum, earlier]
- Despite curiously thin evidence that they work, bans on texting while driving roll on, including Mississippi [Steve Wilson, Watchdog, thanks for quote, earlier here, etc.] Draft Ohio bill has numerous troubling features, including broad bar on future technologies, vague distraction ban, stiffer penalties without judicial discretion, mandatory court dates for minor offenses [Maggie Thurber, Ohio Watchdog, thanks for quote]
- Cop’s defense in sex assault of teen: he “[had] money problems and a bad guy scared [him]” [Trumbull, Ct.; Scott Greenfield, Connecticut Post]
- “Dance like no one is watching; email like it may one day be read aloud in a deposition.” [Olivia Nuzzi]
Long after the accusation
Seven-year-old accuses teacher of shoving him, teacher is jailed and fired, a big lawsuit follows. But ten years later their lives once again intersect…. [Marc Fisher, Washington Post Magazine; Josh Kaplowitz; Raynard Ware; and particularly recommended, Fisher’s 2003 story (“He began his teaching stint with idealism. And ended it in jail”)]
Schools roundup
- Illinois school district warns parents that in doing investigations under new cyber-bullying law it may require students to hand over their Facebook passwords [Vice Motherboard; earlier on “cyber-bullying”]
- Powerful, from Christina Hoff Sommers: how a shoddy NPR / Center for Public Integrity campus-rape study fueled legal fury of Department of Education’s Civil Rights Division [The Daily Beast; more, Bader] Nancy Gertner, retired federal judge and prominent progressive voice, on due process for college accused [American Prospect] Questions for New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand [KC Johnson, Minding the Campus]
- Smith College: “the word crazy was censored from the transcript, replaced with the term ‘ableist slur.'” [Kevin Cullen, Boston Globe]
- “Community College Courtesy of the Federal Taxpayer? No Thanks” [Neal McCluskey, Arnold Kling]
- “Families Of Two Newtown Victims Sue Town And School Board” [CBS Connecticut via Skenazy; recently on suits against gun businesses]
- More coverage of open records requests as way to go after ideologically disliked professors [Inside Higher Ed, our take last month]
- Washington Post piece went viral, but it’s dead wrong: “No, A Majority of US Public School Students are Not In Poverty” [Alex Tabarrok] Look, a not-yet-published paper that claims to confirm something many of us want dearly to believe about school finance. But will it have the staying power of Prof. Hanushek’s? [WaPo “WonkBlog”]
Schools roundup
- Many states have liberalized rules on family homeschooling, now comes the backlash from proponents of tighter regulation [NY Times]
- Kansas Supreme Court decrees higher school spending, estimated taxpayer cost upwards of $500 million [Greg Weiner, Law and Liberty, Wichita Eagle; earlier] After all, judicially directed school munificence worked so well in nearby Kansas City, Missouri [via @David_Boaz]
- Scaring ourselves to death: the insanity of school active shooter drills [Radley Balko]
- University of Virginia’s resistance to assault hoax weaker than Duke’s, possibly because pressure on skeptics to shut up has intensified [KC Johnson/Stuart Taylor, Jr./Real Clear Politics] Hans Bader on curious provisions of feds’ settlement with Harvard [Examiner, earlier]
- “Oklahoma court declines to order [high school] football game replayed for blown call” [Paul Cassell, more]
- Ohio judge rules principals, superintendent open to being sued personally over school shooting [Insurance Journal]
- “Wow. How fun is this? A merry go round welded stationary. So kids don’t get hurt. Way to go, New York!” [Lenore Skenazy]