Got to love July 1. The start of a new year, everything is fresh and hopeful ... at least in school terms. But, July 1 is frequently when all the new laws affecting schools take effect also (more). Not to spoil your optimism.

We are not quite at the "just do whatever you want" point yet with NCLB, but we are getting closer.

An lawsuit over a critical intelligent design e-mail in Texas.

Louisiana is realizing how far out on a limb they went this year. More . Louisiana certainly gets the award for the most conservatively oriented new school policies this year. If there is such an award. The young Republican governor there pretty much is pushing forward on every front.

Meanwhile, New Orleans Recovery School District is cutting 180 jobs, 17 percent of its teachers`. 

A coalition to get more money for California's schools has taken to the airwaves.

Missouri is one of many states this year broadening online harassment laws. NY too.

U.S. Supreme Court denies Kansas undocumented worked tuition case.

In Michigan, always a leader in special ed. issues, a parent is trying to create a class of autistic children to go against Blue Cross, Blue Shield. 

West Virginia gets school bus time limits. 

Gotta watch those accountants ... (I am not referring to my wife who is an excellent accountant!).

Hawaii can't figure out who is going to pay for their teacher drug testing program.


Around the Ed. Law Blogosphere

Mark Walsh has all the big news of the week. Arizona and Maine vouchers okayed. The anti-abortion truck ruling. More from the LA Times. And some goodold Milwaukee union signs.

Jim Gerl is reflective on how far we have come since passage of EAHCA.

Charles Fox says we need more from the candidates on where they stand on IDEIA & NCLB. He has a great point about IDEIA - I have no idea where the candidates stand on that issue. I can guess, but it would be nice to hear it from them.

Title IX blog has a school not liable for teacher harassment incident in South Dakota.

Connecticut Education Law Blog has a FOIA case there.

Wrights Law answers questions about school attorneys and walking out of due process hearings.

Jon Becker tells a great story about how Thurgood Marshall impacted his life.

Jen Weissman has Connecticut going to in-school suspensions mostly. This is probably a good idea. She also has Sen. Lieberman's (who is wildly unpopular now for backing McCain) education take.

Mitchell Rubinstien has a not so shocking anymore teacher speech case out of the Second Circuit. Complain about special ed = fired.

Check out this British Church/State case at Religion Clause. Interesting stuff.


OK, for your Friday Fun ...

What else? Enjoy. (If the fireworks are not playing and you want them to, just hit "preview.")



Google Document Link: Friday Snippets - 4/07/08 - New Laws Taking Effect

      

Since I teach educational leaders, I thought I would participate in Leadership Day 2008, which was started over at Dangerously Irrelevant last year and is happening again this year. Leadership Day 2008 is supposed to focus on ways to help school leaders become more technologically literate so that they can better lead schools in the 21st Century. A few worthy activity, indeed.

So, my post today is going to focus on improving technology literacy in school leadership preparation programs, instead of directly on educational leaders themselves (for lots of posts directly on helping school leaders, see Dangerously Irrelevant where Scott will be doing a summation with lots of links). Leadership preparation programs, at least 90 some percent of them, are very traditionally oriented entities (why I know this). Granted, a few innovative programs are beginning to push the technology envelop seeking greater efficiency, but your traditional brick and mortar leadership preparation programs still dominate, and in those preparation programs technology literacy is not highly valued. It is valued a little, but mostly not enough to arise to any formal efforts to integrate technology literacy elements into the curriculum (again there are exceptions).

So, if our leadership preparation programs are not technologically literate, how can we expect our educational leaders to be? We show them what they should value in their careers during their preparation program and technological literacy is no where near the top of that list. So, how do we integrate more technological literacy into our preparation programs?

Well, here is an idea and what I am going to try to do over the next decade or so.

Technology issues are unlikely to get a privileged class of their own. The best technology can hope for in most programs is an elective, but in today's strictly controlled cohort models of leadership preparation, electives are largely out of favor. So, what class is in every leadership preparation program around the country where more technology can be integrated? ... Well, how about educational law? It's an unlikely place I know and probably not the one you were thinking of, but one where I think real progress can be made.

First, change comes easier to ed. lawyers. Last year, the First Amendment analysis was changed. The year before, teacher speech was entirely changed. Pretty much once a year, a fundamental change occurs in educational law and people that teach educational law thrive in that environment of constant change. We see it as our job to keep up with change.

Second, the Internet plays a bigger role in Ed. Law classes (at least good ones). While a lot of ed. leadership classes involve reading and discussing a book, the education law class necessarily relies on the latest cases, many of which can't be kept up to date in a textbook. My boss updates her textbook every 4 years or so, but it is still wildly out of date by year three. To fill in those gaps, we rely on Internet sources. In most of our educational law classes, we even teach students how to stay up to date with legal research. Also, most good ed. law classes use current events from the Internet. The latest local news story or NPR clip. 

Third, there is already a group of law scholars that recognize this change. It is no surprise that Scott McLeod & Jon Becker, who both run great technology oriented blogs, are both lawyers and are already writing an online law textbook. Throw in myself and people that recognize this change but have less of an Internet presence such as Kevin Brady, and there is a group that is already pushing the envelope.  

Anyway, I could go on, but you start adding this stuff up and I have come to the realization that we can use educational law courses to help school leaders become more technologically literate.

And, I realize I have a large role to play in this. Part of the reason for the Edjurist redesign is so that I can work off a site where I can publish Web 2.0 resources for educational law which can be freely used by school law instructors across the U.S. and world. Because the law is an ever changing entity, familiarity with blogs and other Web 2.0 devices are necessary for more than just personal learning and discussion. That kind of up to date familiarity is necessary to keep your school obeying the law and out of legal trouble. As I have already shown, there are already 15-20 education law blogs out there, many of which are state specific. As that number continues to increase, they should continue to increase their presence in educational law coursework. But, it is more than just blogs too. Vidcasts, forums, online hornbooks, etc. As people like myself begin to build and publicize these tools, we can encourage ed. law instructors across the U.S. to adopt these into their classes. Heck, maybe even some will be as crazy as me and do a YouTube assignment.

There are over 600 preparation programs across the U.S., each with an educational law course at least once a year. Consider if just 1/10 of those courses began to integrate more technology tools and helped train educational leaders in the use and function of those tools? That would be a fairly substantial change, but one I think is very possible within a decade. 



Snippets up in a bit.

Tags: leadershipshipday2008, schooltechleadership

      

There is a standoff, literally, going on between Kansas City and Independence, Missouri School Districts. The Independence School District wants to take control of seven schools that were formally operated by the Kansas City School District. The KC School District seems to acknowledge that Independence has a right to take over the buildings, but because of an ongoing dispute between the districts over the cost of the school buildings owed to the Kansas City District and the lack of payment from Independence Schools, the doors were locked and security guards were posted to keep the Independence officials out of the buildings. Finally on Monday, a judge ruled that Independence has a right to enter the buildings. But, on Tuesday morning, the doors were still locked. 

Here is the Superintendent of Independence Schools after being locked out:



Things seem to be slowly resolving (video), but the Independence School District has still not been allowed to make repairs to the buildings, which is their intention before school starts.

Anyway, this whole thing is a bit embarrassing. If the school districts can't even get along and work together, what kind of public image is that sending these communities?

      

There is an Ed. Law assistant professor position at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Unlike some other Ed. Law professorship positions, this one does not necessarily require a Ph.D. - a J.D. and/or an Ed.D. may be enough so for any educational lawyers out there that have experience adjuncting at other universities, this may be an opportunity to get a full-time position at a growing university in the capital city of an important state.

As always, employers seeking to advertise educational law related positions can contact me about posting their position at the Edjurist. Hopefully there will be enough positions this coming fall to do a job board on the redesigned site.

      

I am working on a few different projects on educational law research. As mentioned before I am working on rebuilding the Edjurist. But, I am also working on a survey of educational law related folks and their online legal research needs with Kevin Brady, a professor at North Carolina State. Kevin found an article with some cool new online legal research tools that I wanted to pass along.

The New Tools:

Public.Resource.Org - The latest project from Carl Malamud, it seeks (eventually) to put all federal and state caselaw online for free (they already have 1.8 million pages up - all Supreme Court and Court of Appeals cases). Here is a link to the case law directory. You can use case citations to navigate (first by the volume number and then by the page number).

Public.Resource.Org doesn't seek to have the search power or additional features that West or Lexis have, but it wants to put the cases in a source where other folks (such as myself with the Edjurist) can begin to classify them and make sense of them. I found his letter to Thompson-West particularly interesting ... as is West's response that seems to admit that the actual text of the case in their database is not copyright protected. Presumably, if you could find a way to clean out all of West's workproduct in a case, you could then put that case online for free. Here is Tim Stanley (of Justia now, but a founder of Findlaw) on the project with some more information. Also WisBlawg. 


AltLaw - This is a searchable (advanced & boolean) database of over 750,000 cases. It is a joint project of Columbia Law and Colorado Law Schools. It covers all Supreme Court decisions as well as a good deal of Federal Appellate Court decisions from 1950 forward. It also has some cool features such as a Bluebook copy and paste generator as well as a Shepardizing feature where it links to all other cases in their database that cite the case. This is a tool we can be using in our educational leadership law classes right now.


PreCYdent - Here is the co-founder explaining it himself.



PreCydent has just short of a million case law opinions and over 50,000 statutes it searches. It offers a pretty good search page where you can search by title, jurisdiction, justice, date and citation and have your results ranked in different ways. You can also create a free account where it tracks your searches and allows users to upload new opinions and statutes. It is still in beta testing, but you can use it now. Again, this is another resource we can start using immediately in our classes.


There are other resources too, but I don't want to overwhelm you. The sense you should get, however, is that there are now large, increasingly coordinated efforts to get legal information online for free. That is an extremely positive development.

      

An abbreviated, Thursday edition of the Snippets this week as I am going to spend the whole weekend refinishing my hardwood floors.

A report on NCLB that showed some closing the the achievement gap made a lot of headlines this week. CEP's website where you can download the report.

4th Circuit: School's don't need to grant access to e-mail & Website to outside advocates seeking to present both sides of an issue, even when the school takes a position on an education policy. Page v. Lexington Co. School Dist.  -- Mark Walsh.

The lead content in artificial turf fields (present at some schools) may be too high.

Pennsylvania has become ground zero in the fight over evolution. The latest salvo: Philadelphia academic institutions are now holding a Year of Evolution to celebrate Charles Darwin's 200th birthday.

The Arizona Republic, perhaps trying to do Mr. McCain a favor (since he doesn't really have an education policy at all), does a bit of a Q and A on what each candidate would mean for education.

Around the blogosphere:

Mark Walsh has the Supreme's decision to limit the death penalty in child rape cases and how it tangentially relates to schools.

Mark also has a post with a ton of links on the rehearing of the California homeschooling case.

Jen Weissman profiles the Gov. of Mass. on education.

Charles Fox puts together an impressive week: Schools using shock treatment on special ed. kids. Call for action on ADA bill. And a good lesson on how NOT to word a report.

Jim Gerl redirects us to a defense of hearing officers, which has photo evidence. Compared to mine, Jim keeps a pretty clean desk.

Mitchell Rubinstein finds the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure apply in IDEA cases as well. Mitchell is totally right also: The person that suffers when these claims are thrown out on procedural grounds is the student. Also, NLRB is putting cases online.

Carolyn Dugas has info on Connecticut's updated anti-bullying law.

And for your Friday Fun: Virgin Galactic. In a couple years, they are going to be making regular trips to space. For only $200,000 you can book your flight now. Assuming that none of you will be booking your flight, you can at least enjoy the photos as construction seems to be progressing nicely.


Google Document Link - Friday Snippets: 06/27/08

      

Can this be? Are educators starting to understand social networking a little?

In today's Saint Louis Post-Dispatch they report on a fairly standard summer professional development meeting conducted by the teacher's union in Missouri. But, here is what is different:


So, instead of just a total ban on Myspace and Facebook pages for teachers which has been the standard position for years, the position may be shifting toward helping teachers responsibly use Myspace and Facebook instead. I think that is a healthy development.  

      

Little bit of an odd post today, but I thought I would share a link to my latest report. The Indiana Department of Education asked a few of us at IU to examine the retirement benefits of school administrators and whether Indiana's benefit package could be affecting superintendent mobility out of the state. So, we looked at the retirement systems in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky (the neighboring states) & Florida and used those to run some simulations on hypothetical administrators to see how the different state retirement packages would affect their pensions and whether there would be a benefit to moving. We also surveyed principals and superintendents to try to understand how important retirement benefits are in their career decision-making.

Anyway, I don't want to try to sum up the complex findings in a paragraph here, so if you are interested, check out the executive summary of the full report (pdf).

      

Mark Walsh, who does an excellent job tracking these things, has 3 education cases being denied cert. by the Supreme Court. I was sort of hoping they would grant cert. in the corporal punishment case, but they didn't (and perhaps for the better, considering how conservative this court is, the last thing we need is a Supreme Court opinion validating physical punishments of kids by school authorities).

      

I really don't like this case. I have been following it for a while now and each time I think about it, it sort of annoys me more. Before, it was teacher v. school. Now, it is kids v. school & teacher. Here is Mr. Freshwater speaking for himself (pardon the ads). (Also, just some advice ... don't use the phrase half-truths, even if these things are all only 1/2 true, he should still be fired - if you have a lawyer standing next to you, best to let him do the talking).



Anyway, now the case of out Mt. Vernon, Ohio about the coach with various alleged church/state offenses is going to trial. This case makes headlines (such as Drudge & CNN today) because one of the alledged offenses is burning a cross into a kid's skin. But, the offenses go way deeper. If the skin burning allegations are true, than that is a criminal offense and the coach should probably be put in jail for a while. But, as an education lawyer, I am more concerned about the coach's blatant disregard for the First Amendment. He was treating his teams & classes like his own personal church group (if the allegations are true) and for that he should clearly be fired and the school should probably be liable as his religious propagandizing was clearly not a secret within the school. Even if all the other things are not true and this comes down to whether or not he can keep a bible on his desk ... I don't like his chances.

Anyway, we are going to have to hear more about this ridiculous case. Hopefully it will serve as a national warning to other schools who have coaches that like to instill their religion on their students. In happened in my public high school when I was a student, I witnessed other teachers doing it when I was a public high school teacher, and I see it a lot as a professor. These coaches like to talk so much about respect ... how about a little more respect for the First Amendment. 

h/t Religion Clause & Scott McLeod

      

Arizona's Attorney General appeals the earlier unconstitutional vouchers ruling there.

Virginia is reviewing the legality of their school fees. (These are always questionable under state constitutions).\

Quite a little fight shaping up in Florida this fall over the vouchers amendments.

But, Florida is a laboratory for conservative oriented school policies (vouchers, charters, testing). This is why I like federalism - we get to try these things out and see before they go national.

The University of Iowa begins recovering ... thankfully.

2/3 of schools in South Dakota are supporting the school funding lawsuit. (I like when schools take collective action like this).

We are all paying for Nevada's schools.

An agreement in NY to kick out teachers on the sex-offender registry. (Love those NY Post Headlines).

Rumblings that school choice might be back on the agenda in Arkansas.

Here is an idea that is gaining steam  ... 4 day work week (+ 4 day school week). I not sure it will go anywhere, but hearing a lot about it lately.

"School anti-bulling emphasis overlooks gays" - in Alabama.

Around the Ed. Law Blogosphere:

Mark Walsh has 2 Supreme Court employment based cases coming down that tangentially affect education. Mark also has a possible corporal punishment case getting Cert. from the Supremes. I sort of hope that happens. I think it is time to be done with corporal punishment. Also, Highly Qualified Teacher Definition Upheld.

Mitchell Rubinstein has more on the Supreme Court labor decisions.

Mitchell also has a link to an interesting text-message privacy case out of the 9th Circuit that I am going to have to read more about.

Michele McNeil has Ed. in 08 gaining momentum with some new members. Roy Romer on the new additions. I am sort of fascinated watching Ed. in 08 picking up steam and I think it is due in no small part to their active courting of the blogosphere.

Obama sort of attacks McCain on education. Not enough to actually inspire an education back and forth, however.

Board Buzz has an overview of the potential legal costs of parent chaperones.

School and Education Law Blog has a guestblogger, Heather Johnson, who writes why corporal punishment is a bad idea.

Charles Fox has a shockingly scary story on school's use of calling child and protective services. Wow. Just wow.

Pete Wright has information on homebound services.

And, Jen Weissman has Hillary Clinton's education take. 

And for your Friday Fun: I am already missing my undergrads ... so ... I thought I would post what has become the most popular of their You Tube projects. This video has been viewed 500 times.


Google Document Link: Friday Snippets: 6/20/08 - Summer Slowdown Begins

      

During the rest of the summer I am working on building a new Edjurist website. I will still be posting here, but sometime in late July I will move over to a new, far more powerful platform. The new platform allows me to take the Edjurist beyond blogging and offer a range of different resources related to education law. I will still have the same web address, but you might have to update your RSS feeds. 

I am also going to be collaborating with a giant of the edublogosphere in a new project to bring some topical educational leadership professor blogs under one banner. I won't announce who it is yet, but your hint is that the organization's book club this summer drew over 100 people!

Here are some of my ideas I am working on for the New Edjurist:

• Blog: Same old same old there. The blog won't change much at all.
  
• Ed. Law Blog Search Page: See here. 
• Complete Ed. Law Blogroll: Want to get everyone their Technorati ratings. I will probably make a widget that others can embed on their blogs (I will give instructions) so that we can grow our little community here. 
  
• Forum: An educational law forum can be used by anyone as long as their topic relates to educational law. Anyone can post discussions or questions there and get responses from others. This is a give a little get a lot collaboration where folks can begin to pool their knowledge.
  
• Case Database: A lot of the cases in educational law get referred to a lot, but are not collected in one place. Cases will be collected here (at least the outside links will be collected) so that anyone with an interest in a particular topic within educational law can click that topic and get the most important and referred to cases in that area. It won't be a complete list (that would be an enormous task) but it should have most of the big cases. 
• Links to State Education Law Statutes: Education is largely governed by these statutes so it makes sense to link to them online. I will try to do it in a map interface.
  
• Ed Law Instructional Database: A lot of the materials I use in class will be posted here for open access. Links to relevant videos, articles, blog posts, etc. by topic will be provided and I will provide my syllabi. It is a place for teachers of Ed. Law to collaborate. 
• Organization Links: Links to other organizations interested in educational law. Possibly with a yearly confernence overview for finding the ed. law conferences near you (there are dozens of ed. law conferences around the U.S. each year). 
  
• Job Board: Not sure how much this will get used, but I am fine posting links to advertisements for ed. law jobs.
  

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on those aspects, but also I want to hear what you always wanted online related to educational law and never had. I am not a fantastic webbuilder, but I will do what I can. It will probably take me at least a year to build it completely, so any requests on which items I should work on first? I am even willing to take color palatte suggestions. Some (including my wife) don't find the current Edjurist site very attractive. 

Also, let me just throw this out there and see what you think. I am thinking about including advertising on the site that I would pool in a non-profit and use to build an educational law scholarship fund. I would hold a national competition to pick the winner and then provide whatever yearly income the advertising generated to that student. The first year it probably wouldn't be much, but I think it would grow as the site grows. What do you think of that? I am not a fan of advertising on my site, but I do think it might be worthwhile if we can inspire a few more people to study in the Ed. Law field.

Anyway, I am building, so now is the time to let me know your suggestions! You can e-mail me or leave a comment.

      

It annoys me when the mainstream media runs scary teacher stories. There are millions of teachers, but the press have an amazing ability to spot the few bad apples among them and use that as evidence that the entire system is corrupt.

So, I enjoyed this story dripping with satire from the Colbert Report last night.  



Here is the real story.

      

Did some searching today for educational law blogs and wanted to pass along my findings.

Our little community of educational law bloggers is growing. By my count, there are at least 15 specific educational law blogs that are active, give or take a couple. Add to that about 5-10 blogs that tangentially blog on educational law issues. And, for the first time today, I am introducing two ed. admin. school law class specific blogs (see below). So, we are moving forward, folks. We all benefit when more educational law blogs and readers come online, so encourage your educational law friends to start their own and be sure to read what others are writing in the community and comment and recommend good posts to your friends.

Anyway, since we are beginning to have a critical mass here, I created a search box for educational law blogs only. When you search using this tool, it will only return results from educational law blogs. It is a great tool to find relatively trustworthy information on educational law for free. It would be especially helpful in educational law classes whether they are in law schools or schools of education. I plan to use it in my school law class, for instance. And don't forget, I built all these educational law blogs into my public aggregator which you can use.

Permanent Search Link: (would be great to link to on your blog)

Search Widget: (If you would like to embed this search box on your site, just leave a comment and I will give you the code).


So, the new ones:

First, a couple new education law related blogs to add to your aggregators.

1.     Wrightslaw is blogging. Wrightslaw, the famous special education parental advocacy site, has now added blogging to their online empire. Folks interested in special education law, on either side of the due process hearing table, would do well to add them to their aggregators.

2.     Second, an older blog that is worthy of picking up as it deals with school law issues on occasion is the Public Sector Law Blog. It is written by Patrick Fanelli, a lawyer in practice in Pennsylvania. While he privledges Penn. school law issues over national issues, it still has a fair amount of national school law related posts.

3.     I have linked to this one before, but Jen Weissman is doing a great job so far at her education law blog.


Second: 2 blogs that have been used in educational law classes. This is a great way of using a technology tool to aide learning.

1.     Public School Law 509 - Dr. Charles Luke, Tarleton State University.

2.     UNCC School Law 8120- The school law professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

      

Interesting case this week out of Florida on pre-release waivers for activities. The case is not related to schools directly, but may have school implications. I get asked a pre-release waivers a lot. My standard advice ... do them, but don't rely on them.

Interesting school newspaper case in CA. Students published a front page photo of a student burning a flag ... principal shuts down paper.

New Orleans voucher bill continues moving forward, this time through the state Senate. Also, Louisiana's anti-evolution bill also progresses. But, no concealed weapon law on college campuses. Louisiana's been quite entertaining this year.

Muslim student who wasn't happy about graduation being held in a church settles.

Hartford's desegregation lawsuit settles up.

So much for California's Year of Education.

Around the Blogosphere:

The big news this weeks was the Supreme Court granting cert. to a Title IX, Section 1983 school sexual discrimination case. Mark Walsh has details. Title IX blog has a bit of commentary. I will try to do a write up on the case in the next week or two.

Jen Weissman has advice on school records and teacher dress codes.

Look for Jim at Maine's Education Law Conference - and be sure to tell him you met him in the blogosphere. I won't be at that one Jim, one of these days though, we will be at the same one.

Mitchell Rubinstein has the City of NY dragging its feet ... and paying the price, in a case against a teacher.

And lots of noise (but no action) on NCLB this week. Sec. Spellings trying her best to spin it positively (a nice little retrospective worth reading). An NCLB Recess until Reauthorization? McCain's Position (official position - no education plan till fall). And sensing opportunity, Democrats are dividing on priorities. A statement on education. A BOLDER statement on education. (and Jon Becker has a lock on the education policy statement futures market).

For your Friday Fun:

Fan of the TV show Deadliest Catch on Discovery? Well, now you can play the Deadliest Catch game, which, amazingly, is pretty cool. You are the captain of the boat and choose where and how to fish to make as much money as possible. Great way to waste a few hours on a Friday.


Google Document Link: Friday Snippets: 06/13/08 - Title IX

      

I have been trying to be patient with this growing single-sex classroom idea. I have tried to withhold judgment and see the issue from all sides. I see the articles week after week from around the country touting how it is such a good idea. But, I just can't get on board with it. Now that it has taken hold in a major American city, Boston, I think it is time to start pushing back against this idea.

Now I am as much about improving student achievement as the next person and I realize the demands being placed on school leaders to have their students perform. The awkward glancing between a bespectacled  boy and a flirtatious girl wastes time that could otherwise be devoted to imaginary numbers. Girls, not wanting to act smart in front of their "less smart" male counterparts, may not participate as much in class. So, I get it. I see the benefits. But, I don't buy it. Not for a second.

State sponsored segregation, de jure segregation, by gender, a protected class.

What about that sounds good? What about that sounds legal? Seems like we had a little case about schools engaging in de jure segregation round about 50 years ago. Now, I get the opt out provisions ... but don't kid yourself, this is state sponsored segregation at its core. This is saying that this group performs differently than that group, and that they are not equal and they need to be separated. Forget the separate but equal business all the people are touting in association with this plan, separate can never be equal. You can randomize everything (teacher assignments, classrooms used) but it ain't gonna be equal. And equal is not a matter of better or worse, it is a matter of equal. Don't think about it in terms of the girl's class will be better or the boys class will be better, both classes could be no better or no worse than the other, but even if these were somehow miraculously evenly good, they would still not be equal.

Here is the Supreme Court's unanimous language:


About as clear as prescription against state sponsored segregation as you are going to get. To me this segregation by gender is clearly illegal. It is almost spitting in the face of Brown v. Board. But, on top of that, I just plain think this is a horrible idea as an educator. We all know that school is more than about test scores. Well, those awkward glances between boys and girls is partly what school is about. I realize that girls might not be raising their hand as much and I want female students to learn as much as the boys and to grow up and to be corporate CEOs and scientists and everything else. But, you just flat can't separate kids like this. It is inherently unequal.     



Update: I knew there were some lawsuits in the works against this, but didn't take the time to research them. Luckily, Western New England Law Professor Erin Buzuvis at Title IX Blog is keeping tabs.


Update 2: Jen Weissman offers up a bit of opinion on the issue as well and points out that the Washington Post ran a story on the issue a couple days after this post.

      

What can educational leadership learn from the 2008 election?

That is the question I plan to base a upcoming paper on. I am going to wait until after the general to publish it (not even sure where yet) but I think there are a lot of valuable lessons that educational leadership can draw from this election and articulating those is worth something. Given the popularity of the 2008 election, I think it is a good way to get educational leaders and others to reflect on their own practice.

So, here is a working list. I didn't include everything I am thinking about, just sort of a top 5 on my list. I really would love feedback on this list, or other ideas that you may have. You don't have to post them here, but if you write them at your own blogs, be sure to put a link in the comments so I can find them and consider them and link back.

So, in no particular order:

1. 24/7 media. Gaffes, gaffes, gaffes and more gaffes. You can't even fix your hair (somewhat repeatedly). There is even one today. There are even analysis over the importance of gaffes. Anyway, educational leaders should get a sense that cameras and recording devices ... are becoming ubiquitous. Scott McLeod's and my posts on hidden cameras in schools is more evidence of this. But, this is not just going to be limited to hidden cel phone cameras in classrooms. Given the ease of recording equipment, places where educational leaders might have felt safe to speak freely in the past, such as board meetings, will increasingly be subject to cameras. Say the wrong thing and you are not just likely to see a story on it in the morning paper, but you are also going to find video of yourself saying it over, and over, and over again.
   
2. Data. This is the first election in my memory that has relied so heavily on data. Not just polling and exit polling, but demographic data,  multiple regression analysis, delegate allocations, superdelegate counts, and much more. And this election has made stars out of the people that can deal with the numbers and use the numbers to make accurate projections. Chuck Todd went from being a back office political director for NBC to one of the most authoritative voices on the election. Nate Silver, a baseball statistics analyst, used his data skills to out-project the pollsters and in the meantime made his blog FiveThirtyEight the data resource for the 2008 election. He is such a great story that Newsweek ran a story on him. As I wrote earlier, data (and the people that can make sense of it) are becoming an important resource in all areas of life, but especially when people are a little confused. Where there are not traditional ideas that carry the day or in tumultuous times people are now increasingly putting their trust in the analysis of data analysts to clarify the picture. While all the speculators were speculating on the democratic primary ... people who knew the numbers knew it was over in February.
   
3. Inevitability. Yeah, ask Hillary Clinton about her thoughts on inevitability. It is just not as good a position to take anymore. Educational leaders who hold a idea they think is inevitable that everyone will eventually get on board with are taking an increasingly risky position. In this age, people want to be convinced. They want to see the argument. They don't want to just be told what to do because it is inevitable, they want to feel like they are involved in changing things.
   
4. Change is in. In the beginning, some candidates were actually trying to run on experience. Now, they are all running on change, even the 71 year old guy. Even the guy that explicitly ran on "experience AND change" couldn't get any traction. The country is in the mood to try something new, whether or not that something has been previously tested in practice. I think this mood applies to both politics and education. Educational leaders that have new ideas, even "inexperienced" educational leaders, should be encouraged to give those ideas a shot while the country and perhaps their district is in the mood for new things. 
   
5. The Power of the Net. Barack Obama would not be the Democratic nominee without harnessing the inherent power of the net, period. The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder even called the Net, HisSpace. In this excellent read, that Atlantic documents how Obama turned Silicon Valley loose on Washington politics and the result was more campaign contributions than anyone in history ... by a long, long shot. He has almost a million Facebook Friends. His internet videos have been viewed tens of millions of times. The will.i.am, Yes We Can music video itself has been viewed over 8 million times. You can't even make a political ad with stock footage without the Net getting involved. And, just in the last couple of days we learn there is an Obama Internet war room to fight slurs. I could go on and on about how the Net has changed American politics. If the Net is having this kind of impact on politics ... shouldn't it be having that kind of effect on education? The Net is changing the way the world operates and schools are slow to catch up.
   

Anyway, those are 5 things I think educational leadership can learn. I am sure you have more ideas and/or comments about these and I would love to know them.