Educational policy controversies in the United States invariably implicate legal issues. Policy debates about testing and school choice, for example, cannot be disentangled from legal rights and mandates. The same is true for issues such as funding, campus safety, speech and religion rights, as well as the teaching of immigrant students. Written for a general audience, this new twelve-chapter book explores these compelling educational policy issues through that legal lens, building an understanding of both law and policy. The book's editors are Kevin Welner, associate professor of educational policy at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Wendy Chi, a doctoral candidate at Boulder. Both Welner and Chi are lawyers as well as educational scholars.

Educational policy controversies in the United States invariably implicate legal issues. Policy debates about testing and school choice, for example, cannot be disentangled from legal rights and mandates. The same is true for issues such as funding, campus safety, speech and religion rights, as well as the teaching of immigrant students. Written for a general audience, this new twelve-chapter book explores these compelling educational policy issues through that legal lens, building an understanding of both law and policy. The book's editors are Kevin Welner, associate professor of educational policy at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Wendy Chi, a doctoral candidate at Boulder. Both Welner and Chi are lawyers as well as educational scholars.

Education Policy and the Law: Cases and Commentary provides a comprehensive case and problem-based approach to studying the cases, statutes, and developments that shape education law and policy. The Second Edition brings up-to-date the major themes of education law - the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution with a particular focus on the Equal Protection and Due Process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment. It highlights reforms in education law that forcefully shape education policy today - school choice, homeschooling, special needs education, educational malpractice, school safety law, school police, and restorative justice school discipline reform. The Second Edition has three distinguishing characteristics: Cases and Statutes. The book is organized to provide an overview of the major cases from both federal courts and state courts as well as instructive federal and state legislation. Commentary and Narratives. The Second Edition contains a compelling compendium of notes, comments, and stories about how the legal system and policymakers are responding to legal duties and policy constraints. Hypothetical Policy Problems. Drawing on the success of the problem-based sections used in the First Edition textbook, the Second Edition contains problems designed to help learners apply legal principles to policy fact patterns.

Softbound - New, softbound print book.

How the United States can provide equal educational opportunity to every child The United States Supreme Court closed the courthouse door to federal litigation to narrow educational funding and opportunity gaps in schools when it ruled in San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez in 1973 that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to education. Rodriguez pushed reformers back to the state courts where they have had some success in securing reforms to school funding systems through education and equal protection clauses in state constitutions, but far less success in changing the basic structure of school funding in ways that would ensure access to equitable and adequate funding for schools. Given the limitations of state school funding litigation, education reformers continue to seek new avenues to remedy inequitable disparities in educational opportunity and achievement, including recently returning to federal court. This book is the first comprehensive examination of three issues regarding a federal right to education: why federal intervention is needed to close educational opportunity and achievement gaps; the constitutional and statutory legal avenues that could be employed to guarantee a federal right to education; and, the scope of what a federal right to education should guarantee. A Federal Right to Education provides a timely and thoughtful analysis of how the United States could fulfill its unmet promise to provide equal educational opportunity and the American Dream to every child, regardless of race, class, language proficiency, or neighborhood.

It also discusses the implications of the law for educational policy and practice."--Jacket.

This one-volume treatise summarizes and explains a myriad of legal trends and principles in the rich and varied field of American education law. The second edition of Practical Education Law for the Twenty-First Century is divided into ten chapters, each dealing with a substantive area in education law. Topics covered include school finances, school search and crime issues, residency and fee issues, basic labor law, alternative education and vouchers, injuries to students, athletics, and the overall organization and regulation of public education. Within each chapter are a number of concise sections that address specific legal concerns. Citations are nationwide in scope and include references to updated federal and state case law, federal statutory law, and state statutory law. Practical law tips appear throughout the volume. This highly readable text is extremely accessible to nonlegal audiences, as well as useful to the legally trained reader and to the law student. "This book is a must for all educational lawyers, counsel to towns, school boards, and school administrators. The treatise is accessible and suitable for law school and non-law school classes. Acquisition law librarians for all law schools need to order this book. Professor Dodd's emphasis on real-life situations makes it an excellent desk book for school boards, superintendents of schools, and educational policymakers, as well as the lawyers that represent them. This book will be useful as supplemental reading in graduate school of education courses in school administration. The book receives the Bimonthly Review of Law Books five-star rating for readability, accessibility, and relevance." -- Michael Rustad, Bimonthly Review of Law Books, on the first edition "This book...provides an excellent overview of education law in the U.S... Both students and practitioners will find this book very helpful. This work would make an excellent textbook for undergraduate and graduate education classes as well as law school classes covering education law." -- Legal Information ALERT, on the first edition "Thoroughly researched, well organized, and easy to read, the book concisely outlines each area of law, and cites to numerous cases, laws, and other supporting materials, all in the footnotes and through a table of cases, so as not to interrupt the easy flow of the text. This book is a must for practitioners and legal scholars in the field of education or education law." -- Suffolk University Juvenile Justice Center Newsletter, November 2003, on the first edition

Co-published by Routledge for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Educational policy continues to be of major concern. Policy debates about economic growth and national competitiveness, for example, commonly focus on the importance of human capital and a highly educated workforce. Defining the theoretical boundaries and methodological approaches of education policy research are the two primary themes of this comprehensive, AERA-sponsored Handbook. Organized into seven sections, the Handbook focuses on (1) disciplinary foundations of educational policy, (2) methodological perspectives, (3) the policy process, (4) resources, management, and organization, (5) teaching and learning policy, (6) actors and institutions, and (7) education access and differentiation. Drawing from multiple disciplines, the Handbook’s over one hundred authors address three central questions: What policy issues and questions have oriented current policy research? What research strategies and methods have proven most fruitful? And what issues, questions, and methods will drive future policy research? Topics such as early childhood education, school choice, access to higher education, teacher accountability, and testing and measurement cut across the 63 chapters in the volume. The politics surrounding these and other issues are objectively analyzed by authors and commentators. Each of the seven sections concludes with two commentaries by leading scholars in the field. The first considers the current state of policy design, and the second addresses the current state of policy research. This book is appropriate for scholars and graduate students working in the field of education policy and for the growing number of academic, government, and think-tank researchers engaged in policy research. For more information on the American Educational Research Association, please visit: http://www.aera.net/.