America’s education system has become increasingly more complicated in recent years, as U.S. students continue to lag behind many other industrialized nations in academic achievement. In new data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) on international math and science assessments, U.S. students ranked an unimpressive 38th out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science. While the U.S. is one of the most advanced nations on the planet, public education remains a dismal system in the states. Many seeking to improve the status of education advocate for school choice, touting voucher programs and charter schools as the ideal method to fix America’s broken school system. The guaranteed effectiveness of these methods, however, is questionable given extensive research–begging the question: is school choice the right choice?

What is School Choice?

School choice allows for parents to pick any traditional public school or charter school in a particular school district. The movement for school choice is attributed to Milton Friedman’s 1955 essay, “The Role of Government in Education,” in which he proposed giving families redeemable vouchers for educational services. Following the essay’s release, the concept of freedom of choice in education gained popularity.

Arguably, school choice is a favorite among large corporations and more wealthy conservatives, although some Democrats, including President Barack Obama, support the idea (Obama called for expanding charter schools when first addressing Congress in 2009). The education style is backed mostly by right-wing organizations and business such as the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and the Koch brothers, some of the world’s richest and best known political donors. Even with the support of some moderate conservatives and liberals, the primary backers of school choice are extremely conservative activists seeking to radically transform public education in America. While school choice is touted as a social justice movement and a program committed to procuring effective education for all children, it does have some serious issues.

Research has found that school choice actually widens the achievement gap between white and black children. Moreover, it often advocates dismantling public education, rather than attempting to make it stronger. It has often become a mechanism of privatizing education and defunding public schools, starving the remaining public institutions of funds and quality teachers.

The concept of school choice may be fueling the transformation of public education into a business. The reason many corporations favor the school choice model is that it allows the wealthy to profit off of the education system. Teachers may also experience more punitive environments; as parents begin to choose schools because of performances on standardized tests, teachers will receive the full blame when students score poorly on a high-stakes test. Making a teacher the scapegoat for lackluster performance shifts blame to an individual, rather than tackling the systemic problems in education.

Charter Schools

Charter schools have become an increasingly popular choice around the country. These schools are publicly funded, but are governed by appointed boards and tend to be run by private companies. Currently, 43 states and the District of Columbia allow charter schools, with 22 states having some sort of cap that limits the number of charter schools.

Charter schools were first created in Minnesota and endorsed by Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Specifically, charter schools are public schools that are accountable via a contract or “charter” to public bodies; if they fail to meet the agreed-upon terms of the charter, they can be shut down quickly. Charters are also accountable for student performance on standardized tests. However, in a 2009 Stanford study, only 17 percent of charter schools were found to provide better education than public schools.

Charter schools may also have negative consequences for traditional public schools. A 2015 study from Michigan State University’s Education Policy Center determined that exceedingly high percentages of charter schools had a devastating impact on poorer school districts in Michigan, such as Detroit. Unlike other states, roughly 80 percent of Michigan’s charter schools are run by for-profit companies. Once charter schools reached 20 percent or more enrollment, it became far more difficult for the traditional schools to compete.

Vouchers

School vouchers are government certificates, backed by state dollars, that allow parents to choose which school to send their children to, including private or religious institutions. Vouchers have come under intense criticism for diverting public money away from public schools and have been accused of disproportionately assisting wealthy white families, while neglecting minorities in poorer communities–ultimately reducing diversity in classrooms and  fostering segregation. The National Education Association, the largest labor union in the U.S. representing public school teachers and other support personnel, is a strong, vocal opponent of school vouchers.

Those who support vouchers argue that the programs are actually more diverse. Many voucher programs are targeted to specific populations, such as low-income students or students with disabilities. Moreover, research conducted in Milwaukee and Washington, D.C. found that money was not necessarily drained from public schools because of school vouchers. Instead the program assisted in saving Wisconsin money and infused the city of D.C. with federal funds in exchange for passing a voucher program.

But major studies of voucher programs tell a different story. In late 2015, results from a study on the Indiana voucher program found that voucher students who transferred to private schools experienced significant losses in achievement and no real improvement in reading. In a study of Louisiana’s program, researchers found large negative results in both reading and math; elementary school students who started in the 50th percentile in math and then used a voucher to transfer to a private school plummeted to the 26th percentile in just one year. Finally, a third voucher study in Ohio uncovered that students who used vouchers to attend private schools actually performed worse academically compared to closely matched peers attending public school.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and School Choice

The appointment of Besty DeVos, a conservative philanthropic billionaire, as the Secretary of Education, will likely ramp up lobbying for school choice programs. As the new Department of Education head, she is committed to making vouchers and other school choice policies the heart of education reform. DeVos, someone with no real public school experience, has even stated that historically black colleges and universities were “pioneers” of school choice. While that is certainly not the case, her statement illuminates her naivety and the new administration’s willingness to push school choice programs.

“Betsy DeVos” Courtesy of Gage Skidmore : License (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Over the years, DeVos has been ardent supporter of vouchers for private religious schools. DeVos was raised in the Christian Reformed Church, a conservative Dutch Calvinist denomination. In a 2001 interview for The Gathering, a group focused on advancing the Christian faith via philanthropy, DeVos stated that there were “not enough philanthropic dollars in America to fund what is currently the need in education…Our desire is to confront the culture in ways that will continue to advance God’s kingdom.”

Critics note that DeVos is attempting to change the definition of school choice to allow taxpayer money to follow students to any private school through vouchers. This implementation of “universal school choice” would allow funds to funnel into religious private schools. Trump’s education proposal calls for allotting $20 billion in federal money to help parents choose schools that are not “failing,” and instead send students to charter, private, or religious schools.

Conclusion

Many educators oppose the idea of school choice and privatizing education, noting that diversity is a critical aspect of well-rounded learning. Private schools may encourage too much student withdrawal, sheltering students from the rigors of real-world experiences with such specialized educational amenities and services. The research surrounding the efficacy of charter schools and voucher programs appears to tell a more complex story. More school choice does not necessarily lead to better results. Moreover, the U.S. should tread carefully when attempting to privatize the public education system. The American public school system’s ultimate goal should be ensuring that students are equipped with the knowledge necessary to become responsible, informed, and contributing citizens.

Nicole Zub

Nicole is a third-year law student at the University of Kentucky College of Law. She graduated in 2011 from Northeastern University with Bachelor’s in Environmental Science. When she isn’t imbibing copious amounts of caffeine, you can find her with her nose in a book or experimenting in the kitchen. Contact Nicole at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post School Choice: Is It the Future of the American Public School System? appeared first on Law Street.

When most people think about rape and sexual violence they imagine a situation where a woman is attacked by a man she does not know. We usually do not think of college campuses, particularly dating on college campuses, as a place where rape is likely to occur. Yet college campuses are a dangerous place for both female and male students and the rate of rape and sexual violence is startling. During their college years, one in five women are sexually assaulted or raped. And it is not just female students who are victimized, as 17 percent of student victims are male.

Rapes on college campuses do not fit our mental model for how rape occurs, which makes it difficult to combat and makes victims reticent to report crimes. Among college women, nine out of 10 knew their rapist. Rape is particularly likely for freshmen and sophomores, especially cases of incapacitated rape, which happens to 15 percent of female freshmen.

Reporting Problems

Despite high rates of violence, only 20 percent of victims report the crime to the police. There are multiple reasons why victims may not choose to go to the police. Oftentimes the victim and the rapist are in the same social circle and victims fear social reprisal for reporting. They may also fear that their claims will not be taken seriously by the police or school officials and that they may be subject to disciplinary action or criminal prosecution themselves. Remember, many of these victims have been drinking underage and/or using drugs prior to their rape.

Victims may also have been conditioned to think that their rape was not a “real” rape. Their rapist is someone that they know, not a stranger grabbing them in a dark alley. Force may not have been used since often the victim was incapacitated at the time. Our culture also offers multiple excuses for rapists and puts blame on victims who were intoxicated or otherwise “irresponsible.” These feelings of guilt on the part of the victim are internalized and expressed by not reporting the crime because it isn’t worth dealing with.

In an effort to combat the problem of rape on campus, many colleges and universities have adopted affirmative consent practices. The use of affirmative consent to change cultural attitudes about rape and/or to change rules on how to prosecute sexual violence has caused a great deal of controversy and should be more thoroughly examined.

What Is Affirmative Consent?

For a full background on rape culture and affirmative consent, you can read this article. But the video below, featuring journalism icon Gwen Ifill, also provides an excellent overview of the concept of affirmative consent and some of the push-back on adopting it as a standard.

So let’s unpack some of the arguments surrounding affirmative consent. Jaclyn Friedman, the affirmative consent advocate, explains that the “no-means-no” standard (where consent is presumed unless it is expressly denied) doesn’t deal well with some kinds of sexual assault. In particular, it does not provide adequate protection from abuse for victims who may freeze up and feel too unsafe to deny consent. This is actually a common reaction, particularly for victims who are sexually inexperienced, incapacitated, or conditioned to not resist. When the burden is placed on all participants to make sure that everyone is consenting, it eliminates some of these dangers. It also would eliminate a situation where one party feels they were victimized and the other party honestly does not feel they did anything wrong because they thought silence was consent.

In a culture where silence indicates a lack of consent, not evidence of it, it becomes much more difficult for this to happen. This could be especially helpful for younger college students, or the sexually inexperienced, who are in fact more likely to be assaulted than their older student peers.

Shikha Dalmia takes a different view on the issue because of how affirmative consent changes the burden of proof and, in her view, the presumption of innocence. Her main objection is not that we may want to adopt this as a cultural model for how consent works but that we might use affirmative consent as a legal framework. As she states, consent is already required, under the “no-means-no” standard. But we presume that there was consent until the non-initiator indicates otherwise. This presumption is necessary, in Dalmia’s view, to maintain a presumption of innocence for those accused of rape.

We have to take that concern seriously because the presumption that everyone is innocent until proven guilty is a cornerstone of our judicial system. But changing the presumption of consent does not necessarily lead to a change in the burden of proof/presumption of innocence.

In a formal rape trial, the prosecution currently needs to show that the victim did not give consent, but that is not the same as saying we assume they are lying. In some instances where the defendant is asserting impotence or intoxication as a defense against rape they are already required to prove that element of the case, yet it does not change the underlying presumption of their innocence. Requiring one party to prove an element of the charge does not mean that we assume that party is being deceptive.

We are placing the burden of proof on the prosecution to prove a lack of consent. And they offer evidence for this such as the actions of the victim and defendant, including but not limited to what was said. But if consent was not presumed that wouldn’t change the fact that we are still asking the prosecution to prove its case. Prosecutors would still have to contend with any evidence the defense offers to show that there was in fact consent, and they would still be offering their own evidence to show that nothing the victim did amounted to consent. It would change the understanding of what all parties should have understood at the time of the incident–that they should have obtained consent–not be a commentary on what the defendant did or did not do.

A Practical Solution?

The second problem is how affirmative consent actually works in practice. Is it really something that will “work” on campuses, or in the general population, given our cultural scripts for how men and women behave sexually?

There are impracticalities to the use of affirmative consent but not for the reasons that detractors might suggest. The impracticality is not in asking for consent during a sexual encounter. The main obstacle is changing the cultural norm so that not getting that consent is a problem.

But hasn’t that been the case in all movements for increased social justice? Sharing a water fountain between blacks and whites was never impractical on its face, in fact, it is even more practical to have one water fountain. Just as affirmative consent as a model has the potential to reduce confusion and assault. The impracticality is from an unwillingness to implement a new system that changes social norms, gender norms in this case, not with the new norms themselves. There may not be enough evidence of how effective affirmative consent is on college campuses to draw a conclusion about its implementation. But there is some anecdotal evidence, suggested here, that even skeptics can incorporate affirmative consent into their sexual behavior.

The video below highlights both the concern about the practicality of the system and the appropriateness of how affirmative consent policies have been added to most college campuses. Many of these institutions adopted an affirmative consent model because the Obama administration, as part of the “It’s On Us” program, made continued federal funding contingent upon colleges dealing meaningfully with sexual assault. In the video, the panel discusses the issue in the state of California.

Some of these objections are based on a misunderstanding, sometimes a deliberately created misunderstanding, of affirmative consent. It certainly does not require written consent, and in fact, does not require even verbal consent. Obviously, a written document would be your strongest piece of evidence in a case trying to show you had obtained consent. But that doesn’t mean that it is the only way to do so, and this line of reasoning conflates the idea of how affirmative consent would work in practice in most sexual encounters with how affirmative consent might affect a legal proceeding.

What Affirmative Consent Would Change

Either at the school or the state level, a legal proceeding is only changed by explicit amendments to the burden of proof or the presumption of innocence. Affirmative consent does not do that. Our current prosecutorial system functions perfectly well, even when consent is at issue, without a document signed by the victim saying they didn’t consent. There is no reason to think that a written contract would be required simply by asking an initiator to make sure their sexual activity was welcome.

In fact, if you look at one example definition of affirmative consent used by a university, specifically the State University of New York, it explicitly includes actions as one method to show consent. The key is that the words or actions create a “clear permission” regarding willingness.

But there is still discomfort with the idea that the federal government can influence policy at colleges around the country by threatening to withhold funding. Some people think it is inappropriate to try to strong arm a college in this way.

And yet the government already engages in this behavior all the time, in other contexts, to promote fair treatment. One example is the area of special education. While I was at William and Mary I worked in our clinic for children with special needs, ensuring that they received FAPE–a free and appropriate public education. In exchange for federal funding, the state of Virginia agreed to follow certain guidelines for how they were required to handle children with special needs. Before the implementation of the law that allowed this, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, children with special needs were often shoved into a corner and ignored.

Most people would not object to this requirement because they realize that sometimes you need practical reasons to encourage socially just behavior. As much as we would like to think otherwise, people do not always behave morally on their own, state governments and colleges included. The federal government has consistently used the power of the purse to encourage behavior to support marginalized groups. The fact that they are doing so now, to protect students from sexual assault, should not matter. A prudish or squeamish reaction to the involvement of the government in sexual matters focuses on the sex and not on the violence. Rape that occurs when someone is incapacitated, knows the attacker, was drinking, etc. is just as much an act of violence as a stranger jumping a victim on the street. And there is no more quintessentially appropriate role for government than the prevention of violence against its citizens.

Conclusion

We need to deal with rape as it actually happens in reality, rather than dealing with rape as it is portrayed in our culture. A rapist is not always, or even usually, a stranger. It does not always happen with physical violence; often sexual assault happens in a wider social context. And because sexual assault is inextricably linked with sexual conduct in general, we have to address our sexual culture if we want to address sexual assault.

Affirmative consent may not be a panacea for the issue of sexual assault, even just on college campuses. The use of alcohol and drugs, the tight-knit social communities where these assaults occur, and the relative sexual immaturity of the age group all make sexual assault more complicated on a college campus. But the discussion of whether we want to adopt this model, either in a social or in a judicial context, has opened the door for people to grapple with what consent really means. That discussion is a valuable one for us to be having.

Mary Kate Leahy

Mary Kate Leahy (@marykate_leahy) has a J.D. from William and Mary and a Bachelor’s in Political Science from Manhattanville College. She is also a proud graduate of Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart. She enjoys spending her time with her kuvasz, Finn, and tackling a never-ending list of projects. Contact Mary Kate at staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post College Campuses and the Role of Affirmative Consent appeared first on Law Street.

In the last few decades, highly publicized school shootings at places like Columbine and Sandy Hook, as well as a trend of violence on college campuses across the nation, have led to the proliferation of school surveillance techniques. Since these cases of violence have targeted specific schools, one would imagine that the strictest surveillance techniques would exist in schools with a history of violence.

That is not actually the case according to new research from Jason P. Nance, an associate professor of law at the University of Florida. He discovered that while there has been a stark increase in school surveillance in recent years, the practice was not applied equally across all schools. In fact, schools with a preponderance of students of color were more likely to have harsh surveillance practices, including metal detectors, locked gates, school police, and random sweeps.

 Current Trends in School Surveillance

The 1990s saw a rise in concerns about drug and gang-related violence, leading to an increase in integrating police–or “school resource officers”–and other surveillance technology into schools. These fears were later exacerbated by the high-profile shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, where two seniors murdered 12 students and one teacher before both committing suicide–billed then as “the deadliest high school shooting in US history.” Over the years, schools have compensated with an increase in strict punitive measures and “zero tolerance” policies, which require schools to hand out specific, harsh punishments like suspension or expulsion when students break particular rules. Additionally, surveillance systems designed to track and monitor students’ movements and specific behaviors are being implemented and utilized more than ever before.

In the first analysis of its type ever conducted, Jason P. Nance, of the University of Florida Levin College of Law, found a clear and consistent pattern in how surveillance techniques were applied to schools nationally. Nance gained authorization access to a restricted database from the U.S. Department of Education–the School Survey on Crime and Safety conducted from 2009-10 and 2013-14–and was able to examine surveillance techniques pre- and post- the Sandy Hook school shooting. Even after controlling for a variety of factors such as school crime, neighborhood crime, school disciplinary and behavioral problems, and other student demographics, Nance’s research found that the concentration of students of color was a predictor in whether or not the schools had more intense security techniques.

Additionally, Nance investigated the major, student-caused instances of violence in the last 25 years using informations from a CNN archive and federal data on demographics of the particularly relevant schools. The overwhelming majority, roughly 62 percent, of incidence of major violence in schools occurred in ones that serve mostly white students. Such findings demonstrate a much greater problem in racial inequalities in the public educational system. Nance noted that systemic racial disparities exist in special-education placements, gifted-and-talented programs, and teacher expectations of academic success, with African Americans experiencing the highest educational inequalities.

Criminalizing Student Behavior

The act of arresting schoolchildren and treating them as if they are violent criminals has become a disturbing trend in schools across the country. With the constant surveillance tactics employed, whether it be drug sniffing dogs, police officers, random searches, or high-resolution security cameras, schools are arguably a burgeoning police state, one that is being controlled and directed. Police patrol many school hallways across the nation, making even normal childhood behavior seem criminal. In 2010, police gave close to 300,000 Class C misdemeanor tickets to students in Texas. There were also reports of a student with an IQ below 70 being pepper sprayed because he did not understand police instructions. Moreover, an incident in Columbia, South Carolina went viral in the fall of 2015 when a student refused to hand over her cellphone, resulting in the school deputy wrestling her out of her chair and hurling her across the classroom floor. The student who filmed and posted the events was eventually arrested. All of these examples illustrate a disturbing trend.

Such arrests are not uncommon in the state of North Carolina, where roughly 1,200 students are charged each year with “disturbing school.” The state law, which makes it a crime to “disturb in any way or in any place the students or teachers of any school” or “to act in an obnoxious manner,” carries a jail sentence of up to 90 days or a $1,000 fine. The charge has been used against students as young as age seven. Currently, at least 22 states and many cities have such a law, though the degree of stringency varies greatly from state to state. Moreover, in South Carolina black students are four times more likely to be charged with disturbing school than their white peers. Defiance is an integral part of adolescence, but placing students in jail for swearing or refusing to comply with an adult’s request turns normal child behavior into delinquent behavior.

Many advocates contend that such disturbing school laws were implemented once black students were allowed to integrate into white classrooms, as a way of maintaining informal segregation under the guise of “law and order.” Once students are arrested, their ability to achieve at the same level is greatly diminished. According to a 2006 study by criminologist Gary Sweeten, students who have been arrested are nearly twice as likely to drop out of school even if they never go to court–regardless of GPA or prior offenses–and students who actually go to court are four times more likely to drop out. Considering the profound consequences such an event can have on a child’s future, it seems a law and order focus may be doing more damage than good.

Monitoring and Tracking Students

Another extreme method schools are utilizing to monitor students is Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). RFID, which is often used to identify and monitor livestock and other animals, uses tags and readers to monitor when students check out library books, register for classes, or even pay for school lunches. States such as Missouri, California, and Texas have utilized the technology through experimental pilot programs in some manner or another, such as door access on school buses or embedding the chips in student clothing. While its use was eventually squashed by parents and the American Civil Liberties Union in state of Texas, technology similar to RFID is still alive and well in other states. Other experimental programs have even utilized cameras to track and monitor students’ eating habits in an effort to mitigate childhood obesity. Some schools have even used wristwatches that monitor students’ heart rate, physical movement, and sleeping habits.

Big Brother entering the classroom brings up valid concerns; are we simply conditioning students to believe that tracking them is completely normal, acceptable, and even mandatory? In a world of consumerism and behaviorism, students, workers, shoppers, and voters are all seen in the same manner: passive, conditionable objects. Such practices may infringe heavily on due process rights, treating citizens as compliant subjects in a surveillance state.

Courtesy of [Daniel R. Blum via Flickr]

When School Becomes Jail

Schools have been struggling to find the ideal balance when creating a safe, supportive, and secure learning environment in recent years. Chicago Public Schools, for example, approved high-definition surveillance camera installation in 14 schools in 2011 for a $7 million price tag, despite being significantly cash-strapped at the time. After a pilot test at a high school, Chicago Public Schools stated that misconduct dropped 59 percent, arrests dropped by 69 percent, and drop-out rates decreased. The approval ended up coming in $200,000 under budget, but it certainly illustrates the trends Nance is studying.

Strict surveillance practices are firmly in place in the Los Angeles public school system, where random screenings using metal detector wands are employed in all secondary schools, grades 6-12. This program has been in place for more than two decades and also includes daily random locker searches, but it has recently come under fire from teachers, civil rights groups, and educational organizations. In schools with no history of violence, it seems to be counterintuitive to employ such stringent tactics in the name of safety. According to a review in 2011 of all available literature from the past 15 years regarding the use of metal detectors in schools, there is insufficient evidence to prove that the use of metal detectors had any positive influence on student behavior and school environments. In New York City, some public schools with metal detectors cannot even get students through the screening process in time for the start of school.

Despite claims of limited efficacy, metal detectors and surveillance techniques still have their champions. The Chief of Police for the Boston Public Schools Eric Weston noted in 2015 that metal detectors changed things by helping to keep firearms out of schools and reducing the number of weapons found on campus. While acknowledging the potential psychological toll constant use of metal detectors may create, Weston believes that overall the use of them makes students feel safer. Moreover, the public response after a highly publicized, violent school incident, is to increase security measures in schools to prevent such an atrocity from occurring again.

 Efficacy of Surveillance Techniques

While some may champion police presence in schools and the use of surveillance systems like metal detectors, such techniques are not without critics. The effects of such severe practices on student psyche is stark. When compared to a school with no metal detectors, students at a school with metal detectors feel and understand that the general public views them as criminals automatically. Evidence also shows that when students are in such harsh environments, academic performance and positive school climates do not necessarily increase. An over-reliance on security measures diminishes students’ feelings of trust and safety; when students are subjected to punitive tactics in school, the likelihood that students feel comfortable being there decreases significantly. Moreover, science has also demonstrated in recent years that a teenager’s brain, for example, is far more receptive to rewards than to punishment, and sections of the brain that control impulses and judgment are still a work-in-progress.

The result is a continued criminalization of certain types of students, namely students of color. For example, in Texas, when looking at clear-cut offenses like the use of a weapon, African American students were no more likely to get in trouble than other students; however, when it came to subjective “disturbing school” offenses, they were far more likely to be disciplined. After controlling for over 80 variables, race was a reliable predictor of which students were disciplined.

Even when there is little to no evidence to demonstrate that such practices actually create environments where students can thrive, cities, states, and the federal government continue to invest in such programs. Bringing in police officers and placing youth under constant surveillance with little to no privacy creates an institution that feels more like a prison than a welcoming educational environment. Advocates note that these practices are likely creating criminals, rather than productive, healthy citizens.

Conclusion

Educators are quick to note that combating violence in schools and deterring weapons starts from the root; students have to feel safe at school. Relying on surveillance tactics and punitive measures to enforce discipline creates an environment based on fear, not mutual respect. Investing in student relations should be as much as a priority as investing in high-definition security cameras. As Nance noted in his research, these stringent surveillance practices are sending students a very clear message: white students deserve more privacy and leeway than nonwhite students. It’s critical to ensure students are safe, but practices such as these may merely exacerbate the significant racial tensions plaguing the nation rather than helping to rectify violence in schools.

Resources

Primary

UF Levin College of  Law University of Florida: Student Surveillance , Racial Inequalities, and Implicit Racial Bias

Journal of School Health: Impacts of Metal Detector Use in Schools: Insights From 15 Years of Research

National Education Association: Alternatives to Zero Tolerance Policies

Additional

The Atlantic: When School Feels Like Prison

Huffington Post: Are America’s Schools Breeding Grounds for Compliant Citizens?

The Atlantic: How America Outlawed Adolescence

The Guardian: The US Schools With Their Own Police

The Journal: Missouri District Pilots RFID Door and School Bus Access

Wired: Tracking School Children With RFID Tags? It’s All About The Benjamins

Salon.com: Big Brother Invades Our Classrooms

Christian Science Monitor: A Backlash Against Los Angeles Schools as High-Security Fortresses

ABC 7: HD Security Cameras Installed at 14 CPS Schools

MASSLIVE: Metal Detectors in Schools: Boston’s Success Story

Nicole Zub

Nicole is a third-year law student at the University of Kentucky College of Law. She graduated in 2011 from Northeastern University with Bachelor’s in Environmental Science. When she isn’t imbibing copious amounts of caffeine, you can find her with her nose in a book or experimenting in the kitchen. Contact Nicole at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Big Brother Watching?: Current Trends in School Surveillance appeared first on Law Street.

Environmental studies classes are offered in most colleges in a variety of different forms, including the scientific, engineering, political, and economic dimensions of the environment. However, environmental studies are very rarely offered before college, in elementary, middle, or high schools. There’s a growing population that argues that this should not be the case.

Incorporating environmental education into our public school system would provide an important opportunity to educate our population on an issue that’s shrouded in confusing and debated science–at least in the United States where more Americans than ever believe in climate change but 91 percent still don’t view it as a threat. Beyond this, it would help students to understand the fundamental systems of the world around them, including where and how they get clean water, electricity, and food. Environmental education is also often presented as an opportunity to explore alternative teaching methods, including hands-on, experiential forms of learning.

Of course, even as support for this idea grows, there are just as many people who oppose it vehemently, and the issue is handled differently state to state and region to region. Read on to learn about the way environmental education is handled as well as its proven benefits and disadvantages.

Environmental Education: The Door to New Potential Career Paths

Those who oppose environmental education often do so on the grounds that its purpose is simply to indoctrinate a generation with the idea that climate change as a scientific fact. However, the environmental sector is also a multifaceted job market and early exposure to the field can open up new pathways to potential jobs for American students.

While there’s plenty of disagreement on whether climate change is real, most people would likely agree that it’s good that we have a clean and regular water supply. However, most people don’t even know how a watershed (the geographical space that feeds rainwater into an area’s water source) functions, let alone that there are jobs that they could seek to positively impact watershed management. Likewise, environmental jobs include seismologists who predict earthquakes, climatologists who study the weather, agricultural scientists who plan sustainable permacultures to ensure long-lasting food supplies, and urban planners who figure out how different areas can be built to ensure affordability, sustainability, and security against disaster.

“View Across the Garden Bed Area” courtesy of Billie Greenwood via Flickr

While many see environmental studies as a largely humanities-based discipline and to an extent that’s true–there are many careers within environmental policy, business, journalism, etc.–there are also plenty of opportunities for scientific education. Environmental science and engineering are huge fields that could be taught to American students in ways that would align with our increased desire for STEM studies and careers. These are not “hard” sciences such as chemistry, biology, and physics but rather applied sciences, which directly pertain to certain aspects of natural life. Education in these disciplines can lead students to jobs like those listed above, which have a clear and concrete benefit to our society as a whole. Regardless of your position on climate change, the environment around us is a functional system that requires maintenance and oversight from experts, and education in these fields will create a generation of people equipped and motivated to do these jobs.

Alternative Teaching Pathways

One of the central reasons so many people have decided to join the environmental education wave is that it allows for new and alternative teaching methods. Our current lecture-based, rote memorization system of public school education often leaves many students feeling bored or uninterested. Hands-on education has been explored as a way to lift this boredom while still imparting important information to American students. Because environmental education largely ties into the world surrounding us, lessons can be effectively taught in ways that allow students to directly work with nature. Environmental education provides a valuable opportunity to integrate a variety of academic disciplines into this hands-on style of education. This both allows students to process information in new and novel ways and connects their lessons to a real-world context.

How better to understand water quality than to actually go to a water source and do the testing? How better to gain an understanding of geological processes than to use the actual geographical area where you live as an experimental site? One of the most interesting avenues for environmental education is the use of school gardens, a movement that has been steadily growing in popularity. Most American youth (and to a larger extent American adults as well) only connect to their food via a grocery store and have little to no understanding of where and how that food is grown. School gardens bridge this psychological gap both by helping students understand the fundamental processes of agriculture while also providing a source of healthy and nutritious food within American schools, which have had difficulty providing effective diets to combat obesity. This kind of hands-on connection to agriculture and the presence of a local source of food are increasingly important when huge areas of earth known for producing food are experiencing severe water scarcity (in America, see: California).

While this may sound largely like hippie preaching, the numbers also agree with the advantages of experiential learning. Students who take part in hands-on learning often achieve higher overall test scores in other disciplines, including STEM classes, than those who learn through traditional lecture systems. This suggests that the addition of environmental education to a learning curriculum doesn’t take away from important time spent studying other subjects but enhances overall performance by exposing students to novel and exciting learning methods.

Educational Reform Policy

Increasingly, more people are starting to realize these benefits of environmental education and lawmakers have started to respond. This has led many states to begin implementing environmental education requirements into their educational policies. The initial push behind this came from the No Child Left Inside Act. Initially introduced in Congress in 2007, the effort passed in the House in 2008 but was not voted on in the Senate. The bill has been reintroduced in several sessions of Congress but has yet to become a law. The act sought to provide incentives for states to implement environmental education in elementary and secondary public school levels. States that participate would be eligible for grants to upgrade their curriculum, with the only requirements being a strong focus on environmental STEM studies and the use of outdoor field work. In this way, the act supports both the inclusion of environmental based learning and effectively opens the door for new experiential learning methods.

Although the No Child Left Inside Act failed to gain traction in Congress, the final version of the 2015 Every Child Succeeds Act contained some important aspects of the No Child Left Inside Act to encourage states to expand environmental education. The Every Child Succeeds Act was created to reform a Bush Administration law known as No Child Left Behind. It requires each state to make accountability plans for both short and long term goals to improve a series of different indicators of success, including test scores, English proficiency, and indicators the states pick for themselves. Special attention in the act is also given to low-performing schools, which are required to work together with state and district departments to increase test scores and graduation rates.

The Every Child Succeeds Act also amounts to a significant effort to expand states’ use of environmental education. It makes environmental education programs eligible to receive grants from a $1.6 billion fund for well-rounded education programs. It also makes environmental literacy programs eligible for grants from the $1 billion fund for Community Learning Centers. Finally, the law prioritizes outdoors and hands-on field work being incorporated into STEM education, which provides a unique opportunity for environmental education to flourish.

Going Forward

There’s little benefit to adding environmental education to our public schools if it detracts from other subjects that we’ve already agreed are important, and herein lies the challenge of educational reform. Incorporating environmental education into a standard curriculum can be tricky, especially because No Child Left Behind tightened up academic schedules throughout the nations and put an increased emphasis on boosting test scores. In the 15 years since the No Child Left Behind Act, our test scores haven’t seen any real improvement and interest in STEM has steadily dwindled. The Every Child Succeeds Act is a response to this current academic stagnation; a chance to restructure our curricula in order to boost our test scores by diversifying our educational tactics.

It’s important to note that the act does not make environmental education mandatory, and it’s up to each state to decide whether to use the funds made available by the act for that particular purpose. The states that do will have to carefully create Environmental Literacy Plans, the central goal of which is to figure out how to incorporate new forms of environmental information into students’ schedules in a way that does not detract from their other studies and instead enhances their overall performance. This is a very serious challenge, but the result of a successful ELP will be a generation that’s more aware and informed of the world around them. These plans will educate students on the environment’s most important issues and ensure that they are both motivated and equipped to make a positive difference.

Conclusion

The issue of environmental education for many people largely comes down to whether or not you believe it’s relevant for students to spend their time studying and learning about environmental concerns. Many simply don’t see any advantage of adding an entirely new field of learning to the schedules of overloaded students. In a sense, this is an ideological question about whether parents think the environment is of real relevance to their children’s lives, and many, many (millions) of people already have their minds made up on this issue. However, many do see the advantages of environmental education as a tool both to impart new and important information but also to open new doors to careers and improve our education system with novel teaching styles.

As time passes and more concrete results come out of states that have implemented environmental education, it will become possible to see benefits of educational reforms. While some states simply don’t have the right mix of lawmakers to ever approve adding environmental learning to the curriculum, others may shift toward approving it as they see higher test scores and happier students with a greater variety of job options.

Resources

Environmental Science: Environmental Science Careers

Campaign for Environmental Literacy: National Overview: State Level EE Legislation/Policy

Tampa Bay School Gardening Network: Benefits of School Gardening

Julie Ernst & Martha Monroe: The Effects of Environment-Based Education on Students’ Critical Thinking Skills and Disposition towards Critical Thinking

Monmouth University: Public Says Climate Change is Real

National Environmental Education Foundation: Benefits of Environmental Education

National Wildlife Federation: Green STEM: How Environmental Based Education Boosts Student Engagement and Academic Achievement in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

No Child Left Inside Coalition: No Child Left Inside Act

United Nations: Water Scarcity

World Resources Institute: World’s 36 Most Water-Stressed Countries

YouGov: Global Survey: Britain Among Least Concerned in the World About Climate Change

Kyle Downey

Kyle Downey is an Environmental Issues Specialist for Law Street Media. He graduated from Skidmore College with a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies. His main passions are environmentalism and social justice. Contact Kyle at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Importance of Environmental Education in America appeared first on Law Street.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” That may be true, but it is not a smooth trajectory. Nor can you set society on the path to more justice and expect it to progress to your goal unsupervised. Creating a just society is not a one-time event. It is a constant process that requires continued maintenance.

More than 60 years after the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education we still face the challenge in the United States of ensuring that students of all races have the same access to a quality education. In many places, the gains that were made in the 1960s and 1970s have been eroded. In some places, it is as though no change took place at all.

Not only is segregated schooling contrary to our laws, it is contrary to our most deeply-held values as a nation of liberty and equity. And if neither the legal nor the moral argument persuade you that this should concern you, consider the self-interest argument. Because the children that we refuse to invest in today are the ones who will be unable to invest back into our society tomorrow.

All Deliberate Speed

This video is long, but if you are interested in a thoughtful discussion of the history of school integration and the challenges that we still face in making its promise a reality it is well worth watching.

Brown vs. Board of Education was in many ways a radical decision, and in some ways not radical enough. It refuted the earlier Supreme Court ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson, at least in the context of public education. In Plessy, the court had held that requiring black and white passengers to use separate accommodations on trains was not unconstitutional so long as the separate facilities were also equal. Thus the question became, in a discrimination case, a question of fact as to how the accommodations actually compared. Requiring black students to use facilities that were of markedly different quality wasn’t permissible, although in practice happened often, but if the facilities were equivalent then separate wasn’t discriminatory.

Brown changed this in the arena of public education. The rationale for opposing the segregation that existed was not merely because the resources provided to children of color were unequal–although that was the case and represented the primary, practical motivation for challenging the status quo–it was that having separate schools, even if those classrooms were identical, was inherently unequal. That separating American children based on race, even if all the other factors of their education remained the same, was in and of itself something that was damaging. In fact, evidence was produced to show psychological harm to black children from their segregated schooling. The practical effect for a school that could have been shown to be unequal in resources would have been the same with a Plessy standard. The school would have to be integrated or given more resources, the same way it would be forced to integrate under Brown. But in terms of what society was now willing to accept as equitable and just, Brown represented a profound change.

But Brown provided no roadmap for how to get from the world of 1954 into a modern, integrated society. And with the use of the now infamous phrase “all deliberate speed,” the court gave the societal forces who opposed integration ammunition in their fight to slow it down or halt it completely. Sixty years later there is still a backlash to integrating our schools.

Take a look at this video that highlights the situation in one town in Alabama that is still struggling with integration.

The Scope of the Problem

If you think that integration is a problem only in the South, think again. In the period from 1968 to 2011 school segregation actually increased in the Northeast–the percentage of black students in schools with at least 90 percent minority students went from 42.7 to 51.4 percent. In New York, 64.6 percent of black students go to a school that fits this definition of “hyper-segregation.”

If you attend a segregated school you are put at an immediate disadvantage, especially if you are a member of a minority group. You are segregated not only by race but also often by class, doubling down on the negative effects of growing up in a low-income neighborhood. Not only do you miss out on the social and cultural stimulation of meeting people who are different from you, you miss out on more tangible perks of a good school as well. Good teachers, good materials, and good courses aren’t on offer for you. The message is no less clearly received by children just because it is not said out loud: You don’t matter.

In contrast, a student who attends an integrated school is given an advantage over his or her segregated peers, whether they are black or white. If you are black and spent a year in a desegregated school your chance of graduating high school went up by 2 percent, for each year you attended that integrated school. If you spent five years in that integrated school your future wages rose by 15 percent, or an extra $5,900 in annual family income. You also are probably less likely to have a criminal record, since for minority boys the racial makeup of their school can have a significant impact on whether they commit a crime. A nonwhite boy in a school that has 60 percent minority students, versus 40 percent minority students, is 16 percent more likely to commit a crime.

Given that schools that have a high minority population are also, by every metric, of lower quality, it is not surprising that parents try to get their children in school elsewhere. Parents diligently research local schools when purchasing homes, take part in lottery systems, advocate for “freedom of choice” in schooling with voucher programs, push charter schools, and sue to resist integration attempts. This impulse is so strong among white parents in particular that even if two schools are equivalent in test scores white parents will opt for the school that has the “right” ratio of white and minority students. Apparently, you want a little diversity, but not too much.

In the midst of this, the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that two school districts could not use race as a factor in assigning pupils to schools. Racial discrimination is not, according to Chief Justice Roberts, an answer to racial discrimination.

Political Will

If taking the race of an individual student isn’t the answer, what is? Take a look at this PBS NewsHour interview that strives to answer that question.

Professor Noguera argues that the situation that we see here–where poor, minority children are unable to break out of a cycle of segregation and poverty–is because of a lack of investment and a lack of political will. Our Nordic neighbors would definitely agree. In Finland, a country that is generally lauded as having the most successful education system in the world, decisions are made very differently.

In her book, “The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life,” Anu Partanen explains the two different philosophical approaches to the question of education. The first approach is the “demand” approach. Education is an investment that parents are making in their children. And so to increase the quality of education you need to increase the demand for it made by those parents. Competition–charter schools, private schools, school choice vouchers etc.–will help to so this. In the United States many people, often Republicans but not exclusively so, support this theory. It allows parents to take the initiative to advocate for their children and to place them in the best possible circumstances.

Partanen’s critique of this approach is twofold. First, although parents are expected to make this investment they don’t directly benefit; it is the children and society at large who benefit from this investment–and not for 20 years or so. This may make the link between reward and investment tenuous for parents and perhaps discourage the investment. Which leads to the second, stronger criticism that it places all children at the mercy of their parents’ willingness and ability to invest in them. The most vulnerable children, children born to parents who do not have the means to invest financially in their education and/or do not have the inclination to do so, are just out of luck. Unless they happen to fall into a good school district, which is highly unlikely. Your entire academic fate rests on that first roll of the dice–who you were born to.

The Nordic Model

The alternate approach is the approach that holds sway in Finland and most other Nordic countries: the “supply” approach. Under this approach, education is viewed as the child’s right to receive an education, not the parent’s right to select the kind of education they want for their children. Because it is a right for the child, it is the government’s responsibility to supply the means to that education: high quality, equitable schools. Not the parents’ responsibility to demand it. While it by no means ensures an idyllic childhood for everyone it eliminates one of the principle vicissitudes of fortune, the quality of your education, that usually accompany your birth.

The keys to that approach being successful are having universally high-quality education, regardless of where the child is, and the decision by the government that a society as a whole is going to invest in its children. The fact that both of these are absent in the United States is what leads parents to play the game to get their children into predominately white public schools, or private schools, to give them the best shot of receiving a valuable education. In a society where all schools are excellent, there is no need to play that game. But because we do not practice what we preach–that all of our children are created equal–that society does not exist here.

The Gorilla In The Room

One problem with solving the issue of integration is that we have so far been unwilling to profoundly question how our schools are funded. School districts are largely funded with property taxes in that locality, so it creates a vicious circle of poverty and discrimination. Poor districts, with their disproportionate minority populations, raise less money than their wealthier and whiter counterparts. So they spend less per student, reducing the quality of education, and encouraging even more “white flight” from the area. Which, in turn, causes affluent parents in good school districts to turn a blind eye to the plight of other people’s children. Parents don’t feel that they need to worry about education and opportunity in a school their child doesn’t attend.

But whether they realize it or not, the middle class and the wealthy do have skin in the game. As both PBS video discussions make clear, these children may be other people’s children but they will not be someone else’s problem. They will be the workers who support social security in our old age. They will be the consumers acting as the engine of our economy. They will be the law-abiding citizens who participate in our democracy.

Or, because we did not invest in them, they won’t. And all Americans, not just those in the neighborhoods of these failing schools, will feel that burden.

Conclusion

The secret to America’s success is her dynamism and her diversity. We cannot be exactly like Finland, nor should we strive to be. But we are stopped from making reforms to our education, not by the things that make us different from Finland but by a lack of commitment to our own core values and a lack of political will. For example, rather than funding schools based on local property taxes a state could collect property taxes, pool them together, and divide the resources based on the number of students and student need as opposed to the accident of their geography. Another solution could be to reinstitute busing requirements for segregated districts. Or programs that encourage neighborhoods to not be so segregated in the first place.

These approaches may seem radical. And truthfully an overhaul of how schools are funded would be about as ambitious a project as one could undertake, politically and just logistically. But they are not radical if we decide that we are going to embrace the value of equity in our culture and treat education as something that every child, regardless of birth or circumstance, is entitled to. Not just because it is morally right in and of itself, although it is, but because our mutual investment in our children is to our mutual benefit.

Resources

Cornell Law School: Plessy v. Ferguson

Cornell Law School: Brown v. Board of Education

Slate: Brown v. Board of Education: On 60th Anniversary Schools Are Segregating

New York Times Magazine: Choosing a School For My Daughter in a Segregated City

Goodreads: Savage Inequalities

PBS: The Return of School Segregation in Eight Charts

The Washington Post: How Segregated Schools Turn Kids Into Criminals

Slate: When White Parents Have a Choice They Choose Segregated Schools

CQ Press: Racial Diversity In Public Schools 

NPR: Supreme Court Quashes School Desegregation

Goodreads: The Nordic Theory of Everything: In Search of a Better Life

Goodreads: The Shame Of The Nation

Atlantic: The End of Busing in Indianapolis

The Washington Post: ‘Don’t Force Us to Give Up Our School’ a Mississippi Town is Being Forced to Integrate 

PBS: A Return to School Segregation in America

USA Today: Still Apart: Map Shows States With Most-Segregated Schools

Mary Kate Leahy

Mary Kate Leahy (@marykate_leahy) has a J.D. from William and Mary and a Bachelor’s in Political Science from Manhattanville College. She is also a proud graduate of Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart. She enjoys spending her time with her kuvasz, Finn, and tackling a never-ending list of projects. Contact Mary Kate at staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post How Can We Fix Racial Segregation In American Schools? appeared first on Law Street.

On Tuesday, May 3, teachers across Detroit called in sick. Enough, in fact, that 94 of the district’s 97 schools had to close for the day. This was not the result of Zika or some other new super virus; the teachers weren’t actually sick at all and everybody knew it. So what is exactly was happening? A sick-out. In Detroit and in other places in the past, teachers have been resorting to this desperate tactic in order to protest the shabby state of schools. Read on to find out more about the “sick-outs,” why they are happening in Detroit and other places and whether or not they are doing anything to inspire the changes they are meant to incite.

What’s happening in Detroit?

A sick-out is defined as exactly what is sounds like: “An organized absence from work by workers in the pretext of sickness.” The sick-out that occurred in Detroit earlier this month was a two-day, school district-wide protest that involved over half of the area’s 3,000 teachers. After fears that the school district would not be able to pay all of its teachers for the full year heightened, many teachers began protesting.

Specifically, there are two ways teachers can be paid–with paychecks spread out over a full calendar year or only during the school year. Due to serious budgeting shortfalls, the school system is set to run out of money for teacher salaries some time in the summer. As a result, those paid year round will end up with less than those who get paid only during the school year itself. If the budget was in good shape, teachers on both pay schedules would get the full amount, just paid out over a different period of time. Teachers in Detroit already held a mass sick-out in January to protest the deteriorating conditions in many Detroit public schools, which include pest infestations, mold, and damaged infrastructure. They have so far opted for sick-outs because other traditional means of protest, namely strikes, are against the law for teachers in Michigan.

The video below looks at the most recent sick-out:

A stop-gap measure has already been in place since March in the form of a $48.7 million agreement passed by the legislature to keep schools operating until the end of June. While this temporary fix is already in place, Michigan legislators have been debating whether or not to pass an additional $700 million dollar solution. This plan would create a new school district to educate students and leave the debt to be paid off with the old district. Essentially, it would leave one district to handle the task of paying the debt and the other would only be concerned with educating students. However, even if this plan makes it through the state legislature, there is no guarantee that it will work.

These budgeting issues are largely products of Detroit’s much-publicized bankruptcy back in 2013. When Detroit declared bankruptcy, city leaders estimated it had as much as $18 billion in debts that it could not pay, ranging from pensions to bond obligations. The amount of debt was ultimately reduced to $7 billion, which included a grand bargain in which private entities agreed to donate approximately $816 million to not only reduce cuts to pensions but also to ensure the survival of other important aspects of Detroit’s culture, such as its art museum. Even with Detroit emerging from bankruptcy and early returns showing the city doing better, it is still a long path to full recovery.

The following video looks at the totality of the Detroit bankruptcy:

Where else are sick-outs happening?

This was not the first time Detroit’s teachers have fought back. In 2006, they held a strike and earlier this year held another sick-out. However, this most recent sick-out was the largest. Detroit’s teachers are also not alone in using tactics such as these to protest pay and working conditions. In 2014, teachers in Colorado staged sick-outs of their own. In that case, the dispute was partly over the collective bargaining agreement, but also over attempts to prevent changes to history courses, which conservatives within the school districts thought would reflect poorly on American history.

A closer comparison, though, may be what is happening in Chicago. While there have not been any actual sick-outs in Chicago yet, the situation certainly seems ripe for that type of action. Much like Detroit, the governor of Illinois has called for the school district in Chicago to declare bankruptcy, which would, among other things, free the district from its obligations to many of its teachers and employees.

This situation is not new to Chicago either; teachers protested in 2012 over many of these same issues and the situation was only averted through concessions from both sides. However, movements to strip state employee rights as cost cutting measures have been growing lately, as displayed by events like these as well as developments like the anti-union legislation of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Chicago has already forced teachers to take unpaid days off and has laid off employees, including some teachers, to cut costs. This is also the impetus for getting the school district to declare bankruptcy–if that happens the state is no longer beholden to union agreements and may be able to reduce its pension obligations.

In order for the Chicago Public School System to declare bankruptcy, the city itself would have to declare bankruptcy. In the case of Chicago at least, it is not able to file for bankruptcy under current laws, though a proposal may be making its way through the state legislature. In 2015, Illinois Republicans proposed a bill that would make bankruptcies legal for municipalities, but it failed to pass. While it would certainly be a major embarrassment if Chicago, the third largest and a very affluent city, was forced to declared bankruptcy, many state leaders support the option.

Is any of this making a difference?

The battle in Detroit has drawn the usual criticisms from both sides. The teachers are critical of the government’s handling of the city’s finances, claiming they just want to be paid the money owed to them and be provided with acceptable conditions to teach in. Conversely, politicians called the teachers’ actions political, claiming that they are jeopardizing the futures of the students they teach. While the two sides hurl accusations at each other, it is fair to ask if what they are doing is actually improving the situation.

On the Wednesday following the recent sick-outs, teachers agreed to return to work after the state legislature moved forward on a $500 million measure to address the district’s fiscal issues. However, this deal must still be reconciled with a similar piece of legislation passed by the state’s senate before a solution can be finalized. If the two sides are unable to agree, another stop-gap measure may be used, but that would risk more sick-outs and further erode the confidence in the state government.

The video below looks at the cumulative problems plaguing Detroit Public Schools:

Conclusion

Can Detroit right the ship when it comes to its schools?  This is a question and a problem that is only compounded by the many complicated issues facing the city. Detroit Public Schools have lost over 100,000 students in roughly 13 years to charter schools, private academies, and attrition. That is a lot of lost revenue for any city, but it is especially taxing for one that just emerged from the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Detroit isn’t the only city with public schools in poor fiscal shape. Chicago is probably the most comparable example, which may soon face many of the same issues and has already taken some drastic measures to cut costs. In light of Detroit’s bankruptcy, teachers and city officials have become increasingly concerned with how the school district will meet its long-term pension obligations and even its regular teacher salaries. The same issues play important parts in the debate over whether bankruptcy is the appropriate tool to deal with the city of Chicago and its public school system.

In light of Detroit’s bankruptcy, several difficult decisions were made yet the city’s schools are still in a particularly difficult situation. If the city is unable to find a solution beyond paying off one debt by accruing another, while at the same time offering fewer services, this may not be the last time its teachers call in sick.

Resources

CNN: Most Detroit Schools Closed Again Due to Teacher ‘Sickouts’

Merriam-Webster: Definition of Sick-out

Detroit Free Press: DPS Sick-outs a Symptom of Lansing’s Ill Behavior

Think Progress: Everything You Need To Know About Detroit’s Bankruptcy Settlement

The Bond Buyer: Detroit, A Year Out Of Bankruptcy, Still Faces Long Road Back

In These Times: Why Chicago Won’t Go Bankrupt-And Detroit Didn’t Have To

The Guardian: Colorado Teachers Stage Mass Sick-out to Protest U.S. History Curriculum Changes

Fortune: Why Chicago’s Fight With Teachers Is the Sign of a Much Bigger Problem

Chicago Business: GOP Plan Would Allow State Takeover of CPS and Bankruptcy

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Calling in Sick: The Problems with Detroit Public Schools appeared first on Law Street.

As primary season heats up, the candidates still remaining in the presidential race have begun fine-tuning their higher education plans. Candidates from both sides of the aisle have spoken about how they would change, revamp, and, in some cases, fix higher education. But aside from Marco Rubio, only those from the Democratic party had rolled out specific plans to address rising tuition costs and astronomical student debt prior to the first primary contest in Iowa.

While we evaluate who’s still left in the race, let’s begin to look at the remaining candidates’ positions on higher education. Keep reading to learn more.

Bernie Sanders

As previously noted, Bernie Sanders’ education plan aims to make postsecondary education free at both community colleges and public four-year universities.

Historically Black College and Universities

In an appeal to lure African American voters and young people, Sanders asserted that tuition-free education would not force private historically black college and universities (HBCUs) to close down.

Representing the 6^th District of South Carolina and an influential power broker in presidential primary races, Congressman James Clyburn expressed his concerns over the prospect of free public education and the impact on black colleges.

“You’ve got to think about the consequences of things. If you start handing out two years of free college at public institutions are you ready for all the black, private HBCUs to close down? That’s what’s going to happen,” Clyburn said.

In a recent interview with MSNBC’s Tamron Hall confirming his endorsement of Hillary Clinton, Clyburn also said of the Sanders tuition-free education plan and the America’s College Promise plan proposed by the current administration, “there are no free lunches so there will be no free education.”

Student Loans and Interest Rates

Part of the Sanders education plan also includes lowering the interest rates on student loans. Sanders hopes to reduce loan interest rates to what they were 10 years ago. In 2006, undergraduate student loans hovered around 2.37 percent, which would cut the current rate of 4.39 percent nearly in half.

Sanders believes students should be able to refinance their loans in a similar fashion as auto loans. According to Sanders, if a loan for a car can be obtained at a 2.5 percent interest rate, why are students forced to pay between 5-7 percent for multiple decades? From the beginning, Sanders has vowed to prevent the federal government from making money on student loans but it remains to be seen just how he’d stop the profiting.

Hillary Clinton

There are commonalites between Democratic candidates Sanders and Clinton surrounding student debt and tuition-free community college. While Sanders believes there is a way to make both two-year and four-year public colleges tuition-free, Clinton’s New College Compact plan stipulates that students should never need to borrow to pay for tuition, books, and fees to attend a public in-state university. The Clinton education plan also calls for the ability for Pell Grants to be used for living expenses.

Historically Black College and Universities

As part of her plan to attract minority voters and young people, part of Clinton’s education plan includes a $25 billion investment in HBCUs, hispanic serving institutions (HSI), and other minority serving institutions (MSI) serving a high percentage of Pell Grant recipients in an effort to lower cost and increase student outcomes. This fund would also help low to moderately endowed nonprofit private institutions within the HBCU system. Contrary to Sanders, Clinton plans to invest in private postsecondary education, acknowledging that private colleges also help under-served students graduate.

Marco Rubio

Marco Rubio’s higher education plan, which emphasizes access and affordability, includes cheaper options for online education. Rubio also calls for students to treat themselves as commodities when applying to college, and asks students to embrace what he refers to as “human capital contracts” by selling themselves to private investors.

He asserts that students should know how much they could expect to earn before taking out a loan to pay for their education. Rubio maintains that the current higher education system in this country is outdated, broken, and “needs a disruption,” citing that college is too expensive, time consuming, and inflexible. Rubio uses partisan language to explain that the Democrats’ approach to fixing higher education is the same one attempted in Washington for decades by pouring money into an outdated system and raising taxes.

Income-Based Loan Repayment

There are some facets of Rubio’s education plan that are consistent with Clinton and Sanders. They are in agreement on investing in student success and wanting to simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). However, Rubio wants to implement an automatic income-based student loan repayment plan in order to ease student loan debt. The current administration has already enacted repayment plans that are income-based as an option, but Rubio believes this should be the sole universal method for federal student loans.

Ties to Corinthian Colleges

In an effort to move higher education into the 21^st century, Rubio wants to ease access to state colleges and online education opportunities, and reshape accrediting entities to accommodate non-traditional education. This may raise concern with voters based on his ties to the for-profit Corinthian Colleges, which have contributed to his Reclaim America Pac.

Last spring, Corinthian Colleges filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and shut their doors for good, which adversely impacted over 16,000 students. In December of 2015, the Obama administration began the process to forgive nearly $28 million in federal student loans for over 1,300 students that said the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges violated their rights on grounds that they used deceptive tactics to convince students to take out loans. Now up to 350,000 students could be forgiven for taking out loans to pay tuition.

John Kasich

GOP Candidate Governor John Kasich of Ohio plans to keep college affordable by focusing on the 100 percent performance-based funding formula that emphasizes completion and graduation rates. The formula that has kept Ohio a leader in the nation with regard to freezing tuition rates for the next couple of years, Kasich plans to expand what has worked in Ohio to a federal level. The remaining focuses of Kasich’s education plan are centered heavily on K-12 education.

Donald Trump and Ted Cruz

Neither Donald Trump nor Texas Senator Ted Cruz have released their plans for higher education. However, in recent weeks Trump has been accused of scamming students with his for-profit Trump University, which began operating in 2005. Rubio attacked Trump, calling the university a “fake school,” and claiming the university has been defrauding students out of thousand of dollars after reports were revealed that students are currently suing Trump for restitution.

Conclusion

As the field narrows, voters are going to need to decide who their next president will be based on issues extending far beyond higher education. That said, the candidates left standing need to be clear about all of their plans. That includes laying out specifics on how to implement each education plan, including how they will be paid for, and who in the new president’s cabinet will oversee these implementations.

Some of these higher education plans are more radical than others, but hopefully as the election season gathers steam, voters will finally be privy to what higher education will look like for incoming students, new graduates paying back student loans, and mid-career professionals who may seeking relief from drowning in student loan debt.

Resources

Real Clear Politics: 2016 Republican Presidential Nomination

Buzzfeed: Clyburn: Sanders’ Education Plan is a Disaster for Private Black Colleges

Center for Responsive Politics: Corinthian Colleges 2014

New York Times: Ben Carson Seeing No Path Forward, Signals End of Candidacy

New York Times: Super Tuesday Results

Washington Post: Students of Defunct For-Profit Colleges to Receive $28 Million in Loan Forgiveness

Think Progress: Rubio Attacked Trump for Running a ‘Fake School.’ But There’s Just One Problem

Jamal Evan Mazyck

Jamal Mazyck is currently pursuing an Ed.D. in educational leadership and is a graduate research assistant at San Diego State University. When he is not writing, researching or tweeting about the ins and outs of higher education, he can be found on the tennis court and running half-marathons. Contact Jamal at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post What are the Candidates’ Higher Education Plans Post-Obama? appeared first on Law Street.

Recently, several former members of the University of Tennessee Volunteers female training staff sued the University for violating their Title IX rights. While many people may have been caught up with Peyton Manning’s name in the filing, others were probably confused about why Title IX was invoked at all. After all, Title IX is concerned with female athletes having the opportunity to receive scholarships for playing collegiate sports, right? Partly, but it can also be invoked in cases where a woman feels her rights have been infringed upon, notably in the context of a number of high-profile sexual assault cases at major universities. Read on to find out the whole scope of the landmark statute and what role it is playing in potentially punishing universities for their actions.

What is Title IX?

Title IX is actually a section of the Educational Amendments that were passed in 1972. The purpose of these amendments was to prevent discrimination on the basis of sex in all federally-funded education programs and activities. Title IX states:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

Since its inception, the law has been the basis for numerous amendments, reviews, political actions, and even Supreme Court cases. While Title IX is primarily discussed in the context of athletics, there are several other areas that the law regulates.

In regard to athletics, Title IX regulations require schools to give women the same amount of access as they do for men. Once it became law, Title IX had a measurable effect on female participation in sports. The law ensures that all schools provide equitable opportunities for both male and female sports including availability, resources, and scholarships. In 1972, when the law went into effect, only about 295,000 girls played sports at the high school level in the United States. Fast-forward to 2011 and that number has risen to 3.2 million. Additionally, the number of women receiving athletic scholarships went from zero to 200,000 over the same period.

The opportunity to participate in athletic programs has significant consequences beyond access for women who want to participate. In fact, increased participation has also been associated with increased graduation rates, healthier lives, and diminished trouble with the law.

The video below gives an overview of the effects of Title IX in sports:

Criticism of Title IX

While Title IX has clearly had a significant impact on female participation in athletics and equality in education more generally, the law still has its critics. On one side are those who complain that Title IX is still not doing enough to prevent discrimination. This group’s argument began almost immediately after the law’s inception when it was weakly enforced and nearly eliminated thanks to the 1984 Supreme Court decision in Grove City vs. Bell. Even as the law started to be more rigorously enforced after Congress passed the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, women at all levels of athletics still have much lower rates of participation and receive less funding than men. Others also argue that enforcement remains weak and investigations can drag on for a long time without being fully resolved.

On the other hand, the law is also criticized by those who bemoan its effects on men’s sports. This starts with the prevailing belief that funding a women’s sport means cutting funding to men’s teams. But between 1988 and 2011, for example, over 1,000 new men’s sports teams were added by NCAA members. Additionally, many of the men’s sports that have seen spending cuts during this time were the victims of universities’ increasing focus and spending on two high-profile sports–football and men’s basketball–and not necessarily because of funding for women’s sports. The interaction between these two sports and Title IX is also frequently misunderstood. Title IX does not require schools to spend the same amount of money on men’s and women’s sports. Instead, all Title IX requires is that the “benefits and services” provided to both men and women are equal.

Preventing Assault

While most discussion of Title IX focuses on athletics, much of the public’s attention has started to shift toward the law’s role in preventing sexual assault. Indeed, protecting students against sexual assault has become one of the most important aspects of Title IX. The Supreme Court even ruled that schools may be liable if they fail to address reported incidents. According to the Department of Education, sexual violence “refers to physical sexual acts perpetrated against a person’s will or where a person is incapable of giving consent… A number of different acts fall into the category of sexual violence, including rape, sexual assault, sexual battery, sexual abuse, and sexual coercion.”

As more students speak out about the issue of sexual assault on college campuses and evidence about its prevalence mounts, the government has taken a more active role in dealing with the issue using Title IX. There’s a large number of surveys that measure sexual assault and sexual violence on college campuses, but many often come to different conclusions about the extent to which it affects undergraduates. Most cite the statistic that 1-in-5 female students are victims of sexual assault, and even that figure has its critics. Tyler Kinkade at the Huffington Post points out that while these statistics may be good talking points, the reason that the issue has become so important is because of the large number of students calling for more attention and better procedures to deal with these incidents.

Enforcement and High-Profile Incidents

While concern and outrage over alleged sexual assaults have increased, enforcement has faced some resistance. This seeming indifference reached such a zenith that in 2014 the Department of Education released a list of over a 100 colleges and universities under investigation for violating Title IX. The Department expounded upon this last year, releasing a “Dear Colleague” letter in which it reminded its constituent schools what sorts of actions violate Title IX laws. That letter was a follow-up to a similar one sent out in 2011–which itself was a reminder of sexual harassment guidelines released in 2001–that gave schools instructions on how to deal with sexual assault complaints. As these steps show, these schools under investigation have been repeatedly reminded of their responsibilities, yet many high profiles cases have come up recently.

The incident involving Peyton Manning and the University of Tennessee is a perfect example of the difficulties surrounding these types of cases. The case began all the way back in 1997 with a lawsuit against Manning and the University of Tennessee. It continued with another lawsuit against Manning in 2003, after the release of his autobiography in which he depicted one of the women involved unfavorably. The newest lawsuit that was filed earlier this year shows how long the process surrounding these cases can last. In the meantime, the woman who accused Manning had to agree to leave the school, while the university won a national championship and he was able to enjoy a long and storied career. According to the suit, instead of protecting victims, the school actually created an environment that was hostile to them.

This is certainly not the only controversial incident. Another high-profile incident involved former Florida State University quarterback and current Tampa Bay Buccaneers player Jameis Winston. In 2012, a female student sued Florida State for its investigation of her rape complaint against Winston and its “deliberate indifference” throughout the process. FSU’s poor handling of the case also led her to file a lawsuit. The civil suit against the school was resolved this year when FSU paid a $950,000 settlement. The alleged victim has also filed a civil suit against Winston; he has countersued.

The following video looks at the alleged Title IX infraction at FSU:

Results and Remaining Issues

Since the Office of Civil Rights began stepping up its expectations and enforcement of Title IX violations, the number of investigations has increased dramatically. Accusations like these and the actions of the Department of Education are not isolated incidents. As of April 2015, the Department of Education had over 100 active investigations for sexual violence-related Title IX issues. In its Dear Colleague letters, OCR instructs institutions to develop new standards for investigating complaints and instructed institutions to hire a Title IX coordinator to ensure that cases are handled properly.

It is important to note that in many of these investigations, including the ones surrounding Manning and Winston, no one has been found guilty in a criminal court–though criminal guilt is not necessarily the point. Regardless, the original claims were not adequately investigated, and in some cases ignored. Proper investigations may also disprove the claims and absolve the accused. Too often, though, school are accused of not pursuing complaints thoroughly or do not have the necessary processes in place to properly investigate them. Due to these shortcomings, victims are often depicted negatively and a culture of hostility can result.

Unfortunately, OCR’s investigations and related civil suits often take a very long time to complete. The Department of Education has a large backlog of investigations into schools that have been accused of violating Title IX. While President Obama made a push for more funding, little more was granted, and likely not enough to offset the rise in the number of cases and the loss of approximately a third of the Department’s workforce. Title IX also covers K-12 school districts, along with colleges and universities–adding another lay of emphasis in resolving these cases and achieving resolutions.

Conclusion

While Title IX is often seen as a law that guarantees equality in sports, it is much more than that. Athletics is only one of many areas in which the statute seeks to ensure fairness and equality. What is clearer than Title IX’s exact breadth is its impact, as it has drastically improved the opportunities for women and girls in the United States. Unfortunately, what is also clear is the limitations of the legislation and the trouble that many institutions have complying with the new guidance.

One example of these limitations, and probably the most troubling, is in regard to sexual harassment. There have been repeated, high-profile incidents of workers and students complaining of sexual harassment or assault. As the growing number of OCR investigations indicate, schools have had a hard time instituting processes to adequately deal with these cases. This is exactly the type of thing Title IX was meant to prevent, yet has struggled to accomplish. The law is certainly not a panacea, but it applies to more than just sports and with greater implementation, it can have a very wide-reaching effect.

Resources

Feminist Majority Foundation: Empowering Women in Sports

Title IX: History of Title IX

NCAA: How is Title IX Applied to Athletics?

The Washington Post: Title IX has Helped Encourage Many Girls to Play Sports

USA Today: Florida State Agrees to pay Winston Accuser $950,000 to Settle Suit

ESPN: Baylor Faces Accusations of Ignoring Sex Assault Victims

CNN: 23% of Women Report Sexual Assault in College, Study Finds

Huffington Post: Federal Campus Rape Investigations Near 200, And Finally Get More Funding

Department of Education: Dear Colleague Letter on Title IX Coordinators

U.S. Department of Education: U.S. Department of Education Releases List of Higher Education Institutions with Open Title IX Sexual Violence Investigations

U.S. Department of Education: Dear Colleague Sexual Violence

Michael Sliwinski

Michael Sliwinski (@MoneyMike4289) is a 2011 graduate of Ohio University in Athens with a Bachelor’s in History, as well as a 2014 graduate of the University of Georgia with a Master’s in International Policy. In his free time he enjoys writing, reading, and outdoor activites, particularly basketball. Contact Michael at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Title IX: More Than Just Sports appeared first on Law Street.

During the recent Democratic debate in Charleston, South Carolina, front-runner Hillary Clinton, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley each became increasingly combative with one another when discussing their positions on important issues for voters. With the Iowa caucuses quickly approaching, these debates are becoming more crucial as voters begin to sift through many of the issues discussed including gun control, healthcare, Wall Street, immigration, and foreign policy. Although minimally discussed during the debate, tuition-free education may become a campaign defining issue. Many candidates have tuition and debt relief initiatives on their platforms, but what exactly is tuition-free higher education and who supports it? Keep reading to learn more.

Tuition-Free Education

Tax-funded education is not exactly a new phenomenon, but most recently tuition-free education programs at the state level have been launched in Tennessee and Oregon for community colleges. Many other states have similar programs on the table at the two-year level, but Sanders is the only candidate in this presidential cycle to propose a federal program for tuition-free higher education at the public university level.

Specifically, the self-proclaimed “Democratic Socialist” Bernie Sanders mentioned during the debate in Charleston that his education plan includes free education at both two-year and four-year public institutions. Midway through the debate, one of the moderators Andrea Mitchell asked Sanders how, among many other issues on his platform, would he pay for this education initiative. Sanders responded by stating that he wants to rebuild our infrastructure and close the loophole that allows major corporations to stash millions in the Cayman Islands and not pay a nickel in taxes.  Sanders continued through his want list saying,

I want every kid in this country who has the ability, to be able to go to a public college or university tuition-free and by the way, substantially lower student debt interest rates in this country as well.

Among other seemingly expensive programs, his tuition-free education plan would be paid for by Wall Street taxes, according to Sanders. “We bailed out Wall Street, now it is Wall Street’s time to help the middle class,” Sanders explained.

How do the Conservative Candidates Feel?

With the exception of a few Democratic candidates, higher education issues have not been at the forefront of topics to tackle on the campaign trail. Many of the GOP candidates have instead chosen to focus their education positions in the K-12 sector.

As a whole, many Republicans have begun to move away from the Common Core values that former Florida Governor Jeb Bush famously supported, which seek to establish consistent educational standards across the states. But the GOP candidates differ a lot with their plans, with Dr. Ben Carson going on record in support of reducing tuition costs and student debt, while Ted Cruz publicly denounced Common Core in favor of local control of education. However, Donald Trump, the current party front-runner, has yet to roll out an actual education plan.

The International Take on Free College

The Sanders campaign aims to make college education tuition-free nationwide in hopes to prepare more Americans for the workforce and alleviate student debt. But according to the Sanders campaign, the idea is not as radical as some would have you believe.

Germany has already eliminated fees for their able college students by making their citizens pay much higher percentages in taxes than people in the United States. Unfortunately in an effort to keep costs down, many of these German universities place students in larger classrooms and forgo non-essential campus amenities. Denmark and Sweden also have tuition-free higher education for its citizens, and Chile, Finland, and Norway, will soon follow.

Who’s on Board with Sanders’ Plan?

Clinton

Although Clinton is currently leading by 25 points, her lead is slipping, according to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. As the first nomination contest in Iowa approaches, her stance on education may be the tipping point for securing likely voters. Like Sanders, Clinton believes that student debt is problematic and has also become a proponent for tuition-free education–at least for community college students. On Clinton’s campaign website she said, “we need to make a quality education affordable and available to everyone willing to work for it, without saddling them with decades of debt.”

Clinton agrees with Sanders with regard to reducing debt so students shouldn’t have to take out loans to pay for a quality education, as stipulated through her New College Compact education plan, but differs, however, in making tuition free at the university level.

In addition to Clinton’s education plan aiming to improve the amount of students able to attend college debt-free, the New College Compact program insists that students should be able to access higher education at the two-year level tuition-free, indicating that states need to reinvest in schools to improve student outcomes and graduation rates. Part of the Clinton campaign strategy is to build upon the presidency of Barack Obama and access to higher education is an indicator of such alignment. The New College Compact plan that includes a free community college provision mirrors the America’s College Promise program launched by the Obama Administration at this time last year.

O’Malley

The third Democratic presidential candidate, Martin O’Malley, found it difficult to get a word in on any of the issues he deemed important in Charleston, SC, which was the last debate before Iowa. Polling at an estimated 2 percent, securing the nomination for O’Malley is going to be an uphill battle. If viewers heard more from O’Malley, we may have been privy to his position on tuition-free education.

In contrast to Sanders and Clinton, O’Malley does not support a tuition-free higher education plan of any sort. Instead he proposes that college be debt-free for students, which coincides with the other democratic candidates’ platforms.

In agreement with the student-debt positions of Sanders and Clinton, O’Malley’s debt-free education proposal requests immediate relief to student borrowers, freezing public tuition rates, reduce tuition costs, increasing college preparedness, and holding for-profit colleges accountable. The O’Malley plan also aims to address other fees not associated with tuition that contribute to student debt by increasing Pell Grants, expanding work study programs, and providing childcare on campus, which have not largely been discussed by the other Democratic candidates.

What does this all mean?

Education has been a dividing issue for candidates for decades and the current presidential cycle will be no different. With many of the conservative candidates using sound bite opportunities to discuss their disdain for Common Core, while the liberals center their education conversations on the student debt crisis, the discussion will have an impact on the decisions for voters on both sides of the political aisle.

For those willing to discuss tuition-free education, the most eye-opening plan comes from candidate Sanders. His campaign hopes to make public colleges and universities tuition-free. Although Clinton supports tuition-free programs, her plan would only apply to two-year colleges, and would emphasize relieving students of crippling debt. O’Malley wants to help American families that are being crushed by $1.3 trillion in outstanding student loan debt, but his plan does not include a tuition-free education. He does, however, consider other fees associated with the total cost of college, that go beyond just tuition.

These education plans will be heavily scrutinized, along with initiatives yet to emerge from other candidates since the economic success of the country is contingent on the preparedness of its workforce. The federal government has also benefited from student loan interest rates and with the cost of college in the United States exponentially rising, more students are receiving financial aid assistance through loans more than ever before.

Conclusion

A college education has been categorized as an indicator of lifetime income earning potential. Whether paying for college outright, or through loans, the future of the country rests on the ability to contribute to the economic. The idea that tuition-free higher education will eliminate student debt is not going away and remains to be seen how Americans will respond this November.

Resources

Primary

RealClear Politics: 2016 Democratic Presidential Nomination

Additional

Bloomberg Business: Borrowers Fall Further Behind on $1.3 Trillion in student Loans

Los Angeles Times: Jeb Bush’s Embrace of Common Core is a Campaign Lightning Rod

Los Angeles Times: Why You Can Get a Free Education in Germany But Not in California

Marketplace: How German Higher Education Controls Costs

NBC News: Poll: Clinton holds 25-Point National Lead Over Sanders

Jamal Evan Mazyck

Jamal Mazyck is currently pursuing an Ed.D. in educational leadership and is a graduate research assistant at San Diego State University. When he is not writing, researching or tweeting about the ins and outs of higher education, he can be found on the tennis court and running half-marathons. Contact Jamal at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Tuition-Free Education: Presidential Candidates Weigh In appeared first on Law Street.

This holiday season is bringing much more than gifts and cheer for children as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), a graduated, more sophisticated, and polished version of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), was passed by the House of Representatives. The much-needed update was passed by a 359-64 majority in the House and will be voted on by the Senate in the coming week. The overwhelming bipartisan support for the bill reinforces the likelihood that it will ultimately be signed into law by President Barack Obama.

The overhaul and revision of NCLB, which resulted in the creation of ESSA, comes as a welcomed and advocated-for change to remove the federal grip over the requirements and implementation of public education and move it toward a state-based ideology that narrows the focus and tailors implementation to resources and needs within a specified state. Additionally, ESSA seeks to evolve past the sole focus on standardized testing and opens up consideration for other factors such as student/teacher engagements, success in advanced coursework, and career readiness. The main goal is a holistic approach to standardize primary education through a variety of measurable and functional factors through a more tailored, state-focused lens.  Read on to learn more about the evolution of measurable standards within primary education, what ESSA holds for future generations, and the potential impact of the pending legislation.

The Evolution of Standardized Primary Education

Education is a cornerstone in a progressive, self-sustaining society. It provides for the social and economic advancement, as well as the stability of people that allows for growth, development, creativity, and forward movement and innovation. Education is the bedrock of a society and its importance has been highlighted throughout the history of the United States in a variety of ways as evidenced by its evolution in law and implementation.

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson sought to mend the “achievement gap” in the United States by implementing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). ESEA allocated a substantial amount of federal funding into bridging the gap in the educational disparity based on race and poverty–a disparity highlighting that minorities, low-income students, immigrant students, and those from rural/neglected areas were not receiving the same level of quality education and therefore were not achieving at the same levels or percentage rates as students outside of those statistical and categorical confines. While ESEA shifted focus onto a federally controlled education policy and allowed the government involvement in implementation through funding, it also provided “Title I” designation to schools with over 40 percent of students designated low-income through federal standards. Such a designation provided schools, mainly elementary schools, with federal-based funding to make education more accessible to low-income families and to increase resources available to schools. The Act gave young students a pathway out of institutionalized poverty through encouraged and standardized academic advancement, which was monitored through testing benchmarks and requirements.

ESEA underwent several reauthorizations, none more prominent and controversial than the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), which was signed into law by President George W. Bush on January 8, 2002. NCLB was authored and instituted out of concern that the United States was losing academic advantage on an international scale and applied testing standards and progress tracking to all students, not just the low-income students identified by ESEA. While NCLB sought to bring academic progress and responsibility as applied to all students, it carved out specific standards and a focus on students with special needs, those learning English as a second language, and those below the poverty line, as well as minorities, as these groups of children in primary schools tended to test lower than their classmates. The law provided required benchmarks for academic achievement, testing students from the third grade through high school. It also marked the 2013-2014 school year as the goal year to have all schools testing at a “proficient level,” marked by results and scores defined by each individual state. It is important to note that by the end of the 2015 school year, no school had gotten all 100 percent of its students above the required proficient level. Additionally, teachers were required to have certain qualifications and schools were required to reach specific testing goals and provide yearly progress reports that would subject them to serious sanctions if the goals set were not met.

While NCLB was a positive step and evolution from the outdated versions of ESEA, it was laced with great controversy and consequently, great criticism. One of the major criticisms of NCLB was the heavy focus on standardized testing in math and reading, which ultimately resulted in less investment on subjects such as social studies that were not empirically tested and measured, as well as an increase in cheating in order to meet required results. The desire to increase educational standards ironically did the opposite in order to meet them. The focus on test scores also created an “educational marketplace” out of federal funding, forcing schools to compete in a survival-of-the-fittest atmosphere, rather than a collegiate and collective one. Another criticism of the law was that remedies for the low performing students–free tutoring and the opportunity to transfer to a better performing school–were completely underutilized by the students and facilities they were available to. When given the free choice and the transportation to get a better education, families opted to keep their children in what was familiar, even if what was familiar was not performing at an acceptable level. Finally, NCLB was criticized as being underfunded. Although annual funding for Title I was supposed to rise to $25 billion, it had only reached $14.5 billion by 2015 highlighting the fact that federal funding never reached the lofty goals it had set for the law as well.

In 2011, in recognizing the failure of NCLB, President Obama instituted waivers that allowed states struggling to meet the standards outlined by the law to set their own standards in an effort to adequately prepare students for higher education and the workforce. The need for reform in education policy was crystal clear. It was up to Congress to take action.

Every Student Succeeds Act: What is in Store

Last week, the House of Representatives got the ball rolling in Congress on education policy and the support for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was overwhelming. While the Senate will be voting on the bill within the week, the support strongly suggests that it will be signed into law following the vote.

ESSA aims to address the concerns, criticisms, failures, and restrictions highlighted by NCLB by primarily honing in on a state-centered emphasis, which would allow for more flexibility in the implementation and assessment of academic achievement. Rather than just analyzing test scores and graduation rates, ESSA will take a more holistic approach to assess educational success by looking at additional factors such as “student and teacher engagements, success in advanced coursework, and school climate and safety,” as well as performance on college prep and Advanced Placement (AP) courses, career readiness, and specialized certificates.

However, the shift back to a more state-based system of control and implementation will not be without federal regulation. States will still have to test students and report findings in order to be held accountable for the way the programs are being instituted, absorbed, and utilized, still tracking positive academic achievement benchmarks. ESSA still provides safeguards by integrating the availability of waivers for schools performing below desired levels and grant programs that will offer schools more resources to meet goals if they qualify. The bill initiates additional programs that focus on over-testing research, the importance of effective and quality early childhood education practices, and the equal distribution of funding within districts.

While ESSA is certainly a more polished and advanced version of its predecessor, it is subject to its own criticisms. The main critique this early in its life is the fact that it is silent in terms of upgrading, updating, and elevating the status quo for the profession of teaching. Although authors of the bill did not utilize this opportunity to address the modernization of teaching, qualification requirements, and experience of the individuals working within its confines–teachers, the bill successfully sets out to update a largely outdated system that has failed the children and teachers in the United States.

Conclusion: A Welcomed Change That’s Long Overdue

No Child Left Behind had officially expired in 2007. It is now December 2015. Surprisingly, despite its eight-year expiration, NCLB had maintained its grip on implementation control as no alternative methods and bills had been proposed and implemented with success in Congress. In an effort to circumvent the failing aspects of NCLB and loosen the regulatory grip over state implementation, most states were working under waivers granted by President Obama, providing them with the necessary flexibility to implement more successful educational policy options for their specific circumstances. States have had temporary and remote control over educational policy following NCLB’s expiration.

And while critics are emphatic that ESSA’s authors dropped the ball in addressing a refocused lens on increasing and updating teaching standards as well as standardized education, the bill did take big steps in initiating additional programs to reform education policy, elevated expectations and implementation of a revitalized policy, and works to ensure fair and equally distributed system of federal funding. Additionally, the bill provides the opportunity for volunteer partnerships, but prohibits any state to be influenced, provided incentives, or coerced into accepting and adopting Common Core principles. While criticisms will exist on both political sides, particularly within the idea that the federal government is simply punting the education problem to the states to fix, the overwhelming bipartisan support for the Every Student Succeeds Act shows the importance of quality education in this country for all students alike.

The steps taken to eliminate NCLB and reinvent the bill in a new form is a commendable and welcomed progression in education policy.

Resources

Primary

House of Representatives: Every Student Succeeds Act

107th Congress: No Child Left Behind

Additional

 U.S. News: Leaving Behind No Child Left Behind

LAWS: Elementary and Secondary Education Act

 Education Week: No Child Left Behind: An Overview

National Public Radio (NPR): Former ‘No Child Left Behind’ Advocate Turns Critic

 CBS DFW: A Major Overhaul of No Child Left Behind is in the Works

Ajla Glavasevic

Ajla Glavasevic is a first-generation Bosnian full of spunk, sass, and humor. She graduated from SUNY Buffalo with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and received her J.D. from the University of Cincinnati College of Law. Ajla is currently a licensed attorney in Pennsylvania and when she isn’t lawyering and writing, the former Team USA Women’s Bobsled athlete (2014-2015 National Team) likes to stay active and travel. Contact Ajla at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Graduating From “No Child Left Behind” appeared first on Law Street.

In February 2015, Teach for America was invited to West Virginia schools for the first time. The first Teach for America educators are slated to arrive in West Virginia next August but only 15 educators will be stationed in the state, and Teach for America only plans to expand that number to 30-35 teachers in the next five years. Several county officials, teachers unions and education advocates have opposed the introduction of Teach for America, claiming that they do not need or want under-qualified teachers.

Despite this backlash, the West Virginia education system is in dire need of educators and is willing to take on Teach for America educators. West Virginia’s teacher salaries are among the lowest in the nation, and installing Teach for America recruits is considered by some to be the cost-efficient alternative to raising teacher pay. However, critics are concerned that cutting costs may also result in cutting quality in the classroom. Read on for a look at Teach for America’s current training program for new teachers and how it is implemented in new locales.

What is Teach for America?

Teach for America (TFA) founder Wendy Kopp began the project as a senior thesis at Princeton University in 1989. Low-income schools faced a debilitating teacher shortage and student outcomes had remained stagnant for several years. In 1989, Knopp launched recruitment programs at 100 universities and began funneling college graduates trained by TFA into the American school system.

Since then, TFA has expanded to 52 regions across the country and has an average of over 40,000 applicants every year. TFA provides educators in the most low-income and low-performing school districts in the country, which have difficulty attracting qualified teachers. The recruits that TFA introduces to the school system are tasked with closing the achievement gap between students from different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. According to the TFA official website, a majority of school principals are satisfied with the commitment of TFA educators and would gladly hire from TFA again in the future. The statistics on the official website suggest that TFA teachers perform at the same level, if not higher, than their colleagues who were trained through traditional education programs. Despite these positive reports, there has been a growing backlash against TFA for not training teachers for the challenges they will meet in their classroom.

Teach for America Training

TFA usually recruits college graduates (often without education degrees) to teach in the most high-need school districts across the nation. Recruits undergo a five-to-seven week training course the summer before they begin their two year contract at a given school. According to TFA’s website, there are five components to the summer institute: teaching summer school, receiving observations and feedback, rehearsals and reflections on the classroom experience, curriculum instruction, and lesson-planning clinics. The training course is built on the assumption that recruits will learn quickly and embrace challenges. After the summer institute, a five day regional induction/orientation period introduces recruits to the town in which they will be working, connecting them with fellow educators and community members. Recruits rely heavily on mentors both within the school system and from the TFA regional network to aid them in the transition.

Concerns with the TFA Training 

TFA has come under fire over the past several years for how little material the summer institute covers. In an essay for The Washington Post, Professor Jack Schneider summed up the problematic nature of this training:

Even filling every moment of the day as they do, there simply isn’t enough time in five weeks to prepare novices for the classroom.  And to make matters more complicated, TFA corps members are often placed in schools where they are least qualified to be.

TFA subscribes to a philosophy of “learning by doing,” wherein teachers adapt to the needs of their classroom in real time. TFA cites the Mathematica Policy Research group’s 2004 report that students taught by TFA recruits topped their peers in math and matched them in reading as evidence that this strategy works. However, a 2010 review of independent research by Professors Julian Vasquez Heilig (University of Texas at Austin) and Dr. Su Jin Jez (California State University, Sacramento) revealed that students taught by TFA recruits perform at significantly lower levels than their peers taught by credentialed beginning teachers. This report found that

Teach for America recruits start at a disadvantage. After several years, they perform equal to or better than their peers, but they often leave the profession before the benefits of their experience can make an impact in the classroom. School districts must spend more money on recruiting as a result of Teach for America’s churn. In addition, the organization charges school districts an average of $2,500 for each teacher it provides, and districts spend extra money to train teachers once they arrive.

One of the largest problems with TFA recruits is that they only sign on for two-year periods. Fortunately, many TFA recruits have begun to stay longer than their two-year commitment. A 2011 study found that 60.5 percent of TFA teachers continue as public school teachers beyond their initial two-year commitment. However, remaining within the public school system is not equivalent to staying in the same teaching position. The same study found that 56.4 percent of TFA recruits leave their initial posting after two years and that after five years, only 14.8 percent of recruits continue to teach at the same low-income school to which they were originally assigned. TFA recruits may develop a love for teaching but that doesn’t mean they stay in the schools where their skills are most needed.

Teach for America in West Virginia

The TFA training program will encounter a new set of hurdles upon its implementation in West Virginia. As the program has not operated in the state before, and is only sending a minimal cadre of teachers to work there, the mentoring network for TFA recruits will be less engrained. One big concern is that it will be difficult to hold an effective regional orientation if the organizers themselves are only just adjusting to the West Virginian environment. TFA has operated in Appalachia for several years, but its activities have been confined to Kentucky–specifically to rural eastern Kentucky. TFA recruited a substantially larger set of teachers in Kentucky, bringing in 30 a year since 2011. The Kentucky program is well-established, with connections to the public school system and a set of TFA alumni who can serve as advisers for incoming TFA recruits in the region. TFA is hoping that West Virginia will parallel the Kentucky program, creating a broader Appalachian success story, but the nonprofit’s proposed efforts in West Virginia are currently so minor that it will be difficult for TFA recruits to make any sort of significant impact in the community.

Teach for America: Are there alternatives?

Teach for America is often considered the only successful program of its kind in the American educational system. Despite its inefficiencies, there is no nationally integrated program that attracts as many college graduates as TFA does. This may change in the coming months, due to a host of educational grants enacted this fall. In November, the Gates Foundation announced that it will be funneling $34 million in grants to five teacher education and preparation centers across the nation. Vicki Phillips, director of College Ready Education at the Gates Foundation, said that

We know that having an excellent teacher is critical to a student’s success, but there is still much to learn about how to best prepare teacher-candidates to be successful in the classroom. We’re excited to fund these new Teacher Preparation Transformation Centers so that together, we can better understand which practices are the most effective in preparing new teachers.

Funding these teacher preparation systems will create a new supply of credentialed teachers for K-12 education, so the most needy schools in America will have access to more qualified candidates and will not be as reliant on TFA recruits. In addition, the Harvard Graduate School of Teaching announced a brand new pilot program that will be launched next year called the Harvard Teaching Fellows, which is marketed as an alternative to TFA. The Harvard program plans to:

Engage Harvard students in the second semester of their senior year, with selected students taking a foundational course in the spring and remaining at Harvard for a summer-long training program following Commencement. In September, they will be deployed to partner school networks and districts where they will teach in a classroom, though with only a 60 percent workload. Fellows will then come back to Cambridge for a second summer of professional development for additional support before they return to classrooms. Upon a second year of teaching and program completion, fellows will continue to have support and connections to Harvard Teaching Fellows for the next few years of their careers.

After student protests against TFA in 2014, Harvard has been moving away from connecting its graduates with the organization. The Harvard Teaching Fellows program is only in its infancy, but the fact that it was designed specifically to address the shortcomings of TFA gives it a certain cachet in the education world. School districts like those in West Virginia may prefer to receive teachers from these preparation centers in the coming years rather than the handful of TFA recruits they are currently relying on. More efficient and comprehensive training for teachers could transform school districts across the country to the point that TFA may become less prevalent. In lieu of reforming TFA, the education sector may prefer to phase the program out entirely, replacing TFA recruits with teachers who graduated from these newly funded preparation centers.

Conclusion

Teach for America began twenty-five years ago with the best of intentions: connecting educated and passionate young people with students in dire need of educators and mentors. However, educators are concerned that the lack of training that these teachers receive may leave their students struggling in the classroom and the brief nature of their contract leaves school administrators scrambling to find replacements every two years. The introduction of new teacher preparation centers may solve the shortcomings of the Teach for America training process, but for now, Teach for America is the only organization sending a steady stream of teachers into the nation’s most desperate schools. Parents and educational professionals in West Virginia are only just opening their doors to Teach for America, but with that invitation, they also may be welcoming a lower caliber of teacher.

Resources 

Primary

TFA: Summer Training

TFA: Our History

TFA: On The Record

Additional

Charleston Gazette-Mail: Teach for America Still Coming to W.Va, but Impact May be Limited

Metro News West Virginia: Why WV needs Teach for America

Washington Post: Teach for America’s “Dirty Little Secret”

Washington Post: A New Look at Teach for America

Harvard Magazine: Is Teach for America Good for America?

The Gates Foundation: Gates Foundation Awards Over $34 Million in Grants to Help Improve Teacher Preparation Programs

The Harvard Crimson: To Teach A Teacher: Harvard’s Alternative to Teach for America

Education Week: TFA Teachers: How Long Do They Teach? Why Do They Leave?

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Teach for America Expands to West Virginia: Potential Pitfalls and Alternatives appeared first on Law Street.

For centuries, there have been a handful of professions that are respected and privileged around the world: doctor, lawyer, and professor all come to mind. These professions are often thought of in broad stereotypes–elderly men sitting in wood-lined studies, wearing jackets with patches on the elbows, and heading off to golf games at three in the afternoon. In reality, all three of these professions have diversified over the past fifty years, yet we still think of them as representative of the upper class. While medical and legal salaries are still generous and relatively stable, the same cannot be said for academia. Success as a professor is now inextricably linked to receiving tenure (a permanent job contract), without which professors are often relegated to “visiting” or “assistant/adjunct” professor status. Without the protection of tenure, adjunct professors are constantly vulnerable and rarely get the support and resources they need to put their best foot forward in the classroom. Read on for a look at the realities of being a professor in America.

What is tenure?

In the American collegiate system, professors receive tenure after several years of teaching at a given institution, usually three years at community colleges and six to seven years at four-year colleges. Although tenure was designed to protect the academic freedom and economic stability of professors, many education experts argue that it promotes lackluster teaching, as professors cease to engage with their students as soon as they receive tenure. Tenure is not a lifetime job guarantee, but a school administration cannot dismiss a tenured professor unless they present sufficient evidence that the professor is incompetent or has behaved inappropriately, or that an academic department must be closed for financial reasons. Although most professors enter the teaching field with tenure as their ultimate goal, the number of tenured professors in the United States has been steadily declining in recent years. Colleges rely increasingly on part-time or non-tenure-track professors to fill their open positions, because they can hire and fire faculty on a rotating basis. A non-tenure-track contract is designed to hire for the short term, and while some PhD students embark on the non-tenure-track by choice, a majority view non-tenure-track positions as an interim until they can switch to the tenure track. Unfortunately, the more reliant colleges become on non-tenure-track professors, the fewer tenure track positions are opened. Non-tenure-track contracts let colleges save money, as they are paying professors “per course” as opposed to the fixed salary that tenured professors receive. According to Forbes contributor and Professor David Kroll,

Rather than paying a professor $75,000 plus benefits, you can now hire from the ranks of unemployed scientists a no-benefits PhD at $3,000-$4,500 per 3 credit hour class per semester. I have seen some tenure-track faculty actually be threatened by their supervisors with being replaced by such adjunct faculty if they can’t score grant funding. The abuse of adjunct faculty by US universities is a travesty.

A 2014 report by the U.S. House of Representatives revealed that a large portion of non-tenure-track professors live below the poverty line, whereas their tenured colleagues receive a significant and stable salary. The alleged exploitation of non-tenure-track faculty has flown largely under the radar in recent political debates over American higher education. The Obama administration has worked tirelessly to promote higher education–aiming to make it affordable and inclusive, encouraging as many students as possible to enroll. The introduction of the College Scorecard this year gave students access to a “data dump of epic proportions” but it doesn’t tell them anything about the professors who teach at a given school.

This is problematic for many reasons. For example according to Adrianna Kezar’s Delphi Project, students taught primarily by adjunct professors are more likely to drop out. According to an interview Kezar gave to The Atlantic last year:

This high attrition rate has nothing to do with the quality of instruction adjuncts provide; it is entirely a function of the compromised working conditions adjuncts face…universities do not give adjuncts the basic resources they need to properly teach their courses, such as sample syllabi or learning objectives. Since most departments hire adjuncts at the last minute, they are often inadequately prepared to enter the classroom. Universities do not provide adjuncts with office space, making it difficult for them to meet with students outside class. To make matters worse, many adjuncts teach at several colleges to make ends meet: Commuting—sometimes between great distances—further reduces the time they can devote to individual students.

The United States is graduating more students than ever before, yet there are concerns that we’re not paying attention to who is teaching those students and how well they are compensated for their efforts.

Who Defends Non-Tenure-Track Professors?

The Coalition on the Academic Workforce (CAW), an umbrella organization comprised of various academic unions and advocacy groups, has aimed to address the unjust nature of the existing tenure system. CAW has conducted various surveys of faculty across the nation and has published a series of reports condemning the inequality of the current academic system.

But the majority of CAW’s research, which concludes that pay is too low and there is little opportunity for advancement for adjunct professors, has been ignored by college administrations and politicians alike. Most lawmakers focus on public K-12 education when discussing tenure, balancing the interests of taxpayers and teachers unions. Higher learning is often left off the docket at town hall debates and round table discussions on whether abandoning tenure is the next great reform in education.

Although some adjuncts prefer the flexibility of a short-term contract, the majority of those surveyed in University of Michigan study were concerned with job security and the potential for professional growth.  The study also found that non-tenure-track faculty often felt they were disrespected or excluded in the workplace, suggesting that tenure-track professors rarely welcome their adjunct colleagues into their departments–perhaps because they fear they will be replaced by adjuncts, as Kroll suggested.

Tenure in K-12 Education

In public K-12 schools, tenure (which is usually received after three years of teaching) protects teachers from being fired without just cause. Though tenure is meant to protect teachers and reward them for positive work, parents and educational reformers often worry that it protects bad teachers while preventing more qualified teachers from entering the school district. Teachers’ unions have historically defended tenure, arguing that it protects teachers from discrimination and unwarranted criticism. In October, New York teachers unions sought to dismiss a case that would make it easier for school districts to fire teachers and extend the number of years necessary to receive tenure from three to four. The judge denied the motion to dismiss the case and it will move forward in the coming months.

The case argues that tenure violates students’ civil rights because inefficient  teachers receive job protection in some of the most disadvantaged schools in the country. In the case of K-12 education, cases are often fought between the teachers unions and a coalition of parents–each side is well-organized, committed, and can find political allies relatively easily. Almost every municipality has its own teachers union, which feed into larger regional and national union structures. By contrast, academia’s umbrella union, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), only has chapters in a few dozen of the thousands of American colleges across the nation. AAUP aims to advocate for professors but it has nowhere near the political sway of K-12 teachers’ unions.

What are the arguments for preserving the current system?

Advocates for preserving the tenure track argue that it is the most effective defense against “anti-intellectualism” in academia. Without tenure, professors may be fired simply for having controversial opinions–Professor Jonathan R. Cole of Columbia University explains:

Tenure grew up in the first two decades of the 20th century in response to the abusive use of power by university presidents and Trustees who were free to fire professors for almost any reason, most often because of their social and political views…in the past decade, strong opposition to the War in Iraq and Afghanistan led to sanctions and dismissals of non-tenured faculty at American universities…f we demand conformity and orthodoxy among our professor, and we fail to protect them when they play the critical role that is at the heart of a great university, then the quality of our institutions of higher learning will inevitably decline.

Proponents of the tenure track also argue that providing tenure retains good teachers and attracts teachers of a higher quality to a given school, although this argument is often applied to K-12 schools rather than higher education. Tenure provides economic stability that makes the teaching profession more attractive, encouraging our brightest minds to give back to the next generation through teaching.

All of these arguments present valid reasons for preserving tenure, but critics worry that none of them address why tenure-track academia has become such an exclusive club in the United States. If tenure is such a beneficial system, why are universities so hesitant to expand it? Universities have the right to deny tenure if they find the candidate to be a bad professor, but if they are turning away qualified candidates merely to cut costs, the tenure system appears to have strayed far from its original goals.

Conclusion

In the twenty-first century, higher education has shifted from an option to almost an inevitable step in the lives of many high school students. As we send more and more students off to four-year colleges, it is critical we understand exactly where their tuition money is going and what they are paying for when they enroll in a course. Will they be greeted by a professor who is well-prepared, enthusiastic, and supported by the administration or by a professor who can barely present a coherent lesson–either because tenure has left them complacent or because the stressful nature of adjunct teaching has left them physically and mentally exhausted? We owe to it both students and teachers to create environments where talent is recognized and rewarded.  The tenure system needs to be debated and reformed both within individual universities and on a national level.  Unless we open this dialogue soon, there’s concern that we’ll see American universities mutate from beacons of learning and opportunity into inefficient programs that value cost-efficiency over education.

Resources

Primary

U.S. House of Representatives: The Just In Time Professor: A Staff Report Summarizing eForum Responses on the Working Conditions of Contingent Faculty in Higher Education

Additional

AFT Higher Education: The Growth of Full-Time Nontenure-Track Faculty

National Education Association: The Truth about Tenure in Higher Education

The  Atlantic: The Adjunct Revolt: How Poor Professors Are Fighting Back

Forbes: Top 10 Reasons Being A University Professor Is A Stressful Job

Inger Bergom and Jean Waltman: Satisfaction and Discontent: Voices of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty

AFT: How Due Process Protects Teachers and Students

The Washington Examiner: Unions Suffer Loss in Teacher Tenure Court Case

A Coalition on the Academic Workforce: A Portrait of Part-Time Faculty Members: A Summary of Findings on Part-Time Faculty Respondents to the Coalition on the Academic Workforce Survey of Contingent Faculty Members and Instructors (2012)

Slate: Finishing School: The Case for Getting Rid of Tenure

The Huffington Post: Why Academic Tenure is Essential for Great Universities

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

The post Professor in Name Only: Teaching Without Tenure in American Universities appeared first on Law Street.

Before choosing a college or university, many LGBTQ students, staff, and faculty consider how many resources–or the lack thereof–a school has for them. This scrutiny is a necessary part of researching schools because there are many legal barriers to LGBTQ students’ safety on college and university campuses. So what are some of these legal hurdles that LGBTQ students face and try to change on campus?

Challenges Facing LGBTQ Students

LGBTQ students–particularly LGBTQ students of color–face tremendous (and often violent) barriers on college campuses. Lacking a federal legal incentive to protect LGBTQ students on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity, college administrations often allow unsafe conditions for LGBTQ students who are constantly subjected to both everyday microaggressions and harassment on campus. LGBTQ students face threats and harassment from other students on campus at a disproportionate rate, including many gay students reporting the use of gay slurs against them while walking alone on campus. A full third of LGB students and staff on college campuses have considered leaving their institution due to campus environments that perpetuate homophobia. Because of these kinds of hostilities, more than half of all LGBT students and staff hide their identity to avoid discrimination and harassment. Even this measure does not even help, however: online forms of harassment, including public outing, contribute to gay students committing suicide, often embodied by the famous case of Tyler Clementi at Rutgers several years ago.

Obstacles for Transgender Students 

Transgender students face a series of unique challenges. Due to the immense legal obstacles (which vary state by state) to obtaining the legal name changes that allow transgender students’ identities to match the names on their ID cards, class rosters, certificates, and school email addresses, many colleges leave transgender students open to being outed on their first day of class as professors read out rosters with students’ incorrect name listed. Without implementing streamlined policies that allow students to enter their preferred name instead of their legal name on all public campus documents, colleges subject transgender students to the kind of unsafe conditions that lead to all sorts of discrimination and harassment.

For transgender and gender nonconforming students in particular, the administrative and legal obstacles to staying safe on campus–even in states that already prohibit discrimination based on gender expression and identity and sexual orientation–are immense, and include daily struggles from consistent misgendering to threats of violence when students simply need to use the restroom. As one transgender student, Zo Anthony Shay, a fourth-year student at UCLA, says, “Every time I took a piss [on campus], I need to look around so I don’t have my face smashed into a wall…We’re fighting for our lives.”

Some states like Kentucky and Texas, are considering criminalizing transgender people who use the restroom that matches their gender identity. This will pose a tremendous problem to campuses in those states, and increases the impetus for LGBT campus activists to ensure that their schools have gender-neutral restrooms to ensure that transgender and gender non-conforming students will not risk severe health issues and violence  for simply using the restroom. This has the potential to be a particular problem for transwomen at women’s colleges in states that do not protect people on the basis of gender identity and expression.

According to Genny Beemyn, the director of the Stonewall Center at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst,

Trans students and allies have been working now for a number of years at many schools to create gender-inclusive bathrooms and gender-inclusive housing options, because those are pretty basic – to have a place to sleep and a place to pee…They’re looking now to address other important issues, and so gender in name documentation, hormones and surgeries are coming up more and more frequently for schools that have really begun to address transgender issues.

The hormones and surgery coverage that Beemyn refers to brings into question the kinds of health care plans that colleges provide to students and college employees. While only 63 colleges and universities across the country cover transgender-related health care for students, including therapy, hormones, and gender affirmation surgery, even fewer (39 schools) offer these necessary health resources to college employees. These resources are not only vital to the health of many transgender people, but things such as therapy and hormone treatment are generally mandated by state law in order for a transgender person to obtain legal documentation that reflects their proper name. By not granting insurance coverage to students and employees for these medical costs, most colleges and universities across the United States actively bar transgender students and employees from receiving necessary health care.

Lack of Legal Protections

According to a 2010 survey conducted by the Q Research Institute for Higher Education (an initiative of the advocacy group Campus Pride), LGBTQ students–especially all transgender and gender nonconforming students and particularly students of color–face discrimination and harassment on college campuses at more than double the rate experienced by straight, cisgender students. The Chronicle of Higher Education summarized the report as such:

About a quarter of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer students and employees said they had experienced harassment, as did more than a third of transgender and “gender nonconforming” respondents, compared with 12 percent of heterosexuals.

Seventy percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer students and employees felt comfortable with the overall campus climate, the report says, a rate that was higher than that among transgender and gender-nonconforming respondents but lower than that of heterosexuals. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer students who were also members of racial minority groups felt less comfortable in their classes than did their white counterparts, and faculty members were more likely than were students and staff members to have considered leaving their institutions, the report says.

Currently, federal non-discrimination statutes do not directly protect LGBTQ individuals on college campuses on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The Senate recently voted down an amendment designed specifically to protect elementary and secondary school LGBT students from legal discrimination across the country. However, a recently introduced bill might offer a legal remedy to that lack of protection. According to Buzzfeed News, the bill, which Democratic supporters have dubbed the “Equality Act,” would expand the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include protections against discrimination for gender identity and sexual orientation. This would impact higher education by amending Title IV to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination at education institutions receiving federal funding.

Though this Equality Act has the potential to provide legal protections for people using public restrooms that match their gender identity–a huge and dangerous obstacle for students on college campuses–it is unlikely that the bill would be able to provide any immediate relief for students who experience violence and discrimination. For example, even though the NYC Commission on Human Rights has already stated that any user of New York City public restrooms cannot legally be stopped and/or asked to present ID for using the restroom that matches their gender identity, this discrimination is still common practice in New York City. However, in terms of legal precedent, this change could potentially go a long way toward securing broad LGBTQ legal rights on college campuses.

Conclusion

While many, if not most, college campuses do not have provisions to offer legal and day-to-day structural protections for LGBT students, most if not all colleges do have at least informal, active student groups of LGBT students that offer each other support throughout their college careers. The schools that are the most structurally supportive of LGBT students can be found through Campus Pride’s “Campus Pride Index,” and state-by-state regulations that affect school policies are listed at Lambda Legal’s guide here. While some of these schools do an excellent job of welcoming LGBTQ students, more work needs to be done across the board to ensure that everyone is able to have a safe college experience.

Resources

Campus Pride: Q Research Institute for Higher Education

Lambda Project: State Regulations

Buzzfeed: Democrats Plan to Introduce Sweeping LGBT Rights Bill in Congress this Week

Lambda Legal: In Your State

Inside HigherEd: Broadening the Transgender Agenda

Chronicle of Higher Education: Gay Students and College Employees Face Significant Harassment, Report Says

Education Week: Senate Votes Down ESEA Amendment Designed to Protect LGBT Students

The Washington Free Beacon: Feds: Transgender Bathroom Choice a Matter of ‘Health and Safety’

NASPA Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education: LGBTQ Issues on Campus: What’s Changing?

Jennifer Polish

Jennifer Polish is an English PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC, where she studies non/human animals and the racialization of dis/ability in young adult literature. When she’s not yelling at the computer because Netflix is loading too slowly, she is editing her novel, doing activist-y things, running, or giving the computer a break and yelling at books instead. Contact Jennifer at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post LGBTQ College Students: Legal Hurdles and Rights appeared first on Law Street.

Art education can benefit students in different ways, including improving student performance across the whole curriculum. But art programs in schools are often the first to be cut, if budget cuts are necessary. As a result, many students are missing out on the benefits of art classes. So, is it important to provide art education in schools? Read on to learn about art programs’ benefits and the issues with funding them for public school students.

What is the current state of art education in American schools?

Art education in public schools usually includes any combination of dance, music, drama/theatre, and visual arts classes. It’s usually funded by the federal, state, and local governments, but not all schools provide their students with art education.

Budget Cuts

Following the recent recession, budgets cuts were consistent in schools across the U.S., with more than 95 percent of students attending schools with significantly reduced budgets. It’s estimated that since 2008, more than 80 percent of schools nationwide experienced cuts to their budgets. As a remedy in some instances, art programs were partially or completely eliminated from affected school districts. Dance and theatre classes in particular were cut drastically. During the 1999-2000 school year, 20 percent of schools offered dance and theatre classes, but in the 2009-10 school year, only 3 percent of schools allocated funds for dance classes, and only 4 percent taught theatre. The number of schools that offered music classes didn’t change significantly over the last decade, indicating no budget cuts in that subject area, with 94 percent of schools still offering music classes. But the number of schools offering visual arts programs dropped from 87 percent in 1999-2000 to 83 percent in 2009-10. In 2013, public schools in major cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC, are still struggling with budget cuts, resulting in the continued elimination of art programs across affected school districts. Due to budget constraints, fewer schools offer art classes today than a decade ago.

Emphasis on Core Subjects

In addition to less money being spent on education because of the recession, various government policies, including the No Child Left Behind Act and the Common Core State Standards have placed greater emphasis on core subjects, such as math and reading. In doing so, they have sidelined arts education. In light of these policies, school districts began re-directing funds toward subjects that require standardized testing in order to increase the overall scores of their students.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act was signed into law in 2002 by President George W. Bush. The act was then re-authorized to ensure better access to high-quality education for all children, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or class. As the emphasis was placed on core subjects, such as math and reading, funding for art programs decreased significantly, especially for those art classes that required studio materials. As a result, art education in some schools was completely eliminated, although children still sometimes had the option to take certain art classes after school with volunteer teachers. In some school districts, art classes were still offered, but only with a limited number of seats.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is a current state-wide initiative that emphasizes the development of skills needed for students to succeed in college and future careers. As of now, 46 states have CCSS and are working on implementation. Similar to No Child Left Behind, CCSS focuses on those subjects that require standardized testing, and doesn’t include art education in its core. As a result, many schools choose to allocate funds for math and English language classes, often at the expense of art education. However, the Common Core Standards references arts in the curriculum, by some estimations, 75 times. In this regard, some art educators and advocates believe that art education can be aligned with the Common Core standards. To promote integration of art classes, the new National Core Arts Standards were developed and released to the public in 2014 as a conceptual framework. In 2015, a model cornerstone assessment pilot project was launched “to demonstrate the type of standards-based evidence needed to show student achievement.” These assessments will continue in 2016.

Disparities in Accessing Art Education

Even though art programs were slashed nationwide, schools with higher concentrations of impoverished students or minority students suffered the most. According to 2008 data, African-American and Hispanic students were two times less likely to have access to art programs in their school districts in comparison to their white peers. Interestingly, the rates of African-American and Hispanic students who have received art education while in school have been declining since the beginning of 1990s. In 1992, 50.9 percent of African-American 18-24 year olds received art education in childhood, while in 2008, only 26.2 percent of the same demographic had access to art classes in schools. Similar numbers are true for Hispanic children: 47.2 percent had art education in 1992 and only 28.1 percent had the option in 2008. In comparison, there were no comparable rates of decline in art education for white 18-24 year olds.

Most of the schools that serve low-income students already have reduced budgets due to the recession and its aftermath. In addition, as many schools in poor neighborhoods are considered low-performing, they face an intense pressure to meet Common Core standards through math and English language tests. If a school fails these standards it may be placed into program improvement status. In this situation, art classes become even less of a priority, and may be significantly reduced or completely cut from the curriculum. Art programs in schools that have a large number of low-income students are also rarely restored. While more affluent school districts can rely on private funding to still provide art education for students, or parents can simply pay for after-school art classes, children in poor neighborhoods most likely don’t have those options. This scenario creates disparities in access to art education between communities.

What are the benefits of art education?

It’s evident that art classes are the first to be cut from the budget, the last to be restored, and often unavailable for low-income students. But why do we need art classes at all?

Improved Performance

First and foremost, art education improves the overall performance of students, including in the core academic subjects that are often emphasized by standardized testing requirements. Students who took four years of art classes scored 91 points higher on their SAT exams than those who took half a year or less. Multiple studies also confirmed that there is a correlation between art engagement and students’ other achievements. Students who regularly participated in art classes were four times more likely to be recognized for their achievements.

Higher Graduation Rates

Art education can help keep students in school. Schools with long-standing art programs have higher graduation rates. In many instances, art classes motivate students to stay in school, especially low-achieving students, by fostering closer ties with peers and creating community-oriented environments.

Inspiration and Creativity

Art can inspire students to create and express themselves in a variety of forms. It provides the spark that keeps children engaged and allows them to have fun while exploring the world through different art forms. Art education develops creativity and problem-solving skills, improves judgement, and shows children that there are multiple perspectives. Finally, it encourages inventiveness, helping foster innovative thinkers.

Child Development

Children in elementary schools can greatly benefit from art classes, as they are still growing physically and mentally. Visual arts classes are highly recommended for developing motor skills in young children. Every time a child holds a paintbrush or cuts with safety scissors, his motor and dexterity skills improve. The same is true for developing language skills. Young children can learn colors, shapes, and descriptive words while making simple art projects and discussing them with their peers and teacher. In fact, 33 percent of children are visual learners, meaning they absorb information from images. Art classes can help to improve visual-spatial skills and hand eye coordination.

Music education at a younger age is also very beneficial as it helps to connect both hemispheres of the brain, producing long-lasting improvements in communication and listening. In fact, children who play musical instruments just thirty minutes a week have more developed brains than their peers.

Art also makes children aware of different cultures, traditions, and customs, providing a foundation for understanding racial diversity, which is an important part of American society and history. All in all, art education has tremendous benefits for elementary school students, as it helps children to develop physical skills, brain functions, and ideas.

At-Risk Youth

Art classes are beneficial for students in many ways, but especially for children who are low-income and live in impoverished neighborhoods. Art programs can keep at-risk youth off the streets, and, consequently, away from correctional institutions. Not only can art programs provide incentives for these children to stay in school, but it can also improve their academic performance, including reading and math. At-risk students with a history of art involvement have higher college enrollment rates than their at-risk peers who didn’t pursue art education. They are three times more likely to earn Bachelor’s degrees than their peers. Students who didn’t take art classes are five times more likely to drop out of school before graduation. Art can help disadvantaged children to realize their full potential as it provides a safe harbor for those students who may lack a supportive environment at home.

How can we bring art programs back to schools?

It’s clear that art education is extremely important for children of all ages. As a result, many schools have begun to rely upon private funding or combinations of private and public funds when financing their art programs. Besides private donors, non-profit organizations have begun to play a leading role in funding art classes in local schools. For example, in 2013, the Eugene Education Foundation (EEF) allocated 30 percent of its grants to art education in schools. Those grants are funded by community members. EEF has also created an Artists in Residence program. This practice of bringing art experts into a classroom for a limited amount of time has proven to be very rewarding. For example, students at Awbrey Park Elementary in Oregon were able to experience Mexican arts and crafts for one month with an expert from Eugene Arte Latino. There are also many parent-teacher organizations that are fundraising for art education.

Charter schools can be also a leading force in art education. New York City has 210 charter schools, some of which have already implemented in-depth art curriculums. Ascend Learning is a network of seven charter schools in Brooklyn, modeled after elite private schools with famous paintings in the hallways to expose children to art.

On a larger scale, state initiatives can greatly improve art education in schools. California’s Core Reforms Engaging Arts to Educate (CREATE) is a large-scale project to bring arts back to the classroom, bridging the gap of budget cuts.

Conclusion

Art education is an important component of childhood development. It also can pave the way for a child’s academic and future success as a professional. While the picture is not that bleak across the nation, it does in some cases fall across racial lines. In this regard, non-profits, communities, teachers, private individuals, and states are already creating a wave of change, moving from perceiving art education as expendable costs toward an overall realization of its benefits. The recent development of National Core Arts Standards is a promising step, as alining art eduction with Common Core Standards can hopefully bring arts back to the classroom.

Resources

Primary

Common Core State Standards Initiative: What is the Common Core?

National Center for Educational Statistics: Arts Education in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools: 1999-2000 and 2009-10

Additional

Americans For The Arts: Decline of Arts Education in Undeserved Populations

Americans For The Arts: Uneven Education Opportunities Nationwide

College Board for the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards: The Art and The Common Core

National Coalition for Core Arts Standards: Model Cornerstone Pilot Project 2014

Huffington Post: Is Federal Money The Best Way To Fund The Arts? Join The Debate

The Washington Post: Will Less Art and Music in the Classroom Really Help Students Soar Academically?

EugeneWeekly: Budget Cuts Affect Music, Arts

Think Progress: Public Schools Slash Arts Education And Turn To Private Funding

PBS Parents: The Importance of Art in Child Development

Artsz: 20 Reasons Why Art is Important for Children

US News: Extracurriculars Are Central to Learning

Seattle PI: Budget Cuts to Art Programs in Schools

The Hechinger Report: Do the Arts Go Hand in Hand With Common Core?

EdSource: Effort to Revive Arts Programs in Schools Gains Momentum

Art & Education Exchange: Where the Arts and Common Core Intersect

The AEP Wire: No Child Left Behind: A Study of its Impact on Art Education

The Notebook: NCLB: Taking a Toll on Arts and Music Education

Valeriya Metla

Valeriya Metla is a young professional, passionate about international relations, immigration issues, and social and criminal justice. She holds two Bachelor Degrees in regional studies and international criminal justice. Contact Valeriya at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post School Art Programs: Should They Be Saved? appeared first on Law Street.

At a time when the media is full of references to rising levels of childhood obesity and Diabetes, the debate over mandating physical education classes in elementary, middle, and high schools is a particularly passionate one for many teachers, parents, doctors, and students. But is mandatory physical education helpful, harmful, or a mixture of both?

“Just Do It”–Because Kids Won’t

Across the country, only one quarter of youths are engaging in physical activity for at least an hour a day: that means that three quarters of surveyed young people in the U.S. are arguably at increased risk for various health impairments often associated with weight gain and/or inactivity such as Diabetes and heart disease.

Whether it’s because of long commutes to school, piles of extra homework due to high-stakes testing, race- and class-based inaccessibility to play spaces, or the rise in mobile devices that keep many young people stationary, physical activity is often not prioritized for youths.

Schools are often not helping with this problem, as most schools across the country do not adhere to National Association of Sports and Physical Education standards that school children should participate in 150 minutes of physical education per week.

Advocates of mandatory PE in schools often argue that because school is where most young people spend the overwhelming majority of their time, a lack of gym requirements, combined with increasing restrictions on or complete eliminations of recess time, can be devastating for young people’s health. Proponents argue that schools should require PE classes not only for the present fitness benefits, but for the formation of long-term fitness habits.

The goal, for better and for worse, of much of the U.S. education system currently is to channel many students into jobs that will be stationary: jobs that require us to sit at our desks all day, every day. This is similar to being in school: in this work structure, time must be set aside for physical activity. Getting young people into this habit of going out of their way to exercise each day can help them form routines that will assist with avoiding some of the health risks of remaining stationary for so long.

This is especially important because as young people age, they become less physically active, especially if they enter the nine-to-five workforce. Additionally, young people usually have less independence than adults; while it is an option for an adult with a full-time job to go to the gym either before or after work, young people usually don’t have the same option. Therefore, setting aside mandatory time for them to move around while they are in school is arguably an excellent–and one of the only–options to provide students with access to physical fitness.

In addition to the importance of habit formation and access to spaces where healthy levels of activity are encouraged, mandatory PE is often touted as being emotionally and mentally healthy for young people. Exercise is known to reduce stress and anxiety, and especially when anxiety-inducing high-stakes testing is part of most students’ lives, making the time for PE classes can help reduce this stress, and go a long way toward improving the lives of students.

Not All Gym Classes Are Created Equal

Despite the acknowledged benefits of exercise itself, many argue against PE requirements in schools. Students themselves often bristle at the requirements–according to a major study of PE programs across the country conducted by Cornell University, most students believe that gym classes are ineffective.

Cathy Brewton of the Florida Department of Health surveyed students across five counties in her state and found that:

The reasons [the students] didn’t exercise in school was because they didn’t like getting dressed, getting sweaty during the day, and their classes were over-capacitated… Kids said if they were going to do phys ed, they wanted to do something fun.

And surely not all students have fun when the rest of their class is playing basketball. For example, many students in mandatory PE classes spend most of their time standing or sitting on the sidelines while more traditionally athletic students play. Not only does this exclude many students, but it illustrates that, even when PE classes are required, fitness goals are not being met for all or even most students.

Critics say that academic goals, too, are sidelined by mandatory PE classes. Mark Terry, the president of the National Association of Elementary School Principles, argues that while public school budgets are tightening to begin with, there are many impossible choices that must be made when choosing to require PE classes. He asks,

What are you going to do less of? Are you going to do away with art or cut back on music or cut back on the minutes you have in the classroom?

Bullying in Gym 

Furthermore, many students–even when PE is required–simply do not exercise during the classes, and many are in fact actively discouraged from doing so by mandatory PE classes, particularly through bullying.

A great deal of students are actively alienated in gym classes. These students are often those with dis/abilities, students from low-income families, students considered overweight, and/or LGBTQ students.

Public school teacher Jim Dilmon, who has Aspergers, has written of his experience with gym classes that,

Social settings, including physical education class, often heighten the stress or anxiety levels of kids with Aspergers. However, if properly addressed, the physical education classroom offers a good opportunity for kids with and without disabilities to interact with peers.

He goes on to enumerate and explain many useful strategies that PE teachers can use to make gym classes better and more effective spaces for students on the spectrum.

Short of implementing these recommendations and making curricula overall more accommodating to all students, PE classes may very well increase the stress and anxiety levels (not to mention decrease the physical activity levels) of many students. Even though, as mentioned above, exercise is known to reduce stress and anxiety, the setting of PE classes often induces anxiety for many students. The most basic Google search of “gym class anxiety” will reveal a plethora of cries for help from students and parents alike who make it clear that the stress and anxiety that accompanies mandatory gym classes can be extremely debilitating.

Students who experience this anxiety are often subjected to bullying during PE class. Students who endure maltreatment in their gym classes are shown to stop many forms of physical activity in the long term. LGBTQ students are especially prone to be targeted for bullying–most LGBTQ students report being bullied in PE classes–as are students considered to be overweight and/or dis/abled.

It is not just cruel children who are responsible for this bullying and anxiety, however: there is a larger structure at play in advocacy for mandatory gym classes that values thin, able-bodied, gender-conforming students over those who do not conform to societal standards. By placing such an emphasis on certain kinds of physical abilities and weight loss, mandatory PE increases the anxiety, stress, and feelings of extreme guilt and failure that often accompany the emphasis on obtaining a certain kind of body.

Missing the Bigger Picture?

Even if mandatory PE classes did not risk harming many students, critics argue that emphasizing PE classes as a means to “fight obesity” is completely missing the point.

Schools are struggling for resources as it is, and schools in impoverished areas–often in neighborhoods of color–are struggling more than others. It is precisely in these neighborhoods that young people are more likely to be subjected to the impacts of environmental racism that cause many health problems. That raises the question: would focusing on these structural problems of access be more effective than focusing on symptoms (by mandating physical education classes) rather than causes (which include massive food and diet corporations profiting off of each other)?

Another crucial question about structure relates to intra-school dynamics: would freeing children from being forced to be still at desks all day–changing the structure of education to be itself more holistically active–go a longer way toward encouraging activity than setting aside a half hour to an hour for specific kinds of activity every other day? Perhaps, but there’s no way to know for certain.

So, is PE Good or Bad?

As with everything in education, the answer depends on both the individual students and their circumstances. Overall, it seems that both critics and proponents of mandatory physical education classes agree that in order to be effective, existing PE classes need to exist in the context of broader changes and revamp their curricula to reach more students without alienating those who are often harmed by current PE class structures.

Resources

Time: Couch Culture: Only a Quarter of U.S. Youth Get Recommended Excercise

Time: Childhood Obesity: Most U.S. Schools Don’t Require P.E. Classes

Education.com: Physical Education is Critical to a Complete Education

Time: The Older Kids Get, the Less They Move

Anxiety and Depression Association of America: Physical Activity Reduces Stress

Public School Review: The Pros and Cons of Mandatory Gym Class in Public Schools

NBC News: So Just How Bad is Your Child’s Gym Class?

ABC News: No Sweat When Gym Class Cut

USA Today: More PE, Activity Programs Needed in Schools

University of Michigan: Physical Education in America’s Public Schools

Jezebel: Being the Last One Picked in Gym Class Really Messes You Up

My Aspergers Child: Aspergers Children and “Physical Education” Class

Study Mode: Physical Education Class: The Perfect Place to be Bullied?

Huffington Post: Majority of LGBT Students Bullied in Gym Class and Feel Unsafe

Slate: Food Deserts Aren’t the Problem

Guardian: Fat Profits: How the Food Industry Cashed in on Obesity

Jennifer Polish

Jennifer Polish is an English PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC, where she studies non/human animals and the racialization of dis/ability in young adult literature. When she’s not yelling at the computer because Netflix is loading too slowly, she is editing her novel, doing activist-y things, running, or giving the computer a break and yelling at books instead. Contact Jennifer at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Phys Ed in Schools: Improving Health or Breeding Bullying? appeared first on Law Street.

We’ve seen it all over the news lately–parents getting into trouble when their children are truant from school without a valid excuse. While to many it may seem easy to get an excuse letter signed or send in a note the day after the absence, sometimes parents aren’t able to take those steps, or don’t know about their children’s absences from school. In a time of more testing and government regulations in our schools, administrations have elected to pay more attention to when students are staying home, and more importantly, why they are staying home. Read on to learn about truancy laws in the United States and the consequences that may arise for some parents if their children don’t attend school.

What truancy means for each student, school, and state varies. While Strategies for Youth, a non-profit, defines truancy as simply “an unexcused absence from school,” the definition of what an excused absence is, and what being “truant” means depends on the state and sometimes even the school district.

Another organization, Truancy Prevention, breaks down the level of states’ involvement even more:

Any unexcused absence from school is considered a truancy, but states enact their own school attendance laws. State law determines 1) the age at which a child is required to begin attending school, 2) the age at which a child may legally drop out of school, and 3), the number of unexcused absences at which a student is considered legally truant

Each state and school is different, so if you’re curious about specific truancy laws, the best thing to do is look in your individual school handbook to figure out the rules.

Case Study: Eileen DeNino

One extreme case that has gained national attention is that of Eileen DeNino of Reading, Pennsylvania. The 55-year-old mother of eight had to serve a two-day sentence because she owed the court system money due to her sons’ truancy issues. Two of her sons had been absent more than the three days that Pennsylvania allows and were fined repeatedly over several years. She never paid the fines, which landed her in jail; however, the first night of her stay she started complaining that it felt hard to breathe. Jail officials allegedly ignored her pleas for help, thinking she was just trying to get out of serving her time. Her cellmate said that she was moaning in pain the entire time. She died later that night due to complications from a previous medical problem.

Critics have said that her stint in jail is reminiscent of debtor’s prison, which is illegal, while others have said it was wrong because her children were making the decisions on their own. The coroners found that the prison system was not in the wrong.

The law that DeNino broke applies to Pennsylvania, where staying home from school for more than three days is considered truancy. In Berks County alone, “more than 1,600 parents—most of them mothers—have been jailed” for truancy.

A call for reform?

DeNino’s death has led to some calling for change within the education system. While consequences are one thing, parents being fined or put in jail because their children were absent is viewed as something else entirely. Each year, many parents experience problems with a child’s truancy, which commonly leads to fines, loss of custody, and probation for juveniles and/or parents. In some cases these children can be placed in foster care.

For example, in October 2014 the Florida State Attorney’s office issued warrants for the arrest of 44 Jacksonville parents of truant children. One couple, Lucius Corbitt III and Afton Nolan, were both arrested after their daughter missed 40 school days over a three-year period; however, their daughter still made honor roll and was at the top of her class.

“Maybe there are some kids whose parents didn’t want to send them to school,” Corbitt told The Florida Times-Union. “But when my child missed school, my wife and I got make-up work and she passed. … Most days she missed we had doctor’s documentation, but it is so hard to get someone at the school board. It really is crap.”

In other states, such as California, officials have been sent out to do “truancy sweeps” to check up on students who stayed home. In one particular sweep, six parents were arrested, including one parent whose child missed school 21 times. In this situation, most parents were offered parenting classes.

The Arguments For Parent Punishment

There is a reason that we have truancy laws and why students can’t just go to school only when they feel like it. In 1889, the Chicago Board of Education argued, “We should rightfully have the power to arrest all these little beggars, loafers, and vagabonds that infest our city, take them from the streets and place them in schools where they are compelled to receive an education and learn moral principles.”  This was during a time when nearly a quarter of the juveniles jailed in Chicago where there for truancy. By 1918, every state had a law that made school attendance mandatory.

It wasn’t until 2001 and the start of No Child Left Behind that schools had to report this data to the state. Many surmise that the goal was to identify parents who weren’t taking care of their children or were negligent. Since then, more and more government officials have been calling for stricter regulations on truancy, specifically for teenagers.

Recent research has shown that many students are absent at least two days a month, often because the student just didn’t feel like going to school. That is a problem that we need to face, and starting with parents might be the best approach to take.

 Arguments Against Truancy Laws

Most of the cases that we hear about involve teenagers. Some critics of truancy laws feel that teenagers today don’t really feel the effects of the mistakes they make–and this is just another example of that. Parenting website the Stir poses the question:

What’s more, what are we teaching kids about taking responsibility for their own actions, and their own lives, if we’re making parents pay for their misdeeds? Once kids reach their teenage years, it seems to me, it’s time for them to take more responsibility for their own decisions, not less.

Others have claimed that throwing parents in jail isn’t something that will help anyone in the family. According to the Marshall Project, “the criminalization of truancy often pushes students further away from school, and their families deeper into poverty.” Instead of focusing on parents, some hope to focus on the schools and determine why teens are using any excuse not to go.

In some states, the child does face the brunt of the punishment. Some states are even allowed to take away the driving privileges of the teen who is truant.

Conclusion

Students being absent from school is an undeniable problem The rates are typically higher in schools that have more students, which need to have higher scores on state testing in order to get the materials they need. We also know that more than a few absences per year are correlated with lower grades, dropping out of high school, and trouble with the law. It remains unclear whether or not actively threatening, fining, or even jailing these parents is an effective way to treat the “crime.” There may need to be alternate steps taken to make sure that students stay in school as much as possible.

Resources

Jacksonville: Parents Arrested in Truancy Sweep Say There Were Reasons Why Their Kids Missed School

Juvenile Justice Bulletin: Truancy

Stir: Parents Now Thrown in Jail When Kid Misses School

Washington Post: Mother of Seven in Jail Because Her Kids Skipped School Dies in Cell

Truancy Prevention: Truancy Definition, Facts and Laws

Connect With Kids: Arresting Parents For Truancy

Counter Punch: Criminalizing Truancy

Desert Dispatch: Six Arrested, 26 Cited in Truancy Sweep

Johnson Juvenile Lawyers: Juvenile Truancy

Lawrence Journal: Truancy Policies Can Catch Parents by Surprise

Think Progress: The Return Of Debtor’s Prisons: Thousands Of Americans Jailed For Not Paying Their Bills

WFMZ: Coroner Issues Ruling in Death of Woman Jailed in Child Truant Case

WFMZ: Exclusive: Cellmate of Woman Who Died in Jail Speaks Out

U.S. News & World Report: Skipping High School Can Lead to Fines, Jail For Parents

Noel Diem

Law Street contributor Noel Diem is an editor and aspiring author based in Reading, Pennsylvania. She is an alum of Albright College where she studied English and Secondary Education. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, theater, fashion, and literature. Contact Noel at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Should Parents Pay the Price if Their Children Skip School? appeared first on Law Street.

The news has been full of stories lately from lower-income schools; stories about teachers cheating to pull ahead, children falling through the cracks, and many schools leaving children completely behind in their studies. But there’s another group of students who don’t necessarily get a lot of attention–children who are viewed as “gifted” or “talented” but don’t have access to the resources that would propel them forward.

The National Society for the Gifted and Talented has a comprehensive definition of what it means to be gifted and/or talented:

This definition of giftedness is the broadest and most comprehensive and is used by many school districts. It speaks of talent, which includes all areas of a child’s life: academic, artistic, athletic, and social. Most schools limit their definition and their programs to academics, but it is important to focus on performance and accomplishment. It is not enough to just have the talent; you must be using that talent to achieve at remarkably high levels. However, this definition does also recognize that while all very talented students have the potential to achieve at high levels, some may not have yet realized or demonstrated that potential. Such students may be underachievers, twice exceptional, or represent underserved groups who have not had a nurturing environment to bring out those talents. Finally, this definition is a comparative one; these students achieve or have the potential to achieve at levels way above their peers.

Many of our gifted children aren’t getting the attention they deserve because there simply isn’t enough money, there aren’t enough teachers, and in some cases the curriculum fails students. Read on to learn about the challenges in teaching gifted students at every level of the American education system.

Achievement Gaps

Achievement gaps have always existed in schools–especially between those in inner cities and their suburban counterparts. Achievement gaps occur at all ages between lower-income students and those who are better off financially. The methods used to measure a student’s retention and knowledge, including grades, classroom testing, standardized testing, course selection information, and drop-out rates all show the problem that exists. The difference between the scores of lower- and high-income students has been plaguing our nation for years, and there has been very little noticeable improvement overall.

There are racial disparities in academic achievement even when the most able students are taken into account. Evidence for this is found specifically among high scorers on the SAT math and reading sections. The National Research Center for the Gifted and Talented has found that “African Americans, Latinos (especially Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans), and Native Americans are currently severely underrepresented among the nation’s highest achieving students, by virtually all traditional academic achievement measures, including GPA, class rank, and standardized test scores.” When studies have compared measurements between the two levels (SAT scores and GPAs), they see a huge difference between what a student is capable of (SAT score) and how that manifests itself in schoolwork (GPA).

The Washington Post explained the problem by looking at state testing, stating, “Less than one percent of low-income eighth-graders scored ‘advanced’ on the 2011 NAEP reading exam; more-affluent students were five times more likely to score advanced. Math was better, but not much: 2.5 percent of low-income eighth-graders scored advanced, compared with nearly 13 percent of more-affluent students.”

Poverty also plays a big role in how a student succeeds. According to the Davidson Institute, a report called “Achievement Trap:”

Tracked the performance of high-achieving lower income and high-achieving upper income students and found disparities at the beginning of elementary school that grew larger over time. This means that the students who started off in poorer schools received fewer and fewer opportunities as they approached high school. Disparities between upper income and lower income high achievers also were found in higher education in terms of college graduation rates, and attendance at prestigious colleges.

Overall, there are significant achievement gaps between our students at many different levels and for many different reasons.

Gifted Programs

There have been specific programs in the past that have been implemented to help students in poorer school districts reach high levels, including the Minority Student Achievement Network, for example. The problem is that the achievement differences, especially among gifted and talented students, are especially pronounced within the major urban school districts within the United States, specifically in Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia. However, there are also smaller school districts that have similar problems. Many poor minority children and new immigrants reside in these underfunded school districts that are struggling to survive and provide for the children. In many states, gifted programs don’t even exist within urban schools.

In-Class Issues

Lower-income students are underrepresented in all aspects of gifted programs. In a recent study, it was discovered that most of the students that qualified or were even tested for gifted programs, even in schools where they were the minority, were Caucasian or Asian students. Another study found that black students were underrepresented by as much as 55 percent nationally in all gifted programs.

The problem isn’t always that the students aren’t able to qualify for gifted and talented programs, sometimes it is that they aren’t even being tested.

Curriculum

Another problem is that gifted programs, if they exist at all in lower-income schools, can lack the rigorous curriculum that other schools have. One of the biggest reasons seems to be the focus on testing. The National Education Association states that:

The law is uniformly blamed for stripping curriculum opportunities, including art, music, physical education and more, and imposing a brutal testing regime that has forced educators to focus their time and energy on preparing for tests in a narrow range of subjects:  namely, English/language arts and math.  For students in low-income communities, the impact has been devastating.

The curriculum now revolvse more heavily around memorization and by-the-book learning. In an area with many lower-income families and students, like Los Angeles, for instance, “one-third of the 345 arts teachers were given pink slips between 2008 and 2012 and arts programs for elementary students dwindled to practically zero.”

While testing is one facet, students also struggle because schools lack educational resources they need, such as libraries, textbooks, and technology, and often employ less experienced or less qualified teachers.

In schools where the children do have resources and they do get tested for gifted programs, a whole other problem with the curriculum arises: they may not feel included in the classroom. They aren’t present in the literature that so many gifted programs use, and may experience difficulties connecting with it. For instance, classes are often assigned to read books that revolve around white, middle-class families rather than reading books that include minorities like “Parrot in the Oven” or “A House on Mango Street.”

Even if schools with high levels of poverty have gifted programs and have the appropriate procedures in place to identify students who need them, an achievement gap may still be present. Gifted and talented programs can’t be one size fits all and need to set up as many students as possible for success.

Conclusion

So what can we do? Unfortunately, we aren’t going to fix these problems overnight. Teachers are trying the best they can, but with so much going on within school hours, it can be difficult for them to get it right. Even more, we do need to focus on getting teachers who live or lived in those areas back into their schools. Teachers who understand the struggles these students face will be able to reach them better.

The answer may also fall to the state and federal governments and their emphases on testing. Even more so, it is going to take parents and students demanding programs for their schools: better gifted programs, better gifted testing, and better curriculum all around. It is going to take all of us banding together to push the gifted and talented ahead.

Resources

Primary

National Governor’s Association: States Close the Achievement Gap in Advanced Placement Courses

Additional

National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented: Promoting Sustained Growth in the Representation of African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans Among Top Students in the United States at All Levels of the Education System

National Society for the Gifted and Talented: Giftedness Defined

NEA Today: The Testing Obsession and the Disappearing Curriculum

Washington Post: Gifted students — EspeciallyThose Who are Low-income — Aren’t Getting the Focus They Need

Edutopia: How Should We Measure Student Learning? Five Keys to Comprehensive Assessment

ETS: Parsing the Achievement Gap II

Sage Publications: Experiences of Gifted Black Students; Another Look at the Achievement Gap

University of Colorado: Identifying Gifted and Talented English Language Learners

Editor’s Note: This post has been revised to credit select information to the Davidson Institute. 

Noel Diem

Law Street contributor Noel Diem is an editor and aspiring author based in Reading, Pennsylvania. She is an alum of Albright College where she studied English and Secondary Education. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, theater, fashion, and literature. Contact Noel at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Gifted and Talented Programs: Are They Reaching All Qualified Students? appeared first on Law Street.

Common Core State Standards have been a matter of controversy for a few years now, garnering opposition from both sides of the aisle. Common Core in some ways saw its inception in the George W. Bush era and serves as a predecessor to the No Child Left Behind Act. But what exactly is Common Core, why was it launched, and what is the opposition? Read on to find out.

What is Common Core?

The Common Core State Standards “aim to raise student achievement by standardizing what’s taught in schools across the United States.” They include a particular focus on language arts and mathematics. The objective is to universally prepare students from Kindergarten to high school to be successful for entry-level college courses or to enter the workforce. It lays out what students should know and be able to do by the end of each specific grade. The standards are results driven, but the methods used to achieve the set results are chosen by local teachers and facilities.

The History Behind Common Core

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) was first signed into law by President Bush in January 2002. The next decade was spent revising the law’s requirements and attempting to create more successful “adequate yearly progress” reports. However, people quickly realized that NCLB was in need of serious reform itself. In November 2007, state chiefs first brainstormed Common Core standards at the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) Annual Policy Forum. The following year, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA), CCSSO, and education nonprofit Achieve released Benchingmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World-Class Education. In it they recommended the common standards. In April 2009, the NGA and CCSSO officially invited states to commit to the Common Core standards, and by June 49 states and territories announced commitments. After public feedback, a final draft was released in June 2010.

The NGA and CCSSO  led the development of the standards and actively advocated for their implementation. They also sought input from teachers, parents, school administrators, and various state leaders in “how the standards are taught, the curriculum developed, and the materials used to support teachers.” Implementation, however, is completely up to the states. Once a state adopts the Common Core standards, it is delegated to local teachers, principals, and superintendents to introduce the standards into school curriculum.

 Why was the Common Core program started?

It has long been a bipartisan view that the U.S. needs education reform. Common Core was started to allow high school graduates to be competitive in college, but also in “the rapidly changing American job market and the high tech, information-based global economy.” It is widely believed that U.S. students are falling behind their counterparts in other countries. Standardized tests in countries like China and Singapore have advanced well beyond the U.S. over the last few decades. Bill Gates, a heavy investor in the Common Core, advocated,

Our nation is one step closer to supporting effective teaching in every classroom, charting a path to college and careers for all students, and developing the tools to help all children stay motivated and engaged in their own education. The more states that adopt these college and career based standards, the closer we will be to sharing innovation across state borders and becoming more competitive as a country.

In Gate’s interview, he repeatedly noted that the standards are not based on curriculum. They are “solely” milestones for where the students should be at each grade level.

How much does Common Core cost?

The cost for implementing Common Core will vary from state to state, but will undoubtedly be expensive. Training teachers and buying new materials will take a substantial amount of money. In 2011, California estimated that replacing its current standardized tests with Common Core standards would cost taxpayers approximately $1.6 billion. In Texas, the estimate is upward of $3 billion dollars.

According to the Common Core Initiative however, the implementation will allow for states to eventually save on resources, materials, and “cross-state opportunities that come from sharing consistent standards.” The cost-benefit ratio should end favorably. As of 2014, 43 states, Washington D.C., Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Virgin Islands adopted the Common Core.

What are some characteristics of Common Core?

English and Language Arts

Generally, the standards call for “regular practice with complex texts and their academic language.” They demand a steady increase in complexity and progressive reading comprehension. There is to be an emphasis on academic vocabulary, focusing on meaning, nuances, and range. There isn’t a required reading list; however, categories of literature are required. Examples include classic myths, foundational U.S. documents, works of Shakespeare, and staples of American literature.

Students should know how to provide evidence from the text when forming analyses and arguments at different levels. The standards call for text-dependent questions on assessments as opposed to questions based on student experiences and/or opinions. The objective is for students to be able to effectively inform and persuade, and for these skills to become stronger as students move up in grade levels.

There is also a larger focus on nonfiction. For grades K-5, there is a 50/50 ratio between informational (history, social sciences, etc.) and literary texts. In grades six through 12 there is substantially increased attention to literary nonfiction.

Mathematics             

In mathematics, the standards call for a “greater focus on fewer topics.” The standards aim to narrow and deepen lessons on concepts, skills, and problemsolving depending on grade level. For example, K-2 will focus on addition and subtraction, while grades three through five will focus on multiplication and division of whole numbers and fractions.

There is an overriding theme across grades of linking topics and thinking. A standard at any grade level is designed to build upon the standard of the previous grade and act as an extension. This consistently reinforces major topics, which are used to support grade-level word problems that need mathematical applications to solve.

Finally, the mathematics standards aim to pursue conceptual understanding, procedural skills and fluency, and application with equal force. The idea is to deepen the understanding of concepts as opposed to memorizing rules. If the building blocks of complex math concepts are completely understood by students, that will eliminate degrees of future difficulty. Speed and accuracy are both to held in high importance.

What are the arguments against Common Core?

The goals of the Common Core seem to have U.S. students’ best interests at heart. So why is there so much opposition? Here’s a look at some of main challenges.

National Standards

First, some argue that the name “Common Core State Standards” is misleading. Since they have been adopted by 43 states, they are truly national standards. Detractors worry that states didn’t necessarily adopt the Common Core by choice, but were strong-armed by conditions ascribed by federal Race to the Top grants and the No Child Left Behind programs. Prior to the implementation of Common Core, all 50 states–whether on board or not–adopted NCLB or revised standards under the threat of losing federal funding.

More of the Same

Many see the Common Core as round two of No Child Left Behind. NCLB failed in both “raising academic performance and narrowing gaps in opportunity and outcomes.” This propagated the notion that American schools need to be fixed. Test results from NCLB did not meet expectations. After the first ten years, more than 50 percent of the nation’s schools were categorized as failing. Many of these same schools never received the support or resources necessary to stand a chance. In the same respect, will all schools be supplied with the needed computers required to take the Common Core tests?

Too Curriculum Based 

There are also worries that Common Core has become more curriculum based than originally intended. In the video below, a seven-year public school teacher discusses why the Common Core is not good for kids and dictates curriculum. She argues, “when the standards are tested that’s what you are going to spend your time on…[there is] no room to teach anything else.”  Her job security is based on meeting the standards. As a result, she’s concerned that the standards must be taught 100 percent of the time, and don’t allow flexibility or creativity.

She continues to argue that the material is not condensed, using the 93 elements of the third grade reading standard as an example. Her largest problem with Common Core is its age appropriateness. Although she advocates pushing students, she doesn’t believe seven year olds should be expected to master the difference between an adjective and an adverb. She labels the standards as a  “race to the middle” with “mediocre teaching.” Using a uniform approach, the faster learners are bored, while the slower learners are under immense pressure.

There is plenty of concern on the length and difficulty of the assessments as well. In the first round of distribution of the Common Core tests in New York, students, parents, and teachers strongly voiced their concerns. Many students felt immense pressure and were scared of failing, and teachers complained about the atmosphere the tests created.

Opting Out

Some children have started to opt out of the tests, often with parental support. The “opt out movement” has grown in popularity–thousands of students nationwide have chosen this route. Opt-outs protest the Common Core standards and the overemphasis on testing in public schools. There is even a National United Opt Out group comprised of parents, educators, students, and social activists. The legality of opting out seems to be a gray area, varying from state to state. In an extreme case, the Illinois State Board of Education sent a letter stating students opting out would be breaking the law and teachers refusing to administer the test would face legal consequences.

There are a variety of other arguments as well. One other concern is that corporate businesses are behind the standards to create a marketplace for Common Core resources. Others argue that electives like music and art will be sidelined. Finally, many teachers and parents don’t approve of the “one-size fits all” approach to teaching children.

Conclusion

It’s hard to say what is in store for U.S. education reform. We do need a change, but is Common Core the right one? There aren’t any studies regarding Common Core’s success to fall back on. Only time will tell. There are convincing arguments on both sides. Ultimately, everyone involved wants the same thing: U.S. students to be as educated and prepared for the world as possible.

Resources

Primary

Common Core State Standards Initiative: About the Standards

CCSSO: National Governors Association and State Education Chiefs Launch Common State Academic Standards

U.S. Department of Education: No Child Left Behind

Additional

Washington Post: The Common Core’s Fundamental Trouble

EdWeek: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World Class Education

U.S. News & World Report: Who is Fighting for Common Core

Truth in American Education: State Costs for Adopting and Implementing the Common Core State Standards

U.S. News & World Report: The History of the Common Core State Standards

U.S. News & World Report: The History of the Common Core State Standards

U.S. News & World Report: Opt-Out Movement About More Then Test, Advocates Say

U.S. News & World Report: Who is Fighting Against the Common Core

Why Science: A Historical Timeline of No Child Left Behind

Jessica McLaughlin

Jessica McLaughlin is a graduate of the University of Maryland with a degree in English Literature and Spanish. She works in the publishing industry and recently moved back to the DC area after living in NYC. Contact Jessica at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Common Core: A Solution to America’s Education Problems? appeared first on Law Street.

Higher education is the most important aspect to economic prosperity. Colleges and universities prepare future leaders who will drive national and global economies. As globalization is not a new phenomenon, but an established process, education ties together countries via investments, banking systems, technology, and travel. As a result, the quality of education is on the agenda in many countries across the globe.

President Obama’s college rating system is a highly debated topic across the country, with policymakers and educators casting concerns over its shortcomings and dangers. The current administration has already introduced reform programs in health care and immigration, which were controversial at best; its plan to reform education is no different. It’s an all-encompassing reform that can play out either way. Read on to learn more about the benefits, shortcomings, and possible consequences of Obama’s college rating system.

Do other governments rank colleges?

Colleges and universities across the globe have long been rated by their governments in the hope of establishing the best educational value. Originally, independent agencies or non-profit organizations played the leading role in this task. Later, governments began to regulate and assess higher education. The United States is not the first country to take steps to ensure quality control in education. For example:

• Finland created the Higher Education Evaluation Council.
• Australia came out with the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency.
• The European Union has its U-Map.
• Britain assembled an online tool to showcase university statistics and measure college performance.

Some initiatives are more successful than others, but all reflect the need to provide meaningful tools for students and governments to compare educational value. Following the global trend, Obama’s college rating system is an attempt to ensure quality of learning and accountability on the part of educational institutions in the United States.

Why would Obama want to rank colleges?

There are generally three main reasons why the current administration feels the need to address the educational sector, and, specifically, to establish the college rating system: rising student debt, inequality, and falling graduation rates. The picture is rather bleak. The majority of the prospective student body cannot afford college without taking out loans. In addition, there are few jobs available, especially for recent graduates. As a result, some default on their debt, while others struggle for decades to pay back their loans. Unfortunately, not only do colleges charge a lot of money for education, the quality of learning is deteriorating as well.

Rising Student Debt

As more students continue to borrow money from the government to pay for their higher education, the number of those who fail to find a job after graduation and to pay back their loans has increased dramatically over the last decade. According to a recent study, 60 percent of four-year college students graduate with an average $26,500 in debt. In addition, tuition increases every year, prompting concerns over the affordability of higher education. The same study estimates a 231 percent public college tuition increase and a 153 percent private college increase over the last 30 years.

Watch the short documentary below for more information on the increasing costs of tuition and deteriorating value of education in America.

Inequality

Inequality in education is a direct consequence of high tuition. Students whose families cannot afford to pay tuition for their higher education generally have two choices. They can either take out loans from the government, which often lead to decades-long debt, or they can start working low-paying jobs right after high school. Those are two extremes, of course, as some students receive scholarships or combine loans and jobs; however, even if a student qualifies for scholarships based on merit, he won’t necessarily be able to pay the full remaining tuition. Not only does this scenario exclude bright-but-poor students from receiving high-quality education, but it prompts many of them to take out multiple loans that they may not be able to repay.

Watch the shocking video below to understand the realities behind wealth inequality in the United States.

Low Graduation Rates

The number of students who fail to complete their studies has increased throughout the last decade. As of 2013, the United States ranks 13 out of 34 countries measured for college attainment. The Chronicle of Higher Education provides in-depth data and analysis on graduation rates across the country, which vary greatly by the type of the higher educational establishment and its location. Click here to read its most recent overview.

Low graduation rates prompt concerns that the overall quality of learning is deteriorating, even though the quality of learning cannot be measured by graduation rates alone. Students drop out of college for many reasons: financial difficulties, family issues, transfers, or simply because they are taking a break. The current administration, however, believes that colleges need to make sure their students are making progress toward a degree, especially those who receive financial aid.

So, how will rating colleges fix these problems?

Using the college rating system, the Obama Administration hopes to reduce student debt, provide more access and opportunities to low-income students, and improve higher educational standards. The president’s plan is to use these ratings as a mechanism of accountability and transparency. Before taking out a loan, students will have access to information on loan default rates, employment outcomes, and anticipated monthly payments after graduation. If students can make informed decisions, it should help to reduce loan debt. Also, the government will provide more federal funds for those colleges that keep their prices low and improve quality. It should help to quell inequality of access to higher education and raise the value of learning.

What does the college rating system look like?

The Postsecondary Institution Ratings System (PIRS) is a part of the Obama Administration’s effort to provide more transparency and accountability in higher education. The government is planning to fully implement PIRS by the 2015-2016 academic year.

College Scorecard

PIRS is essentially folded into one tool, the College Scorecard, already available online through the College Affordability and Transparency Center. It’s very easy to use, and requires only basic computer skills and internet access. The College Scorecard is still in the process of development; for now it provides information on costs, graduation rates, loan default rates, and median borrowing. The Department of Education is still working on obtaining data on the average income of former undergraduate students. The College Scorecard also provides information on changes in an institution’s cost, making it possible to see if tuition has gone up or down over a certain period of time. In addition, students and their families can search by area of interest, college location, and type of college.

Watch the video below for a detailed guide on how to navigate the College Scorecard.

What does it measure?

PIRS measures three main factors: access, affordability, and outcome. All three can be matched to inequality, debt concerns, and learning quality as the above-cited reasons for establishing such a system in the first place.

• Access comes from the percentage of students who receive Pell Grants, in an effort to obtain some knowledge on how equal or unequal higher educational institutions are.
• Affordability looks at average tuition, available scholarships, and student loan default information, thus looking at debt concerns.
• Outcome measures how many people graduate, how many pursue advanced degrees, and the average income of students after graduation.

In addition to being an information hub for prospective students, the president is planning to seek legislation to allocate financial aid to those institutions that obtain high ratings on PIRS. The current administration emphasizes that before the government designates its funds according to this mechanism, the college rating system should be well established, taking into consideration all of the concerns from university administrators across the country.

In order to receive more financial aid via grants and loans, higher education institutions will have to provide the best value and improve on their performance, hence helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

What is the Obama Administration hoping to achieve?

The Obama Administration hopes to achieve greater accountability and transparency in higher education, especially with regard to the quality of educational institutions, student debt, and income after graduation. The system is meant to empower students and their families to make informed decisions when choosing a college or university to attend.

The president also plans to use the college rating system to aid policymakers who are allocating financial aid to higher educational institutions. It’s believed that such financial incentives will prompt colleges to improve their overall performance. The goal is to keep colleges accountable and transparent, rewarding those who will keep prices down and improve educational value.

The overall goal of the current administration is to decrease student debt and to increase access to higher education for low income students, improving quality of learning along the way.

What do critics say?

Obama’s college rating system is not without its critics who continue to debate its shortcomings and possible negative outcomes. Educational administrators, researchers, and policymakers across the country are troubled with what they see as a rather simplistic approach to rating schools, as well as reliability and validity of the data used, and predicting negative consequences for higher education.

Data and Measurement Problems

To assemble the College Scorecard System, the government obtained data from its own Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). It’s a self-reported data collection mechanism that provides information on first-time and full-time students who seek undergraduate or certificate degrees. It is evident that only a limited population group is measured, completely excluding part-time and transfer students. One of the main concerns here is that PIRS counts transfer students as “drop outs,” which essentially can produce faulty graduation rates.

In addition, as IPEDS is a self-reported tool, there is a danger of missing data elements that can be unevenly distributed depending on data collection practices and the diligence of college officials. The data on loan default rates is also concerning, as it can double-count those students who take out multiple loans.

Some experts and researchers believe that PIRS is based on faulty assumptions. The lack of validity and reliability of the data used can misguide students and their families when they are choosing which college to enroll at. The measurements are also not comprehensive, which can lead to misuse of data and produce inaccuracies in college ratings.

Simplistic Approach

PIRS has also been blamed for being rather simplistic in determining the value of colleges and universities across the country. The critique is centered on the notion that some colleges cannot keep their price tags down as they depend on state funding. One study draws parallels between community colleges in California and Florida on one side and New Hampshire and Vermont on the other. The first two are generously supported by state funds, while the latter two have much lower funding from the state. It’s clear that California and Florida community colleges are able to keep their tuition low, and New Hampshire and Vermont are forced to raise theirs.

Healthcare prices and other external factors can greatly influence tuition rates.. The danger is that those colleges that cannot keep their prices low, even if it’s not their call, will suffer the consequences. They can be punished by receiving no or significantly less funds from the federal government via grants and loans. As a result, with already low state funding and an inability to receive aid from the federal budget, they will be forced to raise their prices even more.

The college rating system also doesn’t provide a distinction between program-specific and institution-wide performance. PIRS measures only the aggregated performance of colleges, failing to recognize successes of specific departments. For example, the criminal justice department at Rutgers University is considered to have one of the most comprehensive curriculums for students who want to work in this field. At the same time, other departments at Rutgers are considered less strong. Because PIRS uses an aggregated performance mechanism, there is a possibility that Rutgers University will receive a low rating on its scorecard. As a result, fewer prospective students will enroll in the criminal justice program, which, in reality, is very strong.

Wage Differences

As was mentioned earlier, the College Scorecard will contain information on post-graduation employment. This data will be released from the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration and forwarded to the Department of Education for further analysis. The main concern here is the disproportionality of wages across professions. For example, business executives and doctors earn higher wages compared to teachers and social workers. Colleges that specialize in liberal arts and the social sciences can be at a disadvantage compared to science and technology-centered schools. Thus, certain higher education institutions can receive low ratings just because of the occupations of their graduates.

Conclusion

Both data problems and the simplicity of the rating system lead to concerns about the future of the higher education sector. Will it produce the desired results or lead to negative consequences?Obama’s college rating system can improve the performance of teachers and learning practices for students; it can decrease student loan defaults and tuition prices; and it can even become an all-encompassing tool of accountability and financial aid disbursement. At the same time, it can further stratify the educational system, widening the gap between exclusive private and second-rate public colleges and universities and hurt liberal arts schools or those with already low state funding. Despite its limitations, PIRS is a starting point on a long journey in developing higher standards, reducing costs, and fostering accountability in colleges and universities across the country.

Resources

Primary

The White House: Fact Sheet on the President’s Plan to Make College More Affordable: A Better Bargain for the Middle Class

The White House: Education at a Glance

The College Affordability and Transparency Center: College Scorecard 

U-Map: The European Classification of Higher Education Institutions

Australian Government: Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency

UNISTATS: Course Assistant

 Additional

American Council on Education:  Rankings, Institutional Behavior, and College and University Choice. 

Chronicle of Higher Education: Graduation Rates by State

Chronicle of Higher Education: Has Higher Education Lost Control Over Quality?

The New York Times: Colleges Rattled as Obama Seeks Rating System

The New York Times: On Bus Tour, Obama Seeks to Shame Colleges Into Easing Costs

MoneyBox: How Bad Is the Job Market for the College Class of 2014?

U.S. News: Report: U.S. Drops in High School, College Grad Rates

Valeriya Metla

Valeriya Metla is a young professional, passionate about international relations, immigration issues, and social and criminal justice. She holds two Bachelor Degrees in regional studies and international criminal justice. Contact Valeriya at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Obama’s College Rating System: Will it Fix Our Higher Education Problems? appeared first on Law Street.

Schools are constantly feeling the push from colleges, the government, and parents to produce high performers; however, in order for young adults and children to learn, they need to feel safe in their learning environment. One thing that establishes that feeling of ease and safety is for it to be bully-free.

Kids and teens who find themselves becoming victims of either physical or verbal bullying can suffer from bruising and injuries, but can also suffer from depression, anxiety, fear, and low self-esteem. Students who are subjected to the highest levels of bullying have higher amounts of tardiness, absence, and dropouts. But what can and should schools do to prevent this issue? Read on to learn about the bullying that happens in our schools, the steps schools have taken to stop it, and what happens when schools don’t do enough.

How prevalent is bullying?

Bullying breaks down as follows, according to statistics from the National Bullying Prevention Center.

According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 50 percent of children are bullied at some point and ten percent are victims of bullying on a regular basis. Since 1992, there have been more than 250 violent deaths that were a direct result of bullying within schools, and it has also been a factor in several famous school shootings, including Columbine.

Cyber Bullying

Social media, text messaging, and other forms of bullying online have taken an issue that most students could escape at home, and made it nearly impossible to escape. Examples of cyber bullying include mean or nasty text messages and emails, rumors spread by social networking sites, and embarrassing pictures, videos, websites, or fake profiles. Cyber bullying is especially problematic for schools because it often happens off campus and can even be done anonymously. Many schools even question what jurisdiction they have over things that happen outside of schools grounds.

The number of students being cyber bullied has only grown with “secret” apps like YikYak. The 2010-2011 School Crime Supplement indicated that nine percent of students in grades six through 12 experienced cyber bullying; however, the 2013 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey found that 15 percent of high school students (grades nine through 12) were electronically bullied in that year. It is difficult to combat cyber bullying because just when one app or social media service is fixed, another emerges.

What policies and procedures do schools have in place?

Forty-nine states have anti-bullying legislation–Montana is the one exception–but that seems to not be enough. Schools have no way of enforcing some of the policies, especially when no one is a witness to the bullying. Many have claimed that coming up with actionable steps has proven to be more difficult than it seems because of the wide range of types of bullying. Illinois requires schools to institute social-emotional learning to prevent bullying, whereas other schools have mediation and continual programming. Five states don’t have any repercussions for the anti-bullying laws, while 12 states can actually pursue criminal charges against bullies. These sanctions range anywhere from suspension to community service or even jail time.

Many parents and administrators feel that bullying is a rite of passage of the coming of age process, or a way to toughen up students. Especially with male-on-male bullying, it isn’t always taken seriously; however, those entering the guidance field are starting to receive more training on how to handle bullying situations. The topic has been especially visible in media since shows like “Glee,” “Degrassi,” and even “Hannah Montana” have highlighted the lack of attention placed on bullying in schools. Shows like “Glee,” where the character of Kurt was bullied to the point that he left school, have resonated with students and caused many states to reconsider their actions against bullies.

Still, as the consequences make more noise, administrators, teachers, and students are starting to be held accountable for the behaviors within school walls. The Department of Education recently issued guidance to educators on when acts of student bullying could violate federal education anti-discrimination laws.

What can schools do to prevent bullying?

The truth of bullying is that it isn’t always easily seen, nor is it always black and white. Many people who bully have also been bullied. There is no preventative measure that will eliminate it 100 percent; however, what can be done is to curb the bullying to an immediate, manageable level.

Websites like StopBullying, Jim Wright Online, and the National School Safety Center all offer solutions to the bullying problems. Some of the highlights include programs, group activities, and even ongoing programs for both the bully and the bullied. They also map out the different things the schools can do in a situation where someone is bullied.

For example, an investigation should start immediately after the concern is raised. Anyone can raise the concern, including teachers, students, siblings, parents, bus drivers, and other faculty members. The next step is to have a meeting with the child to find out what is going on–but never with the bully at the same time. Peer mediation has its place, but it should not happen between a bully and a victim.

If the bullying is physical, there should be steps taken to provide for the physical safety of the student, and someone needs to alert necessary faculty and staff members to be on the lookout. The bully also needs to have one-on-one meetings to make sure he or she understands the severity of the problem.

The most important thing is that the school does a thorough investigation into the bullying so that it stops and doesn’t hinder anyone anymore–as bullying often has far-reaching effects that can even hurt the atmosphere of the classroom.

What happens if the bullying doesn’t stop?

Unfortunately, that’s a gray area as well. Many schools have faced lawsuits and fines because they didn’t investigate bullying enough. Schools could face anything from fines in court, being sued by the student or the student’s family, or even mandatory programs within the school. The biggest problems could come for the teachers and administrators who either ignored the bullying, or did as little as possible while it occurred. Some courts are even calling it child endangerment, especially in cases of sexual harassment, abuse, and hate crimes. An even bigger problem comes from cyber bullying and the photos that have been taken of students. Some of these images could be called child pornography.

Case Studies

Kara Kowalski v. Berkeley County Schools, et al. (4th Cir. July 2011)

In this case, a student sued the school district for limiting her First Amendment free speech rights after suspending her for creating a website that was attacking another student in the school. The website, called “Students Against Shay’s Herpes,” stated that the student had an STD, and created a comments section to gossip about the girl. Doctored photos also appeared on the website. Along with suspension, she was excluded from school festivities like a Charm Review, and she was kicked off the cheerleading squad.

The appeals court said the web page was created primarily for Kowalski’s classmates, so the school had the right to discipline her for disrupting the learning environment. They concluded that Kowalski had created a “hate website” in violation of the school’s anti-bullying policy.

The Judge in the case, Paul V. Niemeyer wrote:

Kowalski’s role in the `S.A.S.H.’ webpage, which was used to ridicule and demean a fellow student, was particularly mean-spirited and hateful. Regretfully, she yet fails to see that such harassment and bullying is inappropriate and hurtful and that it must be taken seriously by school administrators.

Still, it is a tricky area for schools, as many could see this as a freedom of speech violation, and because the website was made outside of school.

L.W. v. Toms River Regional School Board of Education, 189 N.J. 381 (2007)

In L.W. ex rel. L.G. v. Toms River Regional School Board of Education, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that a school district can be held accountable for bullying a student because of sexual orientation under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD); however, this only applies when the district is aware of the harassment but fails to take reasonable steps to stop it.

The plaintiff’s mother filed a complaint under the LAD in the Division of Civil Rights in which she alleged that the defendant, the Board of Education, failed to take action in response to the harassment that her child suffered due to his perceived sexual orientation. The Division of Civil Rights found that the Board of Education was liable for the peer harassment that L.W. had endured. The Appellate Division affirmed the decision of the Division on Civil Rights.

The case documented several years of abuse that started in fourth grade and continued into his freshman year, where he was bullied to the point of physical attacks. He was removed from the school and enrolled in a nearby district. As punishment for the initial bullying in elementary school, the school had students write apology letters. When he was taunted in seventh grade, the Assistant Principal broke up the fight, but found that L.W.’s behavior “provoked” the incident. More and more incidents occurred but the students only received verbal reprimands.

The school boasted a “zero tolerance bullying policy” the entire time. L.W.’s school addressed the policy in an assembly at the beginning of the school year, but there was no subsequent communication on the policy throughout the year. Eventually, L.W. withdrew from the school and enrolled at a school in a neighboring town. His attendance and transportation expenses were subsidized by the defendant Board of Education.

The Court concluded that the school had not taken reasonable steps to stop the bullying, and that there was more that could have been done on all levels. The Court differentiated L.W.’s situation from “isolated schoolyard insults” or “classroom taunts,” which is how the school had treated them.

Morrow v. Balaski 

At the end of 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal seeking to hold a Pennsylvania School District responsible for the repeated bullying of a student by her peers. The case involved Brittany Morrow and the Blackhawk High School in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Her bullying included racial threats, physical assaults, and cyber bullying. In one incident described in the case, Brittany was suspended after defending herself during a lunchroom attack. When her parents asked the school how to keep her safe, they suggested another school. They later filed a lawsuit against the Blackhawk school district and an assistant principal for alleged violations of their 14th Amendment substantive-due-process rights.

In their appeal to the Supreme Court in Morrow v. Balaski, the family said school officials “acted to allow the aggressor to return to school following her temporary suspension and despite court orders mandating no contact. They opened the front door of the school to a person they knew would cause harm to the children.” The appeals court ruled nine to five in favor of the school that there was no “special relationship” between schools and students and ten to four that legal injuries to the victims were not the result of actions taken by administrators under a “state-created danger” theory of liability.

The court was torn about the case, saying “Parents … should be able to send their children off to school with some level of comfort that those children will be safe from bullies. Nonetheless, the Constitution does not provide judicial remedies for every social ill.”

Conclusion

Bullying is a serious problem, and that is especially evident within schools. From simple teasing to physical threats and even assault, bullying weakens the education system. Schools are creating programs and offering tools to try to combat it; however, many people think that teachers and administrators are failing to properly address bullying. It isn’t always easy, when bullying now takes on so many forms, including on the web, schools have a changing relationship with students.

Resources

Primary

Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals: Kara Kowalski v. Berkeley Country Schools, et al.

Supreme Court of New Jersey: L.W. v. Toms River Regional Schools Board of Education, 189 N.J. 381 (2007)

Additional

Governing: 49 States Now Have Anti-Bullying Laws. How’s that Working Out?

AACAP: Bullying

Web MD: Social Bullying Common in TV Shows Kids Watch

Education Week: Supreme Court Declines to Take Up School Bullying Case 

Pacer: National Bullying Prevention Center

Noel Diem

Law Street contributor Noel Diem is an editor and aspiring author based in Reading, Pennsylvania. She is an alum of Albright College where she studied English and Secondary Education. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, theater, fashion, and literature. Contact Noel at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Bullying in Schools: Who Gets the Blame? appeared first on Law Street.

The now much-maligned No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)–an attempt to improve the American education system–became law in early 2002. Since then, NCLB has become a divisive political issue, called a failure by many, and blamed for many inadequacies of our admittedly weak education system. But beyond all of the politics, what have the ramifications of NCLB actually been? Read on to learn about NCLB, and what it’s done to measure student growth and teacher effectiveness.

What exactly is NCLB?

The No Child Left Behind Act is bipartisan legislation signed in 2001 that was designed to improve student achievement and to help schools and parents work together to create educational solutions for struggling students. The act is based on four essential themes: accountability for results; doing what works based upon scientific research; expanded parental options; and expanded local control and flexibility.

The most controversial aspect of this act is the accountability for results. This requires states to create a single standardized test for each grade level to be administered to students of all levels, regardless of disability or educational background. Each state is required to determine a score on math and reading tests that they deem  to be “proficient.” All states were then required to have 100 percent of students score at at least that level on their standardized tests by 2014. Additionally, each state had to define “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) and ensure that all student groups make AYP based upon standardized tests administered each year. These accountability measures, according to NCLB co-author Representative George Miller, were intended to be diagnostic and to help schools and parents work together to remedy student weaknesses.

What’s the argument for NCLB’s effectiveness?

Advocates of NCLB argue that accountability serves as a way to identify areas where schools and students need improvement, and enables schools and parents to work together to make those improvements. No Child Left Behind mandates that its quota of 100 percent of students reaching the proficient level by 2014  includes students with disabilities and students from low socio-economic backgrounds. Advocates argue that accountability and testing ensure that these often marginalized groups do not slip through the cracks and that they obtain the support and resources they need to succeed in school.

The Act also demands higher qualifications for teachers as well as giving parents the option of transferring their children out of schools that have failed to meet their AYP quotas; both aspects have been seen as a step toward improving the American education system. Additionally, schools that do not meet their AYP receive technical assistance from the federal government and are required to draft an improvement plan aimed at targeting the groups of students who did not show improvement on standardized tests. Supporters of NCLB find these measures helpful in providing quality education to all student groups and in improving education in areas previously allowed to fall behind.

Why do people want to get rid of NCLB?

Opponents of NCLB argue that standardized testing is a flawed method of gauging student learning and that “accountability” causes schools and teachers to teach to the test. Opponents of standardized testing argue that these types of tests measure only superficial knowledge and do not measure critical or creative thinking. Scientists and psychologists have also determined that all students have different learning styles and intelligences; some are visual learners, some are kinesthetic learners, etc. Standardized tests, with their “one size fits all” method of testing, do not account for this diversity among student learning styles. Additionally, many students simply are not good test takers, and while they may know the content, the anxiety of test-taking impedes their ability to recall and use this information.

Due to this uncertainty about the validity of test scores, opponents of NCLB argue that schools and teachers are forced to “teach to the test” or “drill and kill.” With the funding of their schools and the security of their jobs hinging solely upon the results of standardized tests, teachers often feel they have to provide a narrow form of education for their students. These teaching styles require minimal critical thinking and understanding of topics, and instead rely on repetition and quick regurgitation of information to ensure students do well on a standardized test. This method of teaching offers an incomplete education to students and teaches them to simply memorize and repeat instead of understand the underlying concepts of a topic.

It has also been argued that states will lower their AYP quotas in order to meet NCLB standards instead of providing further funding for educational support. Opponents of NCLB argue that the act’s emphasis on accountability and standardized testing lead schools and teachers to adopt faulty educational methods in order to meet federal requirements.

Conclusion

NCLB can certainly be considered a good idea in theory that attempted to fix a struggling American education system. Unfortunately, the results speak for themselves, and they certainly leave a lot to be desired. NCLB still has some supporters who point out its advantages, but most are turning to new ways to reform our educational system.

Resources

Primary

Department of Education: “No Child Left Behind” Act (2001)

Department of Education: “No Child Left Behind” Act Is Working

SC Department of Education: New Study Confirms Vast Differences in State Goals for Academic ‘Proficiency’ Under NCLB

NJDOE: No Child Left Behind Overview

Additional

National Center on Educational Outcomes: “No Child Left Behind” Act: What it Means for Children With Disabilities

Wrights Law: “No Child Left Behind Act”

Wrights Law: What Teachers, Principals & School Administrators Need to Know

Education: The Purpose of No Child Left Behind

EdSource: NCLB Author Rep. Miller Says He Never Anticipated NCLB Would Force Testing Obsession

NPR: Former “No Child Left Behind” Advocate Turns Critic

Fair Test: What’s Wrong With Standardized Tests?

ASHA: “No Child Left Behind” Fact Sheet

RAND: Accountability for NCLB: A Report Card for “No Child Left Behind”

Schools of Thought: The High Stakes of Standardized Tests

Huffington Post: States Offered More Time to Ignore Education Law

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post No Child Left Behind: Where is it Now? appeared first on Law Street.

Ask anyone who has been to a college campus that has a fairly active Greek system, and you will hear some very strong opinions about the institutions. From those who think they are the absolutely best thing in the worl to those who think the idea is antiquated and the system needs a major renovation or even a demolition.

There are problematic aspects of Greek culture, to be sure, but is also a feeling of comradery and trust that goes into becoming a member of an organization. For some a fraternity or sorority might mean sister- or brotherhood, family, and fun while to others it is elitist, dangerous, and borders on bullying. Read on to learn about greek life and the arguments for and against it.

Brief History of Greek Life

Secret societies have long been a part of the cultural makeup of the United States. Students at the College of William & Mary in 1776 (does that year ring a bell?) formed a secret society called Phi Beta Kappa. It was the first Greek fraternity and set the precedence for those that followed: Greek letters, a secret ritual, a secret handshake, mottoes, a badge, and a code of ethics for all members. This group put an emphasis on academics and personal behavior, stressing the importance of being a gentleman.

The early 1880s saw a group of fraternities that is now called the Union Tria: Kappa Alpha Society, Sigma Phi, and Delta Phi. More and more fraternities were forming, often forming triads to keep in contact with other systems should problems arise.

In the 1850s the first sorority, Alpha Delta Pi, was founded, though it was not called a sorority at the time. It was during the mid-1800s that people started looking down on secret societies in fear of the unknown.

The National Panhellenic Conference (PANHEL, as it is called at many colleges) was founded in 1902 to unite sororities and in 1909, the National Interfraternity Conference (now the North-American Inferfraternity Council) was established to do the same with fraternities. As African Americans started to enter the college system with greater force and presence, organizations such as Alpha Phi Alpha were formed, as most other Greek organizations instituted racial and religious limitations on their membership until the 1960s.  Eventually the National Pan-Hellenic Council, the National Association of Latino Fraternal Organizations, and the National Multicultural Greek Council would also be formed to govern their respective organizations.

World War I and World War II brought trouble for the Greek system. Most college-aged men went into battle, and fraternities couldn’t keep their charters due to low membership. Many houses were used to hold troops, or were used to hold spillover students after dormitories were taken over. Smaller fraternities merged together to create larger ones in hope of keeping both alive. However, the opposite problem started when the boys came home from war: there was an influx of men on college campuses that wished to go Greek, and the fraternities could become selective. This brought about the tradition of hazing to see who was “worthy” of joining.

Since that time, fraternities and sororities have endured during times of distrust and membership decreases to now have prosperity and popularity. Organizations no longer have racial or religious barriers to membership, at least in their handbooks.

Currently, many schools have at least some Greek letter organization, whether it is social, service, or academic Greek. In some colleges, up to 70 percent of the student body is involved in some form of Greek life. However, some schools don’t allow Greek organizations due to stigmatism, low interest, or history. Many schools fall between the two extremes.

What issues do greek organizations need to face now?

Hazing

Image Courtesy of JayBeezy58 via Wikimedia Commons.

Hazing has been at the forefront of much of the modern criticism of Greek life. Hazing typically occurs during the pledge period when a prospective member has to prove him or herself worthy of becoming an official member.

Almost all Greek organizations do have requirements to join the organization. Some of the requirements include interviewing current members, study hours, participating in service events, and memorizing the rules and history of the organization. Some sororities and fraternities focus on those who are academic, social, or sports leaders at the school. Earlier requirements to join Greek did include having the right family or the right bank account to back up the bid.

Many colleges require dry pledging – or require that no one pledging the sorority or fraternity can drink during pledging. However, some Greek organizations force alcohol upon pledges as part of the pledging process. Sororities will often have their pledges buy expensive jewelry and either gift it or throw it away, proving their monetary worth.

Horror stories from those who pledged sororities can be particularly vicious. While fraternity hazing can be dangerous or harmful to the body, girls take it to the extreme with the mental hazing. Many different schools claim to have some sort of body shaming where the women within the organization will circle or highlight the parts of the body that the pledges need to work on to be members of the organization. There are also reports of women and men performing embarrassing sexual acts in front of their sisters or brothers. Alexandra Robbins, author of the book Pledged, echoed the sentiment of emotional harm. “I’ve talked to thirty-somethings who are still haunted by their sorority hazing,” the popular author explains.

Many schools are cracking down on hazing and punishing fraternities and sororities that are even accused of hazing.

Partying

Partying, drinking, and staying out late will probably always be a part of college, whether Greek life exists on campus or it doesn’t. Sororities and fraternities seem to get the blame for a lot of on-campus partying, but the reality of it is that if a campus has any sort of group, they will get together to drink. It doesn’t matter if it Sigma Alpha Epsilon, cafeteria workers, theatre students, or the school newspaper – it will happen.

However, there are problems within the partying scene in Greek culture particularly. Many of the theme parties that fraternities and sororities are famous for are not in the best of taste. A college recently even sent out a letter to the Greek organizations to remind them to be appropriate and tasteful during Halloween events. In 2013, a Duke fraternity, Kappa Sigma, held an “Asian Prime” themed party where they dressed in Asian-inspired clothing and spoke in accents throughout the night. While other students were outraged, the college seemed to remain passive: “The event was thoughtless and offensive but we’re not sure if it actually broke any rules,” Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs, told the Herald-Sun. Other problematic themes have included a “Thug Party” at Arizona State, “USA v. Mexico” at Randolph Macon,  “Colonial Bros and Nava-Hos” at California Polytechnic State, and “Bloods and Crips” at Dartmouth.

The simple truth may be that part of the Greek stereotype encourages people to think this about fellow classmates. Even if a party isn’t a sorority or fraternity, if one person is there who is a member of the organization or wearing letters, it is automatically dubbed a sorority or fraternity party. However, Greek organizations also have a responsibility to each other and the organization as a whole to use discretion and appropriate themes when planning and participating in events.

Sexual Assault

The news has been aflutter with case after case after case against fraternities accused of gang rape, violence, and sexual assault. Is it just a coincidence that the highly publicized cases are all fraternity members? Could be — but the truth remains that one in four college women will be sexually assaulted. Something is going wrong on college campuses. A story from Rolling Stone emerged last week about a woman at the University of Virginia who says she was gang-raped at a fraternity party her freshman year. Regardless of the specifics of the crime, it’s clear the university mishandled her sexual assault complaint.

Too often, colleges will mishandle any and all rape or sexual assault complaints from their students. A young girl was raped during an athletic weekend with the University of California, and it was swept under the rug by college officials to protect the integrity of the athletic department. These are just publicized cases, how many girls are being assaulted and not reporting it? How many girls are being told there’s nothing the school can do? Sixty-two percent of sexual assault at the collegiate level is drug assisted, so there are at least two crimes happening: the purchasing of drugs and rape.

Case Study: Clemson

Recently, a Clemson University student, Tucker Hipps, fell to his death from a bridge while running with his fraternity brothers. The college suspended all fraternities, citing reports of alcohol abuse, sexual misconduct, and general neglect. However, they didn’t tie the ban to the death of the student.

Clemson student affairs vice president Gail DiSabatino said in a statement:

“It is especially prudent to suspend fraternity activities given the tragic death of Tucker Hipps. There has been a high number of reports of serious incidents involving fraternity activities, ranging from alcohol-related medical emergencies to sexual misconduct … These behaviors are unacceptable and mandate swift and effective action to protect students. There is no higher priority than the safety and welfare of our students.”

Police haven’t connected his death to hazing or drinking, but there is still an investigation pending on the incident. The national Sigma Phi Epsilon organization released a statement saying that if foul play was involved in Hipps’ death, it would make sure those responsible are brought to justice and face proper repercussions.

Case Study: University of Virginia

The University of Virginia just suspended all fraternity activities, stemming from accusations in a Rolling Stone article that stated the Charlottesville campus failed to protect students from sexual abuse in the Greek system in 2012. According to the magazine report, a young woman was attacked by several members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. She was sexually assaulted for hours and sodomized with a beer bottle at the fraternity house. The victim had repeated meetings with campus officials, including the President and the Dean, but the campus did not take any steps. Two other women also had accused Phi Kappa Psi members of sexually assaulting them.

The school is currently investigating, as it could result in it losing its Title IX funding.

In Defense of Greek Life

Greek organizations do have a purpose on some college campuses. They serve to unite large groups of college students in a positive way. Students who are involved in Greek life are more likely to stay at a college than those who do not. Colleges with Greek life are more likely to see active participation in many other college events, including Homecoming and spirit week festivities. For those in academic Greek or service Greek, they make positive impacts on various areas of the school’s cultural landscape.

Those who participate in Greek life are also more likely to keep in contact with their college friends and return to the campus. According to Psychology Today: “for some people, memories from the Greek years appear to have a special significance, even influencing behavior decades later. In his book, Beer and Circus about Three A’s of University Life (academics, athletics, and alcohol), Murray Sperber writes about fraternity alumni seeking a little cross-generational bonding with current members through sharing memories of alcohol mayhem. “‘The main storytellers are often alumni, and they frequently gather in their old fraternity houses to narrate the tales and, on occasion, to try to relive them.’”

Greek life, despite its issues, does often have a place — it can help those who aren’t sure of their place in college find a home and a family. Amy Hansen sums it up best: “Sororities and fraternities teach young people to be strong, to be curious, to be brave, to be zestful. Their rituals aren’t just words whispered in a dingy basement. They are living, breathing actions during collegiate life and beyond.”

Conclusion

Some colleges don’t benefit from Greek organizations. If the college is too small, it definitely can seem like an “us v. them” situation. However, a large part of whether or not a college should have a Greek system depends on the actual organizations themselves. How the members treat each other, other students, and members of other organizations creates that atmosphere.

Aspects of Greek life certainly have problems, and there are many controversial situations with which Greek life organizations have to deal. However, there are tangible benefits from having the organizations on campus as well–schools need to encourage the organizations to find that balance themselves.

Resources

College Candy: Biggest Lies About Sorority Life

Business Insider: Don’t Ban Fraternities

Huffington Post: Greek Life Faces Crackdown at USC After Alcohol-Related Injuries

Colonnade: Greek Life, Myths, Truths Revealed

Cosmopolitan: The 13 Most Nightmarish Tales of Sorority Hazing

The Bottom Line: Cons of Greek Life

USA Today: Examining the Benefits of Greek Life

AJC: Fraternities Under Fire: Is it Time to Ban Fraternities?

Psychology Today: How Fraternities and Sororities Impact Students (Or Do They?)

Peterson’s: Should Your College Life Include Greek Life?

Fastweb: To Pledge or Not to Pledge

College Express: 10 Colleges That Get Greek Life Right

Editor’s Note: This post has been revised to credit select information to Psychology Today. 

Noel Diem

Law Street contributor Noel Diem is an editor and aspiring author based in Reading, Pennsylvania. She is an alum of Albright College where she studied English and Secondary Education. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, theater, fashion, and literature. Contact Noel at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Does Greek Life Serve a Purpose on Today’s College Campus? appeared first on Law Street.

Anyone who has been inside of a high school in the last five years has seen some interesting fashion choices by today’s teenagers. Teachers are expected to teach to the tests, teach students how to survive in the real world, personalize the curriculum for IEP students of all levels, and still have their work graded within twenty-four hours. And now? Some districts are adding another dimension: dress code enforcement. Dress codes are an important part of school culture, as they sometimes dictate whether or not a student can even attend class. Some things make more sense when it comes to the dress code: no short-shorts, no shirts with offensive sayings, and no pants that sag too low. There are also some questionable additions to the dress code, namely yoga pants, leggings, spandex running pants and other clothing that fights tightly to the body. With the seemingly endless stream of issues that American school teachers are responsible for this begs the question, are yoga pants really the problem?

What’s the fuss about yoga pants?

Yoga pants have really become a hot button topic among everyone from teenagers to fashion’s biggest designers. The pants are made out of a thin material that stretches and gives, which is why they’re comfortable for people to wear. The pants are usually credited as flattering on most body types because they cling to the legs and give definition where there may not be any. The pants also can become sheer when someone bends over, which is a chief complaint among the trend’s naysayers; however, if they are the proper size, that may not be an issue–especially with yoga pants, which tend to be thick. Many schools are dealing with the dilemma of whether or not they are proper attire for the classroom, and emotions run deep on both sides.

What sort of punishments can yoga pants get you in school?

Regulations vary from school district to school district, but an increasing number of them are outlawing yoga pants, leggings, and similar wear. The punishments and ramifications also vary, but they usually involve a request to change into either clothes brought by parents, or provided by the school.

Ashley Crtalic published a well written letter in the Billings Gazette a few weeks ago that raised some interesting points about her local high school dress code, including a punishment that is increasingly popular in public schools: public shaming and humiliation for not following the dress code. Some schools have extra, extra large shirts that say “I disobeyed the Dress Code,” or “Dress Code Reinforcement” on them, showing everyone in the school that that person broke the rules. Students have to either wear the shirt or have a parent bring in a spare pair of clothes.

Alternatively, some schools will have their students sit in the office until parents come in with a change of clothes. The concern with this is that today in America, if a home does have two parents, they usually both work, so requiring a parent to leave work in order to bring alternative clothing to school can be a burden. These students are missing out on important class time that they need, especially if they want to go onto college–all because they wore yoga pants to school. Other punishments range from detention, demerits, loss of privileges, and loss of activities.

How are students fighting back?

Feminism is reaching a whole new, younger audience thanks to social media websites like Tumblr. It is through those platforms that people are hearing more and more about these argued injustices. A 14-year-old student recently put up these posters over signs announcing her school’s dress code, protesting against them publicly and hoping to gain support.

Many school officials claim “distraction” is why these types of pants are banned. Students have responded to that criticism with concerns of their own, however, that such strict dress codes and punishments unduly distract female students. If a female student has to sit in the classroom with an embarrassing shirt on, or sit in the office waiting for a new outfit, she is probably not able to pay full attention to her studies.

Students who disagree with these dress codes argue that the distraction comes in many forms–gossip, catcalling, attention, unwanted touching, or even unwanted pictures. If it is as bad as has been reported at some schools, it would be bordering on sexual harassment, which shouldn’t be tolerated by any school. Those who stand against such dress restrictions argue that part of the purpose of school is to prepare young people to be functioning members of society, one of those things should be how to properly function in public.

So, is banning yoga pants a good idea?

Some argue that not allowing girls to wear yoga pants or leggings to school is a way to keep them responsible for their own appearances, and provide training for when they go into the real world. Girls won’t be allowed to wear leggings or yoga pants to the office, and school is preparing young adults to go out into the work force. Schools have banned pajamas, basketball shorts, and sweatpants for students for similar reasons–they aren’t the correct attire to wear in a professional environment. Supporters argue that it’s not an attack on young women, but rather a valuable teaching moment for students.

Other parents say that not allowing yoga pants or leggings in schools will cut down on the bullying and taunting of other students, namely females. Many girls who are bigger get made fun of for wearing leggings, especially if they cannot find them in the correct size. There is also a question of classism within leggings. Those who can afford the more expensive leggings are more likely to not have a problem with the sheerer, cheaper variety.

Some of the parents who are for banning yoga pants are in favor of instituting a much stricter dress code overall for all students, limiting them to shirts with collars and khaki pants. This works to eliminate some of the label mongering that many schools face, as the outfits will all be similar. It also prepares students for being comfortable in what would be a business casual outfit in college or a work place.

Case Study: Haven Middle School

The administrators of Haven Middle School in Illinois told parents in September that their daughters were no longer allowed to wear shorts, leggings, or yoga pants to school because they were “too distracting.” Parents fought against the rule because they didn’t think it was the girls’ responsibility to stop boys from becoming distracted.

They wrote a petition that 500 students went on to sign, claiming that the rule was sexist. Some students wore yoga pants anyway, in protest. One girl told the Evanston Review that, “Not being able to wear leggings because it’s ‘too distracting for boys’ is giving us the impression we should be guilty for what guys do.”

The parents are fighting back as well, say that, “This kind of message lands itself squarely on a continuum that blames girls and women for assault by men. It also sends the message to boys that their behaviors are excusable, or understandable given what the girls are wearing. We really hope that you will consider the impact of these policies and how they contribute to rape culture.”

As of publication time the dress code at Haven Middle School is still up for review.

Case Study: Skyview High School

When the administrators of the small Billings, Montana high school decided to add the following provision to the handbook over the summer, they didn’t think it would cause a big problem: “Leggings, jeggings, and tights ARE NOT pants and must be worn with dress code appropriate shorts, skirts, dresses, or pants.”

But it was a problem for many students, including one who went to the school board and declared that they were shaming the women in the school. “It’s completely sexist and misogynistic,” she said. “This tells women that our bodies are something that need to be hidden.” It is important to note that boys in the school were allowed to wear sleeveless t-shirts as they are a part of their uniforms.

No one has been sent home for violating the new code, but the principal has said that she has asked students to put on a longer top or sweatshirt. If they don’t have one, they can borrow one from the office. By a week after the ban, 200 students wore yoga pants on the same day.

Conclusion

Dress codes do have a place in our public schools. It is the job of the school district to prepare students for their best possible futures–futures that probably don’t include wearing leggings or yoga pants to the office. They are fine for gym class, for lounging around on the weekends, but in school, the goal should be to learn, not be comfortable. In fact, not allowing any sort of loungewear on the school grounds is a great way to improve the wardrobe of students before they go into college or the workforce. Let’s teach our kids how to dress for success.  As is currently the case of some dress codes or dressing standards, schools are typically assuming that boys can’t pay attention because of the way girls dress; however, we might not be giving either party the benefit of the doubt. By high school, if schools have done their jobs, our students should know how to act. If they don’t, then it is up to principals, guidance counselors, teachers, or other male students to have a meeting of the minds with these young men. This is a topic that will continue to cause contention in our public schools as districts deal with new trends and fads.

Resources

NY Daily News: ‘Distracting’ Yoga Pants Banned By Officials at North Dakota High School

Billings Gazette: Why Yoga Pants Are Incredibly Dangerous to Today’s Youth

My Fox Philly: High School Bans Yoga Pants

Alternet: High School Bans Dangerous Threat to Male Students: Yoga Pants

Fox 17: Leggings and Yoga Pants Are Banned at Niles High School

Boston.com: Your Guide to America’s War on Yoga Pants

Noel Diem

Law Street contributor Noel Diem is an editor and aspiring author based in Reading, Pennsylvania. She is an alum of Albright College where she studied English and Secondary Education. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, theater, fashion, and literature. Contact Noel at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post School Dress Codes: Are Yoga Pants Really the Problem? appeared first on Law Street.

If there’s one thing most Americans can agree on it’s that our education system is in dismal shape. A big chunk of that comes from the fact that our public schools have not, in some places, been able to provide students who come from low-income families with the resources that they so desperately need to be successful. One proposed way to fix this for at least some students is to institute a system of school vouchers. The idea of such programs has been heavily debated and discussed for decades. Read on to learn about school voucher programs and both sides of the debate.

What are school vouchers?

Vouchers parents to send their children schools outside of those assigned to them by location. These schools are often described as more innovative charter schools than are found in the traditional public system or private schools. Use of school vouchers varies throughout the United States, with some programs run at the state level, and others at the city level. Some notable long-lasting programs include those launched in Milwaukee in 1990, and Cleveland in 1995.

What is the argument in favor of school vouchers?

Providing families with more choices about how to raise their children is a staple of the American way and the voucher system would give control to parents to select the school that is best for their child. Vouchers would also allow children in low-income areas to escape the vicious cycle of poverty and go to a higher quality school so that they can get a better education. Additionally, private school vouchers would create direct competition between private schools and public schools and the competition will force all institutions to better themselves in an effort to attract students.

What is the argument against school vouchers?

For all the potential benefits that could come if state and local governments provided school vouchers, the policy also has notable flaws.  Opponents argue first and foremost that private school vouchers compromise the integrity of the entire public school system. The government operates public schools, yet it also incentivizes families to avoid them.  The conflicts of interest in this scenario makes it seem ineffective. Any public funding that goes to school vouchers is money that could have been spent improving the public school system, which cannot improve without support and investments from the government. Opponents also argue that many private schools are religiously affiliated and school vouchers provided by the government is essentially taxpayer funding of religious institutions.

How do school vouchers hold up in court?

The constitutionality of school vouchers has been heard in several court cases. Cleveland launched its program in 1995 in response to the city’s dismal public schools; however, because Cleveland’s program allowed students to use the vouchers to attend private schools with religious affiliations, the program was almost immediately the subject of lawsuits. Eventually, the question made it all the way to the Supreme Court in the 2002 case Zelman v. Simmons-Harris. In Zelman, the plaintiffs argued that the case violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which provides for the separation of religion and state. The court ruled that the vouchers could remain, because even though the religious schools were receiving government funding, the purpose of the vouchers was compelling and there were non-religious options possible. In addition, the program didn’t go to the religiously-based schools, but rather the parents and students who needed the aid, and the program didn’t proselytize or advocate for the religiously-run schools.

Case Study: Milwaukee Public Schools

Vouchers have been an option for students since the early 1990s, but whether or not the implementation has been effective is still up for debate. Thousands of students in Milwaukee take advantage of the voucher program, and like in Cleveland, many do end up in religiously-run institutions. The main question is whether or not it has worked.

The consensus seems to be: sort of. Evidence from the 2012-2013 school year shows that students in Milwaukee’s voucher program are not outscoring their public school peers as a whole on state tests. That sounds disheartening, and would seem to indicate that vouchers have been a failure, but there’s some evidence to suggest that the picture requires more digging than that. The voucher students have, in fact, scored better than their low-income public school peers. Also, test scores in the Milwaukee voucher program have on the rise, perhaps indicating that the program is on the right track.

Conclusion

The voucher system is a creative solution to a debilitating problem in the American education system — particularly in some of our low-income public schools. The argument for vouchers includes the ability for parents and students to inject more choice into their education — hopefully creating more competitive school systems. In practice, however, it hasn’t necessarily worked out to that way. They’re also expensive, and could lead to public schools receiving less funding in the name of creating stronger charter schools. While some students may receive a better education, students as a whole population are left in a worse position. What’s indubitable is that we’re really not sure about the ultimate effects of vouchers yet as there’s no nationwide system to study.

Resources

Primary

Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction: School Choice Programs

Cornell University Law School: Zelman v. Simmons-Harris

Additional

World Bank: How Do School Vouchers Help Improve Education Systems?

PBS: The Case For Vouchers

NJ.com: Christie Tours Pro-Vouchers, Anti-Union Message in Philadelphia

Washington Post: Are School Vouchers Losing Steam?

Carnegie Mellon University: Estimating the Effects of Private School Vouchers in Multidistrict Economies

Education Next: The Impact of School Vouchers on College Enrollment

WRAL.com: Voucher Bill Provides Public Money For Private School

Anti-Defamation League: School Vouchers: The Wrong Choice For Public Education

Americans United For Separation of Church and State: 10 Reasons Why Private School Vouchers Should Be Rejected

Sameer Aggarwal

Sameer Aggarwal was a founding member of Law Street Media and he is a graduate of The George Washington University. Contact Sameer at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post School Vouchers: Are They Worth It? appeared first on Law Street.

In our increasingly diverse society, one debate that’s pretty common to hear floating around is about “affirmative action.” Particularly in regards to college admissions, both proponents and critics of the programs have a lot to say.  Read on to learn about the history of affirmative action policies, and the arguments for and against them.

What is Affirmative Action?

Affirmative action is defined as “a policy or a program that seeks to redress past discrimination through active measures to ensure equal opportunity, as in education and employment.”  AA has existed since the Civil Rights Movement. It began with President John F. Kennedy’s passage of Executive Order 10925, which required government contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” This essentially mandated that anyone hired by the federal government could not discriminate based on race or ethnicity.

According to current federal AA law, schools giving race-based admissions must meet the strict scrutiny rule. This rule was recently reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2013 Fisher v. University of Texas. If race is used in college application admissions, then the school (or the government if it is a state school) bears the legal burden of demonstrating that it was done because it is “closely related to a compelling government interest” and “narrowly tailored” to meet that interest.  The school must also demonstrate that race-neutral alternatives are not viable in that case.

The debate over AA was also invigorated in 2014, with the Supreme Court Decision Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action. The state of Michigan had banned AA policies at their universities. The court decided that Michigan’s ban of the policies did not violate the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, along with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented from the Schuette decision. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor stated:

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination.

However, AA policies are not consistent state-by-state, and the Schuette case is just another example of the flexibility that states are allowed to take with their policies.

Since JFK’s executive order, AA policies have been modified and refined by the legislature and the courts.  In fact, many sociologists and other experts have reach opposing conclusions about the efficacy of AA on redressing the effects of historical discrimination.  This has led to AA becoming a source of significant political controversy.  AA has been both implemented and enforced at both the federal and the state levels.  Individual states can have vastly different AA policies from the federal government and from each other.  AA is primarily implemented through efforts to “improve the employment and educational opportunities of women and members of minority groups through preferential treatment in job hiring, college admissions, the awarding of government contracts, and the allocation of other social benefits.”

What’s the argument to get rid of Affirmative Action?

Proponents of repealing AA argue that the policy of considering the race of potential beneficiaries disproportionately benefits upper and middle class racial minorities at the expense of poor Caucasians.  Since a larger proportion of minorities are poor than Caucasians, class-based AA would help poor racial minorities more than it would help poor Caucasians. AA can disproportionately harm certain minority groups while benefiting others. For example, Asian Americans have more difficulty getting into top private universities than African Americans, Latino Americans, and Caucasians.  Affirmative Action is reverse-discrimination and it requires the same discrimination that it is supposed to prevent, therefore it is counterproductive. In many cases, it can require less qualified or unqualified applicants to be accepted into positions at the expense of qualified applicants resulting in their eventual failure.

What’s the argument to keep Affirmative Action policies in place?

Opponents of repealing AA argue that ensuring equality of opportunity regardless of one’s background creates the best possible social, cultural and economic future for the people of the United States.  Equality is also most conducive to the strength of the U.S. national defense. Failing to provide such equality would be contrary to the principles that led to the founding of the United States. Some argue that AA should be class-based only.  However, racial minorities of all socioeconomic classes are vulnerable to discrimination and many minorities in all classes become victims of discrimination.  Therefore, in order to be effective AA must be race based as well. Studies have shown that people with “black sounding” names are less likely to be contacted for job interviews than people with “white sounding names. AA has contributed to the creation to the “black middle class” as well.  Finally, studies have shown that minority students are more likely to experience hostility and negative treatment in states that ban AA than in states that utilize it.

Conclusion

Affirmative action policies are a common cause of debate, especially when it comes to our public universities. While they certainly have proved their benefits, there are also valid concerns about the ethical benefits and detractors of the policies.

Resources

Primary

Supreme Court: Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, et al.

Additional

Stanford Magazine: The Case Against Affirmative Action

American Prospect: Class-Based Affirmative Action Is Not the Answer

Annenberg Media Center: Fisher v. UT Austin: Why Affirmative Action Should Be Eliminated

Pantagraph: Affirmative Action Should Be Eliminated

Alternet: 10 Reasons Affirmative Action Still Matters Today

TIME: Why We Still Need Affirmative Action

New Yorker: Why America Still Needs Affirmative Action

Real Clear Politics: Good News About Affirmative Action’s Future

Cornell University Law School: Affirmative Action

About News: The Affirmative Action Debate: Five Concerns

About News: Key Events in Affirmative Action’s History

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Affirmative Action

Newsweek: Why We Still Need Affirmative Action

John Gomis

John Gomis earned a Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School in June 2014 and lives in New York City. Contact John at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Affirmative Action Laws: A History of Political Controversy appeared first on Law Street.

As of March 2012, there were roughly 11.7 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, many of whom had brought their children with them when they crossed the border. America has been left to figure out how to deal with this massive immigration influx and to determine the best course of action for possible immigration reform. Special attention is paid to undocumented youth who were brought to America illegally as children and have been residing in the country for some time. One big question that the country is struggling to answer is should these young people receive in-state college tuition? Read on to learn about the debate.

What action has been taken?

The Obama administration started the program Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which permits undocumented youth who were brought to the US under the age of 16 and have been in the US for more than five years to work, get a driver’s license, get a loan, and go to college without the fear of being deported. These youths have also attended their local school systems through programs designed to provide undocumented youths with a K-12 education. Now, as these individuals prepare to graduate high school, they are met with an insurmountable financial wall that prevents them from attending college and pursuing high-paying careers. While DACA permits these students to attend college, they are required to pay out-of-state tuition costs based on their immigration status, which can be considerably more expensive than in-state tuition. Out-of-state tuition is often unaffordable for undocumented families. Paying in-state tuition would greatly reduce this financial burden and make college a real possibility for many undocumented students.

Several states have begun passing “tuition equity” legislation that allows undocumented youths who have graduated from state high schools to pay in-state tuition costs at state schools. Advocates see this as a model of immigration and education reform. Seventeen  states currently provide tuition equity. However, this legislation has been met with strong opposition by those who feel that offering undocumented citizens in-state tuition cheapens American citizenship and rewards illegal behavior.

What’s the argument for providing tuition equity?

Advocates argue that tuition equity could benefit undocumented students and US citizens alike by providing a clear and navigable path toward achieving the American dream. Advocates argue that these students should not be blamed for the actions of their parents, and while they are not US citizens they have grown up and received their education in this country, and cannot call any other place home.

US public school districts currently spend roughly $243,000 per student to educate undocumented youths in K-12. Many feel that this effort and taxpayer money is wasted if these students, who have worked hard throughout their K-12 education, are not given a chance at an affordable college education. While many middle-class families currently struggle to afford hefty out-of-state tuition costs for their children, those tuitions are nearly impossible for undocumented citizens to afford. Upon this realization, many undocumented youths are motivated to drop out of high school and fail to live up to their academic potential. Advocates argue that making tuition feasible would inspire more undocumented students to graduate high school, attend college, and pursue a high-paying career, which could potentially benefit US citizens and the American economy.

Having a college education would encourage more of these students to enter the job market as tax-paying American citizens. The influx of more college-trained individuals into the job market could encourage job growth through entrepreneurial enterprises and increase tax revenue from the higher salaries these individual could make by having a college degree. In the long run, advocates say, tuition equity benefits undocumented and documented citizens alike.

What’s the argument against providing in-state tuition?

Opponents of offering in-state tuition to undocumented students argue that tuition equity validates illegal immigration and is inequitable to tax-paying US citizens. The parents of undocumented students often do not pay taxes that contribute to the funding and maintenance of state colleges and universities, and opponents argue that therefore their children should be charged out-of-state tuition costs. The cost of running these educational institutions would instead be deferred to state citizens who are legal residents. Following California’s DREAM Act, a tuition equity bill signed into law in 2011, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s office estimated that it would require an additional $65 million per year by 2016/2017 in order to provide higher education benefits to undocumented citizens.

Opponents also feel that tuition equity is inherently inequitable toward out-of-state students who are legal residents of the United States. These students would be required to pay a higher tuition merely because they happen to live in a different state than the college they are interested in attending, albeit legally. Some argue that if in-state tuition costs are offered to undocumented residents, then these same lower tuition rates should be offered to out-of-state legal citizens as well, at which point the concept of in and out of state tuition becomes moot.

Because tuition equity is largely backed by Democrats, some opponents feel that it is used merely as a political tool to attract the Latino vote and to secure a growing population for the Democratic Party. Opponents argue that tuition equity and DACA do not actually provide any real immigration reform, but rather pander to Hispanic voters. Momentum for tuition equity has been gaining steadily, however, and this debate will continue to unfold as more states struggle with questions of immigration and education.

Conclusion

The status of children who are brought into the United States illegally by their parents is a tough topic from all angles. Whether or not they should receive in-state tuition for college education continues to be a divisive fight at all levels of government. Some states have moved forward to allow it, while others continue the argument.

 Resources

Primary

Oregon State Legislature: Tuition Equity Bill HB 2787

State of New Jersey: Tuition Equality Act

Additional

USA Today: Why Christie Should Endorse Tuition Equity

Voxxi: Oregon Is One Step Away From Allowing Dreamers to Pay In-State Tuition

American Immigration Council: Tuition Equity Could Be Coming Soon to a State Near You

Students for a Democratic Society: SDS Launches National Push For Tuition Equity

Gazette Times: Tuition Equity Has A Political Agenda

Oregon Catalyst: Tuition Equity Bill: Worst Example of Agency Advocacy

Daily Californian: Children of Illegal Immigrants Should Not Go to College and Gain Legal Status

NJ Policy Perspective: To Put the “Equity” In Tuition Equity, Access to State Aid is Essential

Oregon Public Broadcasting: Tuition Equity Bill Has Backers, Doubters

Washington Post: Seven Immigrants Brought to U.S. as Children Sue For In-State Virginia College Tuition Rates

The New York Times: The Uncertain Cost of Helping Illegal Immigrants Go to College

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Just a DREAM? In-State Tuition for Undocumented Immigrants appeared first on Law Street.

Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs around the country cultivate today’s students to become the pilots of economics and commerce in the world of tomorrow. In an effort to make the business school experience richer and more beneficial for these students, many top business schools have adopted Grade Non-Disclosure (GND) policies to refocus both students and recruiters away from grades and toward other aspects that many feel are more important and valuable. Read on to learn about what these Grade Non-Disclosure policies do, whether or not they’re effective, and the arguments for and against them.

What does a Grade Non-Disclosure policy do?

A Grade Non-Disclosure policy demands that students do not discuss their grades or GPA with recruiters until they have a full-time job offer; however, students are free to discuss any awards or honors, test scores, or undergraduate grades with recruiters. These GND policies are, as of now, only found in business schools, and only elite business schools at that. These policies also vary from school to school. At Harvard up until 2005, when its GND policy was repealed, for example, the school itself introduced and enforced the GND policy. At Wharton and Chicago Booth, the student body approves and imposes the policy upon themselves. Grade Non-Disclosure policies have their advocates and opponents, with school administrators usually favoring disclosure and students usually favoring non-disclosure. See an NYU parody video below about Grade Non-Disclosure policies for a lighter look.

What’s the argument in favor of Grade Non-Disclosure Policies?

Whether instituted by the school administration or the student body itself, advocates say Grade Non-Disclosure allows students to take more engaging and difficult classes without fear of the repercussions on their GPAs, while encouraging a more collaborative atmosphere and focus upon the more important aspects of business school. In a 2011 survey by the Graduate Management Admissions Council, the majority of business recruiters look primarily for applicants who demonstrate initiative, professionalism, motivation, integrity, creativity, efficiency, goal orientation, and adaptability with little emphasis on grades as a criteria for hiring.

Many business professionals note that the importance of business school lies in the networking and employment opportunities that arise from studying in such a setting, not in the receipt of a grade for a particular class. Because grades carry less importance in an MBA program, advocates of GND policies claim that under these policies students are allowed to take more engaging and challenging classes that broaden their intellectual horizons without worrying about taking low-level, GPA-boosting classes. These policies also enable recruiters to focus on the aspects of candidates that many feel truly reveal their real-world potential, such as awards, honors, extra-curricular activity, and other distinguishing factors.

Many institutions have quotas and maximum limits on As and Bs awarded and average GPAs, which fosters fierce competition between the relatively small number of MBA students for those top grades. GND policies eliminate the incentive for this bitter competition and instead promote an environment of collaboration, cooperation, and networking between students.

What’s the argument against Grade Non-Disclosure Policies?

While some opponents may agree that grades are not the sole purpose of a business school program, they do find that Grade Non-Disclosure policies entice students to forego preparing and working hard for classes, and only benefit students of elite business schools because of their name-brand education. A 2011 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research revealed that in the first four years after Wharton students instituted a GND policy, the time spent on academics dropped by 22percent with no patterns of change in the types of courses students were enrolling in. Other graduate students and faculty have noticed that under these policies students exhibit an increase in apathy and a decrease in motivation concerning their classes.

While seven of the top ten MBA programs in the country had GND policies, no schools ranked 20-50 among business schools had them. The reason why these policies only exist at elite schools, many opponents claim, is that by not divulging their GPAs, students at these schools are allowed to rest on the merits of their school’s name, and not upon their own academic achievement. Students in lower-ranked business programs do not have that luxury as the mere name of their institutions would not garner the same respect and prestige that would have an impact on a job interview.

Conclusion

Education is only as valuable as what you learn from it, even at the MBA level. The idea of Grade Non-Disclosure policies is that they help students to focus on learning rather than getting better grades than their peers. After all, the skills that they learn will be significantly more useful in the workforce than the ability to pinpoint and take easy classes. However, opponents of Grade Non-Disclosure policies argue that the policies incentivize students to not work as hard as they can. There’s also the argument that Grade Non-Disclosure policies hurt students who work very hard at lower-ranked schools. Given that there is no centralized MBA Grade Non-Disclosure program, it is likely that schools will continue to make the choices for themselves. For those looking at MBA programs, it’s an important facet of education to take into account.

Resources

Primary 

Chicago Booth School of Business: Grade Non-Disclosure Policy

Wharton Graduate Association: Grade Non-Disclosure Policy

Additional

U.S. News & World Report: Reports Examine Grade Non-Disclosure Policies in MBA Degree Programs

To MBA or Not to MBA: On Grade Non-Disclosure

Financial Times: The Perks of GND

Freakonomics: Why Do Only Top MBA Programs Practice Grade Non-Disclosure?

Business Insider: Wharton Students Don’t Prepare For Class Because Employers Never Find Out Their Grades

NYU Stern Graduate Student Newspaper: On Grade Non-Disclosure

Inside MBA: Which Business Schools Have Grade Non-Disclosure?

Poets and Quants: Cornell Debates Grade Non-Disclosure Policy

Wharton Journal: Grade Non-Disclosure Vote Opens This Week

Economist: News From the Schools

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Making the Grade? MBA Programs and Grade Non-Disclosure Policies appeared first on Law Street.

Tenure was originally created as a protection for teachers. In more recent times however, critics have grown concerned that it has turned into a system that has the potential for abuse. Read on to learn about the history of tenure and the arguments for and against it.

The History of Tenure

The early twentieth century saw an immense number of unions formed in a wide array of industries, empowering the American workers and dramatically altering legal precedent concerning workers’ rights. During this time, American public school districts began adapting and adopting the process of tenure from colleges and universities and applying it to their own school systems. Tenure, in the K-12 public school sense, provides teachers with the right to due process before being terminated. Before tenure became a common aspect of public school districts, female teachers were often dismissed for getting pregnant or even being seen in town with a man to whom she was not married to; and older teachers were often replaced with new, younger teachers simply because they had become too expensive for the district.

As educational professionals seek ways to improve the American education system in the wake of No Child Left Behind’s rigorous standards, many argue that replacing teacher tenure with a merit-based system would improve teacher quality and, therefore, student performance. However, advocates of teacher tenure argue that is protects vital rights that, if removed, would allow teachers to be exploited and would constrict their ability to improve their educational strategies.

What are the arguments for teachers being able to receive tenure?

Advocates argue that the tenure system protects teachers from being wrongfully dismissed because of problems that could arise out of industry politics, economics, and other such dynamics, as well as personal or political reasons, such as disagreeing with the school board over whether to teach a topic such as evolution or to teach a banned book. Advocates argue that this allows teachers to take more risks in their teaching style and methods, encouraging teachers to push the pedagogical boundaries and improve themselves as educational professionals in the process. A distinction that many advocates of teacher tenure make is that it does not make it impossible to fire a tenured teacher. Instead, tenure ensures due process is followed when a district seeks to dismiss a teacher.

Tenure is not merely given to any teacher hired by a district; most school districts require teachers to spend three to four years in a probationary period before receiving tenure, which allows the teacher to gain experience and allows the district to determine whether the teacher will continue to be a valuable addition to the school’s faculty.

Many teachers also face the prospect of termination due to false student accusations. At times a student may falsely accuse his or her teacher of committing a fireable offense, which often gains a large amount of negative publicity for the school district and could potentially blacklist a teacher from getting a job elsewhere. Tenure ensures that a thorough investigation is conducted before the administration acts upon a student’s accusation, thus protecting good teachers from malcontented students.

What are the arguments against teacher tenure?

Opponents of the tenure system argue that it is being manipulated by teachers’ unions to make ineffective teachers difficult to dismiss and creates a system that favors seniority over merit. Opponents argue that while teachers must work through a probationary period before receiving tenure, nearly all teachers receive it once they reach that mark, and therefore tenure becomes a process not aimed at protecting and retaining good teachers, but at protecting the job security of all teachers regardless of merit. In the New York City public school district, 97 percent of teachers received tenure after teaching for three years, and opponents argue that statistics such as these indicate that tenure is not a highly selective process.

Tenure also makes teachers difficult to fire by allowing teachers’ unions to drag out the termination process and to dispute any decisions concerning dismissal, making the removal of poor teachers expensive and time consuming. A study published in 2009 stated that 89 percent of administrators did not fire ineffective teachers for fear of the time and money it would require to do so. Additionally, in the Chicago public school district, where only 28.5 percent of student met expectations on standardized tests, only 0.1 percent of teachers were dismissed for performance-related reasons between 2005 and 2008. Obviously, there is a disconnect between the poor performance of students in this district and the replacement of teachers who were unable to improve that performance.

Many opponents also argue that tenure allows teachers to stop seeking personal improvement and to begin to “coast” through their jobs. In a profession that demands constant improvement while children’s education hangs in the balance, a system that provides teachers with impeccable job security unrelated to merit is not the way to promote teacher development.

Conclusion

The history of granting teachers tenure makes sense, but whether or not the system has reached antiquity is a common topic of debate. Tenure has many benefits — protection and incentives for teachers — but also some downsides — potential to kill innovation. As the American education system evolves and begins to adopt more alternative forms of teaching, such as charter schools, tenure policies may have to evolve too to keep up.

Resources

Primary

University of Minnesota: A Study of Transparency of K-12 Teacher Tenure: What the Evaluation Policy Documents Reveal

Additional

Huffington Post: An Argument For Teacher Tenure

NEA Today: What Teacher Tenure Is and What it Is Not

Teach For America: Point/ Counterpoint: In Support of Teacher Tenure

News Observer: Wake County School Board Opposes Elimination of Teacher Tenure

Teachers Union Exposed: Protecting Bad Teachers

NPR: Is Teacher Tenure Still Necessary?

USA Today: States Weaken Tenure Rights For Teachers

Scholastic: Weigh In: Is Tenure For Teachers Over?

Education.com: Should Teachers Have Tenure?

Concordia Online Education: K-12 Teacher Tenure: Understanding the Debate

Teachhub.com: Teacher Tenure Debate: Pros and Cons

Take Part: Pros and Cons of Teacher Tenure: What You Didn’t Know

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Teachers and Tenure: An Outdated System? appeared first on Law Street.

Students have always loved snow days as an excuse to play in the snow and forget about their schoolwork, if only for a day. However, snow days are a logistical headache for the administration and teachers who already have a difficult time cramming 2,500 years of world history or all of the basic principles of chemistry into a school year. As a result, some education reformers are suggesting that we should have “virtual” school on snow days. Read on to learn about what exactly that means, and the debate on virtual school days.

What’s the logic behind virtual snow days?

Snow days disrupt the academic schedule at a critical time in the year when students are least distracted and are preparing to take any number of standardized tests that come in early Spring. Additionally, administrators have to decide whether to add days lost because of snow to the end of the year, which is expensive and adds days at a time when students are mentally checked out and ready for summer.

After this past winter, one of the coldest on record and with an immense amount of snowfall, school districts are looking for ways to cope with a large amount of snow days. On February 13 the Pascack Valley Regional High School in Hillsdale, New Jersey tried holding a virtual school day after schools were closed due to snowfall. All students in the district had been assigned a laptop to bring home at the beginning of the year, and while remaining at home, teachers and students engaged in discussion, completed assignments, and continued progress on coursework. Students even had their physical education class, in which they were instructed to measure their heartbeat before and after going outside to shovel snow for 15 minutes. Though innovative, the New Jersey Board of Education has yet to decide whether they will accept this “virtual” day as an official school day.

While advocates hail this experiment as a success that will usher in a new era of productive snow days, opponents argue that technological barriers and a myriad of other problems prevent this idea from becoming a widely recognized solution.

What’s the argument for virtual snow days?

Advocates see virtual school days as a progressive way to prevent academic disruption and to provide students with as much education as possible prior to the standardized tests that have become so important in the era of “No Child Left Behind.” Standardized tests are often scheduled for February, March, or April regardless of how many snow days a school has had, and days added on in June do not benefit students on these tests that end up determining school funding and grade progression. It would be beneficial to have students continue to progress on coursework, as it not only takes away time from standardized test preparation but is disruptive to a teacher’s academic schedule to have to push back lessons, reviews, and test days.

It is also costly for school districts, which often have an already-tight budget, to keep school open at the end of the year, which involves extending building costs and staff salaries, while also disrupting the schedules of families that may have scheduled a vacation or have signed their children up for day camp during the regularly scheduled summer vacation. Virtual school days would eliminate these logistical problems and provide students with education during the time of year when they are most focused, and not daydreaming of being outdoors.

Advocates point to the success of online college courses and the growing number of individuals who work remotely from home via their computers as an indicator that this system could be adapted for use at the grade-school level. Additionally, advocates argue that virtual school could be adapted for such cases as when students are recovering from an illness but not quite well enough to return to school, which could prevent sick students from falling behind their peers.

What are the arguments against virtual snow days?

Despite being a useful method for keeping school on track and preventing disruption in academics, there are several logistical problems that would make virtual school days difficult to implement. First, snowfall often brings about power outages due to falling tree branches or car accidents, and without power a virtual school day cannot happen. Also, the technology required is not accessible to all school districts or all families that have school-aged children. While more affluent districts may be able to provide laptops for their students, most districts such as those in inner-city neighborhoods do not have the resources to make this happen. While beneficial, many opponents argue that the cost of providing each and every student with virtual school technology is simply not worth the benefits of productive snow days. In areas where all families have their own internet access, a situation in which a family has multiple children but only one computer, as is common, would create problems with virtual school. (Remember how difficult it was to share the TV with your siblings? Try sharing the resource you need in order to complete your schoolwork for the day.)

Another logistical problem faced by virtual school is the teachers who are parents themselves, and so have to watch their children on snow days. Many teacher-parents do not relish the thought of having to teach a full school day via computer while looking after their own children. Teachers of younger children also argue that virtual school would be difficult for children in elementary school, who often need more hands-on guidance with their schoolwork and find it more difficult to sit still and focus for long periods of time. Without the presence of a teacher in the same room as them, many feel that virtual school would not succeed in providing a quality educational day for younger students.

Many professionals are also against using e-learning technology to hold virtual school because many say teaching in this method requires a widely different skill set than those used for in-class teaching. Very few teachers have any type of training in using this technology or this method, and so opponents argue that while virtual school days would have students completing assignments on snow days, the quality of education the students would receive on these days would be dramatically different on days they are in the classroom.

Conclusion

With the state of American education where it is, every chance that we have to provide quality education to our children is valuable. That being said, creating make-shift learning opportunities from home may be more trouble than it would be worth. For those of us located in snow-prone climates, it will be a debate that many school districts will have to have for themselves in coming years.

Resources

Primary

Pascack Valley Regional High School School District: Virtual High School

Additional

NorthJersey.com: Make Snow Days Into Virtual School Days

NJ.com: Schools Offer ‘Virtual Classes’ to Keep Lessons on Track During Snow Storms

Accuweather.com: Could Virtual Classrooms Be a Solution For Snow Days?

Washington Post: Gasp! No More Snow Days?

Gizmodo: Terrible News: The Internet May Kill Snow Days

Middletown Press: Poor Elijah’s Almanack: Neither Snow Nor Blizzard Bags

NorthJersey.com: Snow Day’s Virtual Classroom: Are Lessons at Home the Next Logical Step?

CBS: NJ School District Tries to Get Around Snow Days With “Virtual School Days”

CNN: Students, Say Goodbye to Snow Days–and Say Hello to School at Home

Boston.com: Virtual School Days Replace Snow Days For Some Schools

NBC: New Jersey Students Spend Snow Day in Virtual School

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Snowmen or Textbooks: The Debate Over Virtual Snow Days appeared first on Law Street.

The past few decades have seen an increase in negative childhood behavior such as bullying and school violence, causing many to feel that today’s youth do not subscribe to the same moral values and codes of conduct that previous generations have. Traditionally, education in morality and social conduct was primarily done in the home, and children learned from their parents, elders, and neighbors. School was a place merely for academic education, and children were expected to come prepared with a sense of right and wrong. However, there are many people today that feel that public schools are, at least in part, responsible for providing students with education in areas such as morality, ethics, and good citizenship.

Answering the call, numerous character education programs have been created by private organizations, state and local school boards, and corporations that have designed curricula, created lessons, and provide the tools necessary for schools to provide character education to their students. Read on to learn about these character education programs, their benefits and problems, and what they mean for the future of education.

What does character education consist of?

Character education usually consists of some sort of system of values or principles that help students develop their own moral priorities and ideologies.

Eighteen states currently mandate character education in public schools through legislation such as North Carolina’s Student Citizen Act of 2001, which requires local boards of education in the state to develop and implement a character education program in their schools. As the momentum for character education grows, it remains to be seen whether it will become an integral part of the American education system.

What are the arguments for character education?

Advocates of character education argue that these programs teach universal values that create more academically successful students and, in time, more socially productive citizens. Values such as respect, responsibility, integrity, perseverance, justice, courage, and self-discipline are commonly agreed to be desired characteristics in an individual, and character education programs target these core values and teach children to incorporate these values into their everyday lives. Teachers, parents, and students who have worked with character education argue that teaching these values in school produces students with higher academic performance, improved school attendance, reduced violence, fewer disciplinary issues, less substance abuse, and less vandalism.

Reports and polls have shown that around 90 percent of Americans support teaching values such as honesty, democracy, and acceptance in public schools. Additionally, many teachers argue that character education makes students easier to teach. More importantly, advocates argue that character education is necessary in a democratic society to create good, moral citizens. In a society in which the people have power in the political sphere, many argue that it is imperative to have a citizenry with a strong sense of morality and its role in society. Therefore, character education is entirely required to transform the youth of today into the citizenry of tomorrow.

Lastly, many character education programs are reactionary tools used to combat an increase in bullying and school violence. Advocates argue that by teaching universal values, schools can help create a stronger sense of community and a safer learning environment for students.

What are the arguments against character education?

While character education has its advocates, many argue that it presents children with a negative view of humanity and is often used more as a tool for control or political sway than for the nurturing of caring, thoughtful students. Opponents point to a commonality that most character education programs share called the “fix the kids” orientation, which attempts to teach children morality on the basis that all people are inherently bad in nature and must be taught how to live among one another. Many experts argue that this negative view of humanity is harmful to children’s conception of morality and ethics, and that instead these programs should encourage students to reflect upon what causes people to make bad decisions, and how they themselves could make a better decision in that same situation.

Similarly, many of these programs are conducted through the use of extrinsic rewards such as candy or a pizza party for good behavior, which experts say teaches students to do what they are told simply for a reward, and not to behave morally because it is the right thing to do. In addition to criticizing the methods by which character education programs work, many opponents also criticize their underlying foundations and purpose. While these programs teach “universal values,” opponents point out that there is still bias upon deciding just which universal values to teach to children.

Many argue that these programs have political undercurrents, often teaching children traditional, conservative values that lean toward the political right. In the end, opponents say, these programs are designed to create malleable, robotic students who do not question authority and will grow up to become benign citizens uninterested in questioning or changing the current power structures. These findings were corroborated in a 2010 study conducted by The Institute of Education Sciences that found the benefits of character education to be negligible. In a study of 84 school districts around the country, researchers found that there was no difference in academic improvement between schools with character education programs and those without. Opponents argue that this federal report provides statistical evidence to their claims that character education is used merely as a form of crowd control and does not make students inherently more moral. Instead, many would prefer to implement programs that promote thoughtful reflection on social issues and inter-personal communication in order to teach students concepts such as empathy, critical thinking, and understanding.

Conclusion

It’s important that we teach our children to be responsible and good citizens, but for a long time we’ve been questioning how exactly to do that. Some people argue that it’s a matter best taken on by parents and communities, while others think that schools can play an important role. Don’t be surprised if character education shows up on your child’s curriculum soon.

Resources

Primary

U.S Department of Education: Efficacy of Schoolwide Programs to Promote Social and Character Development and Reduce Problem Behavior in Elementary School Children

Additional

NC Public Schools: Character Education

Atlantic: The Benefits of Character Education

National Character Education Center: Character Education Should Be Taught

The Genius in Children: Should Schools Teach Values or is That the Parents’ Responsibility?

Alfie Kohn: How Not to Teach Values: A Critical Look at Character Education

Education Week: Character Education Found to Fall Short in a Federal Study

Boston Review: Whose Character? Why Character Education is Inherently Flawed

Patriotism For All: The Problem With Character Education

The New York Times: Should Character Be Taught? Students Weigh In

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development: A Common Goal

Red Orbit: Character Education in America’s Public Schools

Education Week: Should We Teach “Character” In Schools? If So, How?

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Character Education on the Public School Agenda appeared first on Law Street.

The United States mandates education for its children and provides public access to that education. When a child’s formal education begins, however, depends on several factors, including the state, the child, and the wishes of the child’s parents. But when exactly we should begin providing that education is up for debate. Read on to learn about the concept of universal pre-school, and the arguments for and against it.

What’s the current status of Preschool in the U.S.?

On March 4, 2014 President Obama announced his intention to allocate $750 million for the foundation of universal, federally funded pre-school in the United States. These funds would guarantee that Pre-K would be available, but not mandatory, for all young Americans, and some research has shown that a pre-school education creates better students and more productive citizens later in life. The concept of universal pre-school is nothing new; several states and cities including New Jersey, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Boston, and Tulsa have had various forms of universal Pre-K programs since the middle and late 1990s. However, many oppose these measures, saying that a pre-school education does not guarantee success for a child, making the taxpayer investment simply not worth the risk. While there are numerous studies indicating the success rates of pre-school educated children, these reports are disputed, and plenty of other reports exist that argue pre-school does not positively affect a student’s academic success later in their education. It remains to be seen whether the President will be able to garner enough support, and funds, for this educational endeavor.

What are the arguments for Universal Pre-school?

Supporters of universal pre-school highlight the long list of rewards students can reap from a Pre-K education, while arguing that future returns, as well as the influx of former stay-at-home parents into the workforce, will actually improve the economy now and in the future. Advocates point out a wide array of benefits that can stem from obtaining a Pre-K education. These include higher test scores, better emotional development, higher high school graduation rates, lower poverty rates, and the end of racial socio-economic disparity.

The jump start on learning for pre-schoolers allows them to enter Kindergarten with some pre-existing content knowledge and experience in working in a classroom setting with their peers. The end result of these benefits, supporters argue, is that these students will achieve a higher level of education, get better jobs, and contribute to the end of poverty and race-based economic gaps. Privately-owned pre-schools, while maintaining high standards, are expensive and thus seem to cater to middle and upper class families. Without access to Pre-K due to economic restrictions, many argue that children of low-income families are locked into a cycle of poverty.

The problem that remains, however, is how the government and taxpayers will pay for this type of program. Political advocates have offered popular ways to pay for universal pre-school; New York City’s Mayor De Blasio plans to tax New York’s wealthiest residents to pay for his Pre-K program, while President Obama has suggested increasing the tax on cigarettes from $1.01 to $1.95. Advocates argue that these strategies would allow the government to fund a universal Pre-K program without significant impact on the taxes of average Americans. Additionally, supporters point out the economic benefits of universal pre-school, indicating it will pay for itself and more over time.

What are the arguments against Universal Pre-school?

Opponents argue that universal Pre-K would be detrimental to quality private pre-schools. Opponents dispute the same reports that link the myriad of benefits to a pre-school education, using other reports to argue that students with and without this early start earn similar test scores, high school graduation rates, and career achievement. One of the best sources of support for this argument, opponents claim, is the failure of current federal pre-school programs such as Head Start.

Initiated in 1965 as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society,” Head Start offers low-income families access to pre-school for their children. Within the last decade, educational professionals have been united in their acknowledgement that Head Start fails to achieve its goals of inequality-gap reduction. Advocates claim this is due to a lack of funding and the low quality of the Pre-K offered under Head Start (the pre-school teachers are not required to have a teaching degree), whereas modern universal pre-school proposals call for high-quality education with highly qualified teachers. Opponents, however, say this is evidence that federally-funded Pre-K programs fail to meet the needs of economically disadvantaged students.

Opponents argue the only way to ensure a quality pre-school education is to maintain competition in the Pre-K market, thus prompting privately-owned pre-schools to maintain high standards. Offering free, federally-funded pre-schools could potentially undercut successful private pre-schools and lower the overall standards of a Pre-K education in the United States. With roughly 45 percent of American children already enrolled in pre-school, opponents feel that the introduction of a universal pre-school program would only have negative effects for students, parents, and society.

Conclusion

Educational support is one of the most important things that our government provides for its citizens. We have accepted that young people should be in school, but how young is too young to start? And what are the benefits of providing preschool rather than allowing parents and students to make those choices? These are all intrinsic components of the debate surrounding universally-funded preschool in the United States, and while President Obama has taken concrete action on the subject, the laws are developing.

Resources

Primary

U.S. Department of Education: Serving Pre-School Children Through Title I

Administration for Children & Families: Federal Office of Head Start

Additional

Think Progress: Georgia’s Universal Preschool Program Significantly Improves Children’s Skills

Huffington Post: Do Right By Our Children: Enact Universal Pre-K

National Institute for Early Education Research: The Universal vs. Targeted Debate: Should the United States Have Preschool For All?

U.S. News & World Report: Why the GOP Should Get On Board With Preschool

Nation: How Universal Pre-K Could Redistribute Wealth–Right Here, Right Now

National Affairs: The Dubious Promise of Universal Preschool

Reason Foundation: The Case Against Universal Preschool in California

Heritage Foundation; Universal Preschool’s Empty Promises

Brookings: New Evidence Raises Doubts on Obama’s Preschool For All

ABC: Universal Pre-K: ‘This Whole Thing is a Scam’

Breitbart: Obama Budget Proposal Pushes for $750 Million for Universal Preschool

Huffington Post: Elected Officials Embrace Preschool, But Funding is the Catch

Scholastic: Universal Preschool: Is it Necessary?

The White House: Fact Sheet President Obama’s Plan For Early Education For All Americans

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Universal Pre-School in the United States: When Should Kids Start School? appeared first on Law Street.

Security cameras are a common facet in many places that we frequent, from office complexes to shopping malls. Closed circuit security cameras (CCTV) are mainly put in place to keep people safe, but one notable place where CCTVs are missing is our schools.

Tragedies such as the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 have raised alarms for increased school security and the use of technology to keep children safe. Many schools have security cameras at their entrances and, in some cases, in hallways and other high-traffic areas. In the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and other nations, schools are beginning to experiment with the idea of placing closed-circuit security cameras in classrooms. Read on to learn the arguments about whether or not we should extend CCTV coverage to our public school classrooms.

What are the arguments for putting CCTVs in classrooms?

Those who support the addition of cameras to public school classrooms argue that they will increase school security while providing a useful tool for teacher collaboration. Many claim that the presence of the cameras alone would be enough to deter many students from committing crimes or engaging in common misbehavior while in the classroom. Cameras can also provide evidence if students are accused of a crime, saving administration from conducting lengthy and probing investigations.

Cameras could also be used by teachers as a tool to share effective learning methods and to connect with parents. Experienced, highly effective teachers could videotape segments of their lessons to be used in professional development programs and teacher training courses. Advocates have also argued that cameras could serve as deterrents to those bad teachers who do exist, particularly in special needs classrooms where students may have difficulty communicating instances of abuse to their parents. Parents would also have the ability to become in tune with what their children experience in the classroom, creating a closer marriage of a student’s education and home life and allowing parents to understand and supplement that education.

What are the arguments against CCTVs in classrooms?

Opponents are cautious about the installation of CCTVs due to the intrusion upon public school classrooms. Some administrators have indicated plans to use CCTVs to evaluate teacher performance and determine teacher effectiveness. Many professionals in American education oppose this method of teacher evaluation, as it seeks to make direct links between teacher methods and student achievement without accounting for other variables, such as socio-economic conditions and student behavior.

Additionally, using constant video surveillance of teachers as a form of evaluation would lead to a system where teacher merely imitate specific behaviors and methods they know evaluators are looking for while lacking creativity, individuality, and maverick methods that often characterize the best teachers and drive innovation. Many opponents also indicate that the presence of cameras could create a “Big Brother” atmosphere in the classroom, dampen student participation, and dissuade many students from exercising free speech.

Others worry that it infringes upon the relationships that teachers can have with their students. Teachers often have the ability to engage with their students about sensitive topics, including problems at home, difficulties in school, and the like. Teachers worry that installing CCTV cameras will make it less likely that students can confide in them, and therefore less likely that they are able to provide help or advice for those students. This worry is compounded by the fact that in most cases where cameras are installed, they are not able to turned off by the teachers themselves.

CCTVs in Classrooms in the UK

The idea of CCTVs has gained great momentum in Britain, where 85 percent of schools currently have CCTVs, and some schools, such as Stockwell Park High School in South London, have over 100 cameras inside its buildings (two in each classroom and 40 in hallways, cafeterias, and other areas).

The CCTV-based monitoring has had mixed reception in the UK. Teachers don’t really seem to like the institution of the cameras, citing concerns that they’re not in place for safety reasons, but rather to judge teachers. A teachers union conducted a study in the UK and discovered that 41 percent of teachers claimed that the cameras were used to find evidence that led to “negative views” of the staff being monitored.

There have also been cases of students in the UK being unhappy with the CCTV cameras placed in their schools. In a school in Essex, a student named Sam Goodman started a protest after discovering that cameras that were said to have been placed in his school for training purposes had actually been switched on. Goodman took many issues with the implementation of CCTV cameras, pointing out, “We’ll end up with all teachers being the same. And pupils will grow up thinking that it’s acceptable to be monitored like this.” He also was suspicious that the cameras were just supposed to be used for teacher training, claiming that the equipment seemed too extensive for such a narrow purpose. He eventually started a walk-out to protest the CCTV cameras.

There’s also a debate ongoing in the UK that the placement of CCTV cameras has gone too far. According to a British watchdog group called Big Brother Watch, more than 200 schools had installed CCTVs in restrooms and changing rooms (locker rooms). The only way that Big Brother Watch got that information was by filing a Freedom of Information Request with the government. A statement from Big Brother Watch claimed:

The full extent of school surveillance is far higher than we had expected and will come as a shock to many parents. Schools need to come clean about why they are using these cameras and what is happening to the footage. Local authorities also need to be doing far more to reign in excessive surveillance in their areas and ensuring resources are not being diverted from more effective alternatives. The Home Office’s proposed regulation of CCTV will not apply to schools and the new Commissioner will have absolutely no powers to do anything. Parents will be right to say that such a woefully weak system is not good enough.

While CCTV surveillance has become a sort of norm in the UK, many are still not happy about it. Those who are advocating for CCTV cameras in classrooms in the U.S. may be able to improve on the UK’s experiment to avoid the problems found there, while those who oppose the implementation may use the UK’s problems as reasoning for avoiding CCTV cameras in classrooms here.

Conclusion

Given the concentration of cameras in certain institutions, it’s no surprise that we’re now talking about implementing them in public school classrooms. While there are certainly benefits, such as added security and deterrence from fighting, there are also strong arguments against the practice, such as privacy concerns. Taking a cue from the UK’s book may be a smart idea, but whether or not the practice will catch on in the U.S. remains to be seen.

Resources

Primary 

Change.org: Cameras in Special Needs Classrooms

Hudson Park High School: CCTV Report

Additional

PR Web: CCTV Cameras Can Prevent Violence in the Classroom

SelfGrowth.com: Classrooms Should Have Closed-Circuit Cameras

Boss Closed Security: School Closed Circuit TV: How Does it Work and Why?

TES Connect: CCTV is Used to Spy on Teachers

Sydney Morning Herald: School Surveillance Puts Trust at Risk

LoveToKnow.com: Keep Security Cameras Out of School Classrooms

Salon: Big Brother Invades Our Classrooms

National Education Policy Center: Cameras in the Classroom: A Good Idea?

Guardian: Someone to Watch Over You

Learn By Cam: CCTV in Schools and Classrooms

USA Today: Who’s Watching the Class?

ZD Net: Should CCTV Be Allowed in Schools and Universities?

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post CCTV Cameras in Classrooms: Big Brother Watching? appeared first on Law Street.

It’s no secret that the state of public education in the United States is concerning. We are falling behind our peer nations, and recent efforts to improve the American education system haven’t been great. So what can be done? One proposal that has been floated is to link the pay of teachers to how successful their students are, sometimes referred to as “merit pay.” Read on to learn why merit pay was suggested, what it means, and what the arguments for and against merit pay are.

How’s the state of public education in the U.S.?

Let’s be honest, not that great. There are a lot of factors at play here, but a lot of people are concerned about what our students are learning. There are many voices and debates out there — should we test more or test less? Offer more structured education, or less structured education? No one’s really sure, but what we do know is that something definitely needs to change. A big question is if we’re spending money in the right places. Here’s a quick overview on the money spent in the American educational system.

What is merit pay?

Amid a general call for reform in American education that resulted in legislation such as the Bush Administration’s “No Child Left Behind” Act and the Obama Administration’s “Race To The Top” school incentive program, there has been a call for the implementation of a merit pay system for public school teachers. Currently, teachers get a set raise in salary each year. Merit pay would establish a system in which teachers would receive raises and bonuses based upon their effectiveness, much the same way that corporate employees receive raises.

There’s no real consensus about how merit pay would be decided — some suggestions include that it be tied to test scores, teacher evaluations, or a combination of those factors and other more intangible parameters.

What are the arguments for merit pay?

Advocates see merit pay as a fair system that would create a form of natural selection that retains effective teachers and drives out those who are ineffective. Advocates of merit pay note the flaws in the current system, wherein teachers who have been at a school the longest have the highest salaries based on set raises each year, and the tenure system that keeps older teachers in their jobs. They say this old system assumes that experience translates into effectiveness, which is not always the case, and also prevents younger teachers with newer, fresher ideas from being able to get jobs.

Advocates point to merit pay’s successful use in the corporate world as an indicator of its possibilities in education. If teachers’ salaries were based upon their performance, all teachers, young and old, would continually strive to improve their teaching and work hard throughout their careers to ensure that they are effective in teaching their students. This system would also draw more highly-qualified professionals to the profession who would have otherwise been driven away from a profession known for its relatively moderate salaries, thus adding more quality to the talent pool. While many opponents chafe at the thought of standardized test scores determining teacher salaries, advocates argue that this system could be based on a combination of test scores, lesson observations, school involvement, and even peer reviews.

Those who favor a merit pay system also point out that it was originally met with resistance in the business sector, as well. The current system of rewards that we see right now at many corporations only came to fruition around the early 1980s. It was deemed unfair and too subjective by many workers, but now it’s become the norm. Advocates for merit pay point out that the transformation didn’t happen overnight but rather took some time, and now business as a whole has been improved by the implementation. They argue that the same thing will happen with merit pay for teachers — it will take some time but the kinks will be worked out and everyone will eventually be pleased with the changes.

What are the arguments against merit pay?

Opponents of merit pay argue that this system would have less-than-desirable side effects that would damage the education system. Opponents point out that education budgets in most towns and cities are already stretched thin, and that these limited budgets would make the bonus incentives of merit pay minimal and parsimonious. Therefore this system would pit teachers against one another in competition for raises and destroy the collaboration that currently exists between teachers, while possibly leading to favoritism.

Merit pay would also reduce the intrinsic motivation that currently drives many teachers, replacing a genuine desire to educate students with a desire to merely jump through hoops in order to gain more money. Such attitudes, opponents argue, would promote a narrow focus on what educators are teaching students and, if the system were based even in part on standardized test scores, would also promote a practice of “teaching to the test”. “Teaching to the test” shows students how to answer simple, multiple-choice style questions without activating any deeper analytical or critical thought, and would provide an incomplete and shallow education for students as a result of standardized testing. If this emphasis were placed on standardized testing, the pursuit of merit pay would drive many effective teachers toward affluent, high-achieving districts and away from less affluent school districts where low socio-economic status and other problems often factor just as much into test scores as the effectiveness of a teacher.

There’s also the issue that merit pay would be very difficult to organize. The businesses that give certain employees bonuses for good performance already have many of the bureaucratic mechanisms in place. Schools don’t necessarily have the extra administrative capacity to come up with a fair and equitable way to measure merit in addition to actually implementing it. It would distract from the real goal of administrators: making sure that students receive the best education possible. Overall, opponents argue, these negative side effects of merit pay far outweigh the benefits it may bring to education.

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that there are plentiful issues that need to be discussed in the way we run our public schools. One proposition has been to link teachers’ salaries to their performance, however that performance may be measured. The idea, while certainly drawing some applause, and some ire, is an interesting one in an environment where ingenuity is so desperately needed.

Resources

Primary

U.S. Department of Education: Teacher Incentive Fund

Additional

City Journal: Why Merit Pay Will Improve Teaching

Forbes: Merit Pay For Teachers is Only Fair

ASCD: When Merit Pay is Worth Pursuing

Washington Post: Does Teacher Merit Pay Work? A New Study Says Yes

CATO Institute: Teachers Deserve Merit Pay, Not Special Interest Pay

NEA: Pay Based on Test Scores?

Washington Post: Why Merit Pay For Teachers Sounds Good–But Isn’t

United Teachers Los Angeles: No Merit to Merit Pay

Voice of San Diego: Problems With Merit Pay Outweigh Benefits

eSchool News: Why Teacher Merit Pay Can’t Work Today–and What Can Be Done About This

USA Today: States Push to Pay Teachers Based on Performance

Economist: Merit Pay for Teachers

Dayton Daily News: Schools Push Merit Pay For Teachers

Times-Picayune: Teachers to Begin Receiving Merit Pay Based on 2013-14 Evaluation Scores

wiseGEEK: What is Merit Pay For Teachers?

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Could Merit Pay for Teachers Fix Our Education Woes? appeared first on Law Street.

Social Media has exploded in recent years as the most popular way for young people to communicate. At the time of a Pew study created in 2012, 95 percent of teens aged 12-17 had access to the Internet. Thirty-seven percent owned some sort of smart phone, and 80 percent had a computer. Eighty-one percent reported regularly using some sort of social media platform. While the specific social media platforms that teens actually use has evolved over the years, it’s clear that using these types of sites to communicate isn’t going away any time soon. Given that students are moving away from the kind of social media that their parents are attracted to, the question is clear: is anyone monitoring what happens on social media sites between teenagers? Read on to learn about the debate, the perspective of schools, and where we currently stand.

Why might schools get involved with student social media use?

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Teens and Social Media: How do Schools Fit In? appeared first on Law Street.

The vast majority of public school classrooms in the United States are composed of students of both genders. While some private schools do occasionally embark on single-sex education, public schools focus on a blend of genders. However, there is growing debate about the effectiveness of each method of education. Read on to learn about single-sex education, its benefits, its problems, and its future.

History of Single-Sex Education

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, single-sex classrooms in public schools were the norm and a product of cultural views on women and their roles in society. In the latter half of the twentieth century, however, single-sex education was only found in elite private schools and reserved for students whose parents could afford to send their children to expensive preparatory programs. Recently, however, there has been a push to offer single-sex classrooms in the American public school system.

In the mid 1990s, there were only two public schools in the United States that offered single-sex classrooms; today there are more than 500. As education professionals search for innovative ways to improve the education system, many have looked toward single-sex education as a way to capitalize on boys’ and girls’ different learning styles. While various studies and reports proclaiming the merits of a single-sex education, many claim just the opposite.

What are the Arguments for Single-Sex Education?

Advocates claim single-sex education offers students a learning environment that is directed toward their gender’s natural learning style. Research has shown that boys and girls learn differently; where boys often learn better in an environment that emphasizes physical activity and more structure, girls often learn best in a classroom that emphasizes verbal communication and empathy. In a single-sex classroom, a teacher would be better able to focus on those learning styles to enhance the experiences of each gender.

Advocates also argue that a single-sex classroom would help to remove existing gender biases, which some professionals say are pushing girls away from computer technology careers and boys away from the arts. Traditionally, boys excel in math and sciences while girls succeed more in the arts and English. Some argue that single-sex classrooms would allow students to explore all of these areas unhindered by any gender biases that may exist.

Many people point out that removing the distraction of trying to impress the other gender, especially for middle and high school students, would improve student performance. Experts say girls tend to “dumb themselves down” for boys, while boys will often act out or goof off in order to catch the attention of girls. Without the distraction of the opposite gender, some experts say that students will be more focused and serious about their schoolwork.

What are the Arguments Against Single-Sex education?

Opponents of single-sex classrooms point out the similarities between separating genders in education and the “separate but equal” doctrine aimed at African Americans in public schools in the 1950s. They argue that separate but equal education is “inherently unequal.”

To some, single-sex classrooms violate Title IX, a federal educational amendment that requires females to be included in any educational program or activity. Opponents feel that single-sex classrooms would actually reinforce the same gender stereotypes advocates hope to eliminate. The kind of learning environments proposed by advocates of single-sex classrooms cater to existing stereotypes about males and females, and would present problems for students such as, for instance, a sensitive boy or an assertive girl.

Opponents argue that students are not cookie cutter molds of the traits commonly associated with their gender; rather their character varies along a spectrum ranging from loud and physically active to quiet and empathetic. Single-sex classrooms would trap students in rigid stereotypes, failing to allow students who fall anywhere else on the spectrum the chance to grow individually and academically.

Additionally, opponents say the true failure of a single-sex education is that it does not provide opportunities for boys and girls to work together, thus failing to prepare them for a co-educational world. As women anchor their places in American industry and business, today’s students will need to learn how to function with both genders, without being distracted simply because of the presence of the opposite sex.

Case Studies: Examples of Single-Sex Education Across the U.S.

Urban Prep

Located in Chicago, Illinois, Urban Prep Academies is a collection of single-sex all-male public charter schools. They are currently the only all-male public schools in the state of Illinois. The curriculum includes a heavy focus on community and public service, and working toward either college admittance or a professional field. Urban Prep has made reaching out to young men, and teaching in ways that correspond to the way in which young men learn, one of its primary goals.

The success of Urban Prep has been well documented — it certainly has had a higher graduation rate than many of its peers in other public schools in the area. However, there are questions as to whether that comes from the single-sex aspect of education, or the other benefits offered by a charter school like Urban Prep. There’s also the question of whether the model that Urban Prep employs would be sustainable on a wider scale.

William A. Lawson Institute for Peace and Prosperity

The William A. Lawson Institute for Peace and Prosperity (WALIPP), located in Houston, Texas, is an all-male public school. One interesting aspect of WALIPP is that in addition to an all-male student population, the teaching staff is also all men. The reasoning behind such specific hiring is that the teachers act as strong male role models for the young men who are in their classrooms. Many of the young men at WALIPP were raised primarily by their mothers, in single-family households, and benefit from having successful older men to look to for guidance. Audrey Lawson, the founder of WALIPP, explained that: “inner city boys started out not being thought of as good students. In elementary school, they have had mostly women teachers, and girls respond better to them.” 

Conclusion

Whether or not we’ll start to move more convincingly toward single-sex classrooms is uncertain; although it is important to note that as more charter schools try unconventional methods, it is certainly a possibility. The benefits have yet to be proven, but as American students constantly struggle in meeting educational benchmarks, the experiment of single-sex learning may be valuable enough for some schools to consider worth the risk.

Resources

Primary

U.S. Department of Education: Title IX and Sex Discrimination

Additional

Washington Post: Boys and Girls Learn Separately at Prince George’s School

National Association for Single Sex Public Education: What Have Researchers Found When They Compare Single-Sex Education With Co-Education?

Denver Post: Genders Split Up At More Schools

CRC Health Group: The Many Advantages of Single-Sex Schools

ASCD: Single-Gender Classes Can Respond to the Needs of Boys and Girls

Synonym: The Disadvantages of Single Gender Education Schools

Al Jazeera America: Study: Single-Sex Education Offers No Benefits

Atlantic: The Trouble With Single-Sex Schools

American Psychological Association: Single-Sex Education Unlikely to Offer Advantage Over Coed Schools, Research Finds

The New York Times: Single-Sex Education is Assailed in Report

Washington Post: More Schools Trying Separation of the Sexes

Huffington Post: Arlington High School in Indianapolis Separating Boys and Girls in Classes

Great Schools: Single-Sex Education: The Pros and Cons

Atlantic: The Never-Ending Controversy Over All Girls Education

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post More Public Schools are Experimenting With Single-Sex Education appeared first on Law Street.

The United States has long had a population heavily built on immigration. Currently, many immigrants coming into the United States are from Hispanic nations. The question of whether or not the U.S. should provide bilingual educational opportunities for these immigrants and their children has long been a pressing debate. Read on to learn about what bilingual education is, why it’s important, and what the arguments are both for and against.

History of Bilingual Education

Bilingual education has long been offered by the United States to its immigrant populations. In the late 1830s, Ohio began offering English classes for German immigrant students. Louisiana also offered early bilingual education classes for French-speaking immigrants. Wherever there were large influxes of immigrant populations, states enacted provisions to provide multilingual education for those groups.

As a result of reactionary national attitudes during the early twentieth century, however, the U.S. started to shift away from offering bilingual education services. English-only education was adopted in a sort of a sink-or-swim attitude. It wasn’t until later in the twentieth century that bilingual education became a consideration once again.

Bilingual Education Act of 1968

The Bilingual Education Act (BEA) of 1968 was passed as part of a move toward more expansive Civil Rights for immigrant populations, particularly Hispanic immigrants. The BEA mainly helped to provide federal funding to states and schools looking to implement bilingual education programs. The BEA has undergone many significant changes since its original passage. In 1974, the act was expanded to reach more students and provide additional funding. In 1978, amendments were added again to further expand the pool of students reached by the act to those who spoke some English but still needed help gaining full proficiency. The bill was expanded again in 1984 and 1988, creating more professional support and flexibility in bilingual education programs.

What Bilingual Education Does

Since the first large waves of Hispanic immigrants began to arrive and build their lives in America in the 1960s, bilingual education has been seen by some as the answer and by others as the roadblock to English language acquisition and academic success for the children of foreign-language speakers. From 2000 to 2010, the US Census captured a 43 percent increase in the Hispanic population of the United States, resulting in 35 million children aged five and over who speak Spanish in their homes.

The goal of bilingual education is to help students who are learning English as a second language by teaching partially in their native language and partially in English. In this way, supporters believe, the transition from their native language to English is eased and the student is able to learn other subjects such as math, science, and history while becoming fluent in English. Despite a sound methodology, bilingual education has become controversial in the last few decades as to whether or not it truly brings non-native speakers up to speed with students who speak English as their first language.

Since the late 90s, California, Arizona, and Massachusetts have all passed laws banning bilingual education in favor of an English immersion model. In the rest of the states bilingual programs can look wildly different, and this lack of continuity adds fuel to the burning debate over the virtue of bilingual education.

What are the arguments in favor of bilingual education?

Supporters of bilingual education argue that these programs have strong academic benefits for non-English speaking students, in addition to the added benefit of preserving cultural heritages and preparing our students for success in a global economy. Some studies have shown that it is easier for students to learn how to read in their native languages and then transfer those skills over into a new language, rather than learning to read and learning a new language at the same time. Simply put, once reading “clicks” in one language, it’s a lot easier to do in another language.

Vocabulary is also easier to transition when a student already knows a similar word in his native tongue. Most students, regardless of what they learn in school, will probably speak their native languages at home. Being able to incorporate that into their studies allow for a more comfortable transition, and better ability to interact with their families about their schoolwork. With the struggle of learning to read eased by bilingual programs, many suggest this would reduce student stress and contribute to smoother acculturation and socialization of these students.

In the multicultural atmosphere of America, supporters argue that it is important to preserve the cultural heritage of foreign language speakers by allowing them to incorporate their native languages into American education and thus, American culture. It also helps children to retain their identity and be able to communicate with relatives who may not speak English. A strong sense of cultural identity can have a positive effect on a child’s well-being, confidence, and emotional and mental health. It also helps them share their language and cultural identity with their English-speaking peers.

Additionally, supporters point out that in an increasingly global economy, the United States will need more bilingual business executives to ensure that American businesses remain compatible with foreign markets. Countless other professions, including health care, education, legal jobs, and others can be aided by including workers who speak multiple languages fluently. Bilingual education also helps native English speakers — they will have access to jobs that require bilingual speakers.

What are the arguments against bilingual education?

Opponents also have studies and data to suggest that a bilingual education in fact retards student growth and delays English acquisition. Opponents often favor English immersion, a method in which the student is taught in nothing but English. The argument here is that by being immersed in the language students will become English-literate more quickly and will be able to join students on the regular educational track.

Opponents argue that bilingual education programs actually delay English acquisition by “coddling” students in their native language for too long. The failure of bilingual programs keeps students on a lengthened ELL track that essentially segregates these students from the rest of the student population, making acculturation and socialization among their American peers more difficult and denying them from ever reaching their true educational potential. Additionally, opponents argue that the language of financial success in America is English, and that although the global economy brings more foreign languages in contact with American businesses, it is still English that is spoken in American board rooms and meetings, making it imperative that the children of non-native speakers learn English as quickly as possible through English immersion.

Bilingual education is also expensive and requires more staff. These staff members need to be trained in not only how to speak both languages in which they are teaching, but also how to appropriately teach children how to learn English in an academic setting.

Conclusion

The debate over bilingual education is ongoing, and as the United States becomes increasingly multicultural, it will likely continue to wage on. For now, however, the BEA remains in effect, and the United States strives to do its best to educate every student, regardless of background.

Resources

Primary

Brockton (MA) Public Schools: Bilingual Education Program

State of California: English Language in Public Schools Initiative Statute

Additional

National Association for Bilingual Education: What is Bilingual Education

San Diego State University: California’s Bilingual Education Debate: A Case Study in Intergroup Conflict and Patterns of Prejudice

Education Week: Should Bilingual Learning Be Required?

Denver Business Journal: The Pros of Bilingual Education

Atlantic: The Case Against Bilingual Education

Human Events: Abolish Bilingual Education

Hoover Institution: Bilingual Education: A Critique

ProEnglish: Bilingual Education

University of Southern California: Bilingual Education, the Acquisition of English, and the Retention and Loss of Spanish

WNYC: English Immersion: The Bilingual Education Debate

MoraModules: The Bilingual Education Controversy: a Road Map

CNN: Should Kids Be Taught In Spanish?

ASCD: Bilingual Education: Effective Programming for Language-Minority Students

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Merits of Bilingual Education Divide the Education Community appeared first on Law Street.

For the average American public high school student, school starts around 8:00am. When you factor in the fact that bus and/or driving transportation is required, the day can start much earlier for most students. Many people have argued that school should start later for growing adolescents. Read on to learn about the laws surrounding our educational start times, the debate about changing the times, and what factors are taken into account when planning a school’s first bell.

Why does school start so early?

There’s not actually a very good answer to this question. It’s partly tradition — school has always started early, possibly as a way to “train” students for the real world. There’s also the desire to make time for extracurriculars. A packed resume becomes more desirable for college applicants, so schools want to leave plenty of time in the afternoon for students to engage in sports, clubs, part-time jobs, and other activities. With regard to sports and other outdoor activities, schools want to leave enough time for students to be able to be outside before it gets too dark. There’s also the transportation argument — often school districts stagger when local levels of schools start so they don’t need to send out buses for elementary, middle, and high school students at the same time.

What would be the benefits to changing the start times?

Less Tardiness, More Participation 

It is no secret that during their first period of the day, high school students are often still mentally asleep, which creates problems involving both class participation and school tardiness. The University of Minnesota conducted a study when the Minneapolis Public School System changed the starting time of seven high schools from 7:15am to 8:40am. The study found that students benefited academically from gaining additional hours of sleep each week. Advocates of later morning bells argue that this shift would enable students and teachers to make more of the school day.

Preventing Accidents

Additionally, many high school juniors and seniors who drive to high school in the morning are often “driving drowsy” and the decreased alertness caused by driving this early in the morning is often a factor in many adolescent automobile accidents. “Driving drowsy” is incredibly dangerous:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conservatively estimates that 100,000 police-reported crashes are the direct result of driver fatigue each year. This results in an estimated 1,550 deaths, 71,000 injuries, and $12.5 billion in monetary losses. These figures may be the tip of the iceberg, since currently it is difficult to attribute crashes to sleepiness.

Additionally, according to the National Sleep Foundation, adults between 18-29 are more likely to get into accidents from driving drowsy. While there doesn’t appear to be statistics available for 16 and 17-year-old drivers, it’s safe to assume they’d be consistent with or worse than that of their slightly older counterparts. Allowing students to get more adequate nights of sleep would help prevent potentially dangerous accidents.

Helping Teenagers to Grow

One of the most convincing arguments for why we might want to change the start times at the high school level is that they don’t work with the specific circadian rhythms of teenagers. According to doctors, when adolescents hit puberty, their bodies release melatonin later into the night than adults. This makes it very difficult for them to fall asleep, even if they go to bed early, and therefore harder to wake up first thing in the morning. In addition, teenagers need more sleep than adults, given that they are usually still growing. It’s estimated that a teenager needs about nine-and-a-half hours of sleep on any given night.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has recently started advocating for a school day that starts at 8:30am or later. The doctors explain that sleep deprivation can have very negative ramifications on students’ health. It’s unsurprisingly much harder to concentrate on school work and tests when you’re running on less sleep than your body needs to operate. But there are also lesser known consequences: lack of sleep among teenagers hasbeen linked to higher rates of depression, anxiety, and obesity.

What are the arguments against changing school start times?

Opponents acknowledge that current school schedules are out of sync with teenagers’ natural sleep cycles; however, many parents and administrators argue that these changes would bring about a number of problems, and therefore would not be worth the questionable academic benefits to their students.

As more students each year apply to colleges, extracurricular activities and sports have become vital in rounding out a student’s resume; however, if school starts and ends later, students will have less time for these extracurricular activities. Additionally, many students either have to watch younger siblings after school while their parents work or have after-school jobs themselves, both of which would become problematic if these students were to get out of school later. Busing would become a major problem, as well. Administrators have stated that it would be impossible to bus high school, middle school, and elementary students all at the same time, and they are unwilling to have elementary school children walking to school or waiting for the bus at 6:45 in the morning.

High school students driving to school later would often end up getting caught right in the middle of morning rush hour traffic, negating the decrease in the risk of accidents due to drowsy driving. Lastly, there are many who feel that if school were to start later, students would simply use that as an excuse to go to bed late. Oponents instead argue that it is the parent’s jobs to strictly enforce curfews to ensure that their children get adequate sleep in preparation of their early schedules, and that students need to learn to get up early before entering the real world.

What else can be done to help students get more sleep?

While it seems like schools are starting to consider later start times, and more and more doctors are advocating for these changes, we probably won’t be seeing changes anytime soon. There are a lot of logistical, financial, and policy issues that need to be untangled before schools shift start times dramatically. In the mean time, doctors recommend that students attempt to get the appropriate amount of sleep whenever possible, and that their parents help as much as they can.

One big recommendation deals with the increasingly common use of electronics before bed time. As Children’s Hospital pediatrician Mary Palmer points out:

As society has moved along, now we have things that keep us awake after the sun goes down. You have to have a time to process and decompress and if you’re still multitasking, which most of our electronics have us doing. I mean, we’re going from email to Twitter and there’s just so many inputs, so you have to have less distractors.

While adolescents’ Circadian rhythms may be different than those of adults, it’s still important to listen to advice like Palmer’s. Steps can be taken that make it easier for students to fall asleep at times that will give them the appropriate amount of shut-eye before school starts in the morning. While many schools are still working their way through instituting later start times for high school students, this advice is especially valuable.

Resources

Primary 

U.S. House of Representatives:  H. Con. Res. 176 ZZZ’s to A’s Resolution

Fairfax County School Board: Goal to Start High Schools After 8:00AM

Additional

KUOW.org: Sleep-Deprived Teenagers? Starting School Later Could Help Them Catch Up

Today: Teen Sleep Zombies: Should High Schools Have Later Start Times?

Smithsonian: School Really Should Start Later

National Sleep Foundation: School Start Time and Sleep

Start School Later: What’s the Big Deal?

Bethesda Magazine: Not Everyone Thinks MCPS High Schools Should Start Later

The New York Times: Are You Up Yet?

WFSU: Proposal to Push Back High School Start Times Raised School Districts’ Ire

Washington Post: Spend Millions to Let Teens Sleep Later?

mLive: Why Do High School Kids Go to School So Early? Because That’s the Way it’s Always Been

Week: Should High School Start Later?

ABC WFTS: More Debate On if High School Students Should Start Classes Later

Huffington Post: Should a School Change Start Time For Sleep? Later School Times Improve Student Performance: Study

Associated Press: Starting High School Later May Help Sleepy Teens

CBS: Stop Starting School So Early Doctors Say

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post School Start Times: Do More ZZZs Equal More A’s? appeared first on Law Street.

The Class of 2018 is having an exciting summer. They get to figure out which dorms they will live in, which intro classes they will take, and, most importantly, which loans they will take out to pay for the next four years. Meanwhile, the Class of 2014 is experiencing some discomfort as they figure out how exactly to pay for those loans they took out four summers ago. Student loans burden a reported 40 million Americans. Read on to learn all about how these people and their finances are impacted by politics.

What is a student loan?

A student loan is pretty self-explanatory. It is a type of loan specifically meant to pay for university tuition and all other costs associated with going to college. This can include books, computers, and housing. Student loans differ greatly from other types of loans. For example, federal student loans do not have to be paid back until graduation. People obtain student loans by filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), a form that gives students access to all sorts of financial aid, including Pell Grants and Federal Work Study.

Who provides these student loans?

While some students obtain these loans from private banks, many of them obtain loans from the federal government. Federal loans are all backed and funded by the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), which means that the interest rate is often lower than those provided by a private bank.

What are some problems with the student loan system?

The big problem is that so many students need them. Twelve million students each year, 60 percent of all college students, pay some portion of their tuition with student loans. This is partly because college is more expensive than it used to be. Over the last 24 years, the average cost of in-state public college education rose by $5,470. And that’s just in-state public school. Tuition at some private institutions is staggering.

This contrast illustrates it best: the overall consumer price index has risen 115 percent since 1985. How high has the college education inflation rate risen? Nearly 500 percent. It’s no wonder that more Americans than ever have student loan debt. Here’s President Barack Obama decrying skyrocketing tuition:

Interest rates used to be a problem. In previous years, the interest rate on student loans would be set permanently by Congress. However, these rates were set up so that, unless Congress reauthorized them, they would double. There was a fight to keep these rates low in 2012 and 2013. That’s why this weird clip from Late Night With Jimmy Fallon with Obama exists:

Congress quickly realized that going through this battle every year was not good for anyone. That’s why they passed the Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act of 2013. This law tied student loans to the 10-year Treasury note and locked in individual rates for life. This means that, while your own rate will never rise, the rates of future students will raise independent of action from Congress.

The bigger problem is that student loans have saddled 37 million graduates with serious debt. It takes years, sometimes decades, to pay off these loans. Worse, these debts have been steadily rising over the past few decades.

Why does it take so long to pay back student loans?

Simply put, graduates just aren’t very good at paying these loans back. Somewhere between a quarter and a third of borrowers are late on their payments. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 35 percent of American student loan borrowers were delinquent on payments in the third quarter of 2012. This local news broadcast called the situation an “economic crisis.”

Graduating students are also struggling to pay back these loans because they are entering an awful job market. For example, 6.7 percent of students who graduated in 2008 were still unemployed in 2012. How are these young people expected to start paying down this debt when they have little or no income?

Many graduates also do not know how to correctly pay these loans back. This advice column from The New York Times shows just how complicated paying back student loans can be.

If so many graduates cannot quickly pay off their debts, they may be left out of certain opportunities, like buying a house. Student loan debt is a drag on the economy.

PBS NewsHour has more on that issue here:

What assistance is available to those with student loan debt?

Not much. Some politicians are attempting to reform the system to help graduates (we’ll get to that later), but there are only a few ways the government can currently help.

Loan consolidation is one such option. This is when the government lets you combine all of your loans into one. Graduates who are having trouble paying off multiple loans consider this option so that they can only have one manageable monthly payment. There are also some instances in which debt holders can defer their payments on principle and interest. Find out if your student loan payments can be deferred here.

Private companies exist that offer to help lower monthly payments, but these companies have recently come under fire from federal and state regulators for using predatory practices and charging graduates hefty upfront fees for services that the DOE offers for free. Illinois has sued some of these companies and more states are likely to follow.

In the past, those looking for forgiveness of their debt were out luck. Even today, graduates who want an immediate forgiveness of their debts will have trouble doing so. This table shows just how hard it is to get student loan debt forgiven. Even bankruptcy does not always result in a forgiveness of student debt. However, action taken by President Obama made forgiveness a little easier. Read on to the next section to find out how.

How is President Obama trying to fix student loans?

Obama has used his executive power to bypass Congress and expand the Pay As You Earn program. Pay As You Earn is a federal program that allows borrowers to cap their monthly payments at 10 percent of their income and forgives remaining debt after 20 years. This program was previously only available to new students. Obama expanded the program to a majority of loan holders, who can begin to take advantage of it in 2015.

Obama also supports the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act. This bill, introduced this May by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), would allow those with outstanding debt to refinance their loans based on newer and lower interest rates.

What does Congress think about these reforms?

As noted in the last section, Democrats are on board with Warren’s plan. Every single Democratic Senator voted for the bill when it was brought to the Senate floor. This is most likely because it is a targeted demographic of the Democratic Party’s base — young adults — and that it is paid for by a tax that that has been a part of their platform for years.

Republicans in Congress are not a fan of Warren’s bill, mainly because it would be funded by the Buffett Rule. The Buffett Rule, proposed by Obama before the 2012 election, is a plan to tax millionaires so that they are not paying a lower share of their wealth in taxes compared to middle-class Americans. Even Senate Republicans, often seen as more moderate than House Republicans, rejected the bill, calling it a “political stunt.” Only three Republicans voted for the bill.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), a possible 2016 candidate, has introduced a bill that looks nearly identical to the Pay As You Earn program, but applies the same logic to every single student loan. It caps payments as a percentage of income and allows for debt forgiveness. However, while Pay As You Earn forgives all debt after 20 years, Rubio’s bill would only forgive that debt if it were less than $57,500. The debt would be forgiven in 30 years if it were any higher than that figure. Still, there is a lot of common ground between conservatives and Democrats. Common sense would dictate that this bill has a real chance of being passed.

Yet, as those who follow Congress know all too well, common sense rarely impacts Congressional results. The main obstacle for Rubio’s reform bill is that not all conservatives are the same. There are significant divisions in the Republican party on this issue. Many conservatives do not even believe that the federal government should be in the business of paying for young people to go to college. When asked about his vote against Warren’s bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stated that it is not Congress’ job to forgive “obligations that have been voluntarily incurred.” He also said “not everybody needs to go to Yale,” presumably arguing that students who cannot afford college should look for cheaper options instead of depending on the government. There are certainly cheaper options than Yale, such as for-profit college. McConnell believes that students should consider these less-expensive options before depending on the government.

How do Americans feel about student loan reform?

There has not been much polling done on the issue of student loan reform; however, one 2013 Public Policy Polling poll shows that all Americans are unsurprisingly unified on one issue: 83 percent of all Americans want Congress to either keep rates on student loans the way they are or lower them. This poll was taken back when rates could have potentially doubled, so it does not reflect feelings toward current reform packages, but it does show that the American people are in favor of Congress acting to keep interest rates low.

Americans are much more divided when it comes to opinions on the worthiness of their own loans. A poll by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling shows that, by a two-to-one margin, most Americans believe that their own student loan was worth the cost. However, most would not recommend taking out student loans to finance an education and some claimed they would not have taken a loan out if they were aware of how much it would cost them in the long run.

Congress would be wise to spend time on this issue, regardless of which reform plan they support. According to a Harvard University Institute of Politics poll, 57 percent of Millennials believe that student debt is a major problem. That concern is consistent across party lines. This statistic will likely keep the student loan issue on the Congressional agenda for quite some time.

Resources

Primary

U.S. Senate: S 1241 The Bipartisan Student Loan Certainty Act

Additional

U.S. Department of Education: FAFSA

College Board: Average Net Price Over Time for Full-Time Students at Public Four-Year Institutions

Forbes: College Costs Out of Control

Huffington Post: Elizabeth Warren Slams Mitch McConnell: He Wants ‘Students to Dream a Little Smaller’

U.S. News & World Report: Congress Approves Student Loan Deal

Huffington Post: How Millennials and Students Won a Massive Victory on Loan Rates

Huffington Post: Why the Student Loan Deal is Bad News for Students

Vox: 2008 Was a Terrible Year to Graduate College

The New York Times: A Beginner’s Guide to Repaying Student Loans

U.S. News & World Report: Obama Sidesteps Congress to Expand Student Loan Repayment Program

CBS: Senate Republicans Block Consideration of Student Loan Bill

Eric Essagof

Eric Essagof attended The George Washington University majoring in Political Science. He writes about how decisions made in DC impact the rest of the country. He is a Twitter addict, hip-hop fan, and intramural sports referee in his spare time. Contact Eric at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Student Loans Burden a Generation appeared first on Law Street.

On March 26, 2014, Peter Sung Ohr, a regional director for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), issued a landmark ruling that football players at Northwestern University are allowed to form a union. The college sports world erupted. Naturally, Northwestern immediately challenged the ruling. In the meantime, the case leaves players and universities with more questions than answers. Some athletes want unions, universities and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) are fighting back, and fans are wondering if this will impact their BCS Bowl viewing parties. What exactly does this all mean, and are we slowly inching toward paying college athletes?

What is the case for unions?

Ohr’s ruling cites several important factors as reasons football players at Northwestern should be treated as university employees and therefore, allowed to unionize:

1. The football players are not primarily students. Players typically spend 40 to 50 hours per week playing football, which is more time than most people spend at a full-time job. This is also more time than the players spend on academics. Some players make the argument that the intense football schedule means practices interfere with schoolwork and limits their ability to take certain courses.
2. Northwestern has significant control over its players similar to the control employers exert over their workers. Scholarship recipients sign a tender which outlines the conditions of their scholarship. The agreement stipulates players’ behavior, requires housing leases be approved by a coach, and even states a player must accept a coach’s friend request on social media. Additionally, players must sign away rights to their image and likeness.
3. The University recruits players chiefly on the basis of football ability. When scouting a player, academic skills are secondary to football, showing that the primary duty of a scholarship recipient is not to study, but to play football.

Listen to a more in-depth explanation of the ruling below:

What do the players actually want?

The College Athletes Players Union (CAPA) is the formal entity created to represent Northwestern’s players in a union. CAPA was formed by former college athletes, including former Northwestern quarterback Kain Colter, as an offshoot of the National College Players Association (NCPA), an advocacy group. Rather than fighting for pay, the union is about giving college athletes a seat at the negotiating table. The NCPA outlines 11 goals which are shared by CAPA and Northwestern’s players in their “Blueprint for Change”:

1. Minimize athletes’ risk to brain trauma by reducing contact practices, providing concussion experts, and funding research.
2. Raise the scholarship amount so a “full scholarship” will cover the actual cost of attendance, including incidentals and travel home.
3. Ensure players do not pay sports-related medical expenses out of pocket.
4. Increase graduation rates by reducing games that take place during the week and investing more in education.
5. Give students a non-athletic scholarship to continue their education if their athletic scholarship is eliminated.
6. Prevent universities from eliminating the scholarship of an athlete who suffered a permanent injury from the sport.
7. Enforce uniform safety guidelines to prevent injuries.
8. Eliminate restrictions on legitimate employment for student-athletes. Right now, athletes are not allowed to make any money for any reason.
9. Prohibit punishment of athletes who have not committed a violation. Currently, NCAA sanctions can punish entire programs for years.
10. Guarantee an athletic release from universities if athletes want to transfer schools.
11. Allow all college athletes to transfer schools once without punishment.

What is not included (yet) — any desire for a pay-for-play program.

 What would a union look like for players?

On April 25, 2014, football players at Northwestern made history by becoming the first collegiate athletes to vote on forming a union. However, the votes are impounded until Northwestern’s appeal to the NLRB is decided, which could take months or even years. The votes cast by Northwestern’s players will only be opened if the board sides with the players. Smart money says the 5-member, labor-friendly board will uphold Ohr’s decision that football players are employees. If the board upholds the decision, the mere right to vote on a union is a victory for Northwestern’s football players. It is likely by the time the case is ultimately decided, the players who voted will no longer be at Northwestern. But if the players voted against forming a union, they would still be considered employees even if the union movement at Northwestern would temporarily end. If the players voted for a union, the University would be forced to bargain with CAPA or force further appeals.

More importantly are the implications for the University at the NCAA. At this point, the union is not asking for a pay-for-play, but unions could be the first step down that road. Furthermore, if football players are treated as employees, they could be subject to tax on their scholarships.

What would a union mean for universities?

Most importantly, a union would mean Northwestern would have to negotiate with players and meet more of their demands. Northwestern strongly urged its students to vote against forming a union. Northwestern’s Vice President for University Relations Alan Cubbage issued a statement saying, “Northwestern believes strongly that our student-athletes are not employees, but students. Unionization and collective bargaining are not the appropriate methods to address the concerns raised by student-athletes.” Team officials see a union as transferring the players’ trust to a third party which may not have the players’ best interests in mind. They argue a union would create an “us versus them” mentality and create unnecessary tension for the team.

The NLRB ruling applies solely to private schools, only a handful of which (Stanford, USC, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Duke, Miami) have big-name athletic programs. The law currently exempts public schools from NLRB jurisdiction, but public universities should be concerned if state labor boards decide to follow the lead of NLRB. The push from Northwestern’s players alone may make colleges consider greater dialogue with players in regard to health, safety, and full-cost scholarships. Simply by filing, the players have made athletic departments across the country more concerned that their players be treated fairly.

If upheld, the ruling will pose interesting questions to universities. If scholarship football players are considered employees, are other university athletes also considered employees? Would students on a musical or academic scholarship be considered employees? Would this have any Title IX implications for gender equality? Will the presence of athletic unions at private schools make their programs more desirable and destroy the NCAA’s competitive balance?

Why is the NCAA opposed?

The NCAA has long insisted that players are “student-athletes” who are foremost students, which is strongly at odds with the notion that student-athletes are employees. NCAA officials are quick to point out that 99 percent of college athletes will never play professional sports.The NCAA has created a system which has helped millions go to college, and they do not want to see this system thrown away. A primary concern is that allowing unions is a first step toward greater benefits for athletes, including pay. In 2012, the NCAA reported $872 million in revenue. Many players see their lack of receiving any of this compensation as exploitation. Below is a clip from NCAA’s President Mark Emmert discussing the impact of unionization:

Would unions change college sports?

Unions may be a big first step toward long-term change, but allowing unions themselves will not revolutionize the college sports’ world. Athletes will still take the field every Saturday and the NCAA will still make billions. A union will allow players to negotiate benefits on their own behalf. The ruling would make football players employees of the university, not of the NCAA, so there would not be any direct impact on any NCAA rules.

Currently, the NCAA is fighting a slew of lawsuits which pose greater threats to its future. Jeffrey Kessler and Ed O’Bannon have each brought a significant lawsuit:

• Kessler alleges the NCAA and 5 conferences are engaged in price-fixing for capping the compensation of athletes at the value of a scholarship and thus, violating antitrust laws. The intent is to strike-down rules that prevent college athletes from receiving a share of NCAA revenue and greater compensation.
• The O’Bannon case seeks licensing revenue from the NCAA for football and basketball players’ names, image, and likeness. The case could mean paying players for their jersey sales and for their use in video games.
  

  ---

Conclusion

Treating college athletes as employees means a fundamental shift in the negotiation rights provided to athletes. Whether or not the original NLRB ruling is upheld, universities and the NCAA will be forced to alter their own stance to ensure athletes do not feel that they are being exploited. Problems with college athletics will not disappear anytime soon, and major change is coming to the economic model of college sports.

Resources

Primary

College Athletes Players Association: Official website

Washington Law Review Association: The Myth of the Student-Athlete: The College Athlete as Employee

National Labor Relations Board: Decision in Northwestern University Athletes Case

Additional

SB Nation: Northwestern Players’ Union Votes are in: Now What?

CBS: Northwestern Players Start Union Movement in College Athletics

Washington Post: College Athletics Have Many Problems, But a Union is the Wrong Way to Try to Fix Them

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: College Athletes Union Raises Tax, Discrimination Questions

ESPN: NU Players Cast Historic Vote

NU Game Changers: 10 Point Blueprint for Change

Slate: Northwestern Football Players Just Voted on a Union

NPR: Northwestern Players Cast Union Vote–But Results Will Have to Wait

USA Today: A Simple Guide to the Biggest Thing Happening in College Sports: Northwestern Football Union’s Fight

National College Players’ Assciation: Mission & Goals

Post Game: Deeper Look at Northwestern Football, NCAA Union Issue

Alexandra Stembaugh

Alexandra Stembaugh graduated from the University of Notre Dame studying Economics and English. She plans to go on to law school in the future. Her interests include economic policy, criminal justice, and political dramas. Contact Alexandra at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Battle in College Sports: Northwestern Football and Unions appeared first on Law Street.

In the past six months, if you were to Google the keywords college rape scandal, a disturbing amount of articles would pop up. Whatever side people stand on for the debate on college rape, every can agree that system is virtually broken. Previous notions of college campuses being an oasis for intellectual development and personal growth have begun to crumble as concerns over the sexual victimization of students are heightened. So the next question is, what do we do about it? Should we address rape culture, universities’ policies on sexual assault, or place all the burden on the individual? So far, it has been a combination of the three–here are all the facts on the college rape epidemic.

UPDATE: July 17, 2014

Statistics

Multiple organizations and government agencies have conducted surveys to gather data on the staggering amount of rapes that occur on college campuses:

Rape

• According to a survey conducted by the National Institute of Justice, one in four college women have survived rape or attempted rape in their lifetime.
• Estimated a college with a population of 10,000 students could experience more than 350 rapes a year.
• Fewer than 5 percent of attempted and completed rape incidents were reported to law enforcement officials. Victims commonly do not want their family and friends to know about the assault. Additionally, victims who do not report their attack, commonly fear of being treated with hostility by the police, that officials will not believe their account of the incident, and retaliation from their assailant.
• 7 percent of college men admitted to attempting rape, and 63 percent of those men admitted to multiple offenses, averaging six rapes each.
• 58 percent of incapacitated rapes and 28 percent of forced rapes took place at a party.
• On average only 12 percent of student victims report the assault to law enforcement.

College Involvement

Schools are suppose to follow ordinances in providing information about sexual assaults that happen on their campus, however that is not always the case:

• Only 37 percent of colleges and universities nationwide reported crime statistics that fully complied with the requirements of the Clery Act.
• 64 percent of schools do not provide new students with sexual assault awareness education.
• Fewer than 2 in 5 schools train campus security personnel to handle sexual assault.
• Only 46 percent of schools provide the option of anonymous reporting.
• Less than 50 percent of schools tell students how they can file criminal charge.

Mishandling by Colleges and Universities

Case Study: Amherst College

In May 2011, an acquaintance and fellow Amherst student raped Angie Epifano. A year after her assault, she published in a school newspaper her account of the attack and the callous treatment she received by college administrators. She wrote that she was questioned if she was really raped, her requests to change dorms and study abroad were denied. Furthermore, she was discouraged from pressing charges, and eventually brought to a psychiatric ward. These events led her to withdraw from Amherst while her alleged attacker graduated with honors.

The schools counseling center told her that,

“We can report your rape as a statistic, you know for records, but I don’t recommend that you go through a disciplinary hearing.”

This is only one example of how the college incompetently treated her.

Her wrenching account prompted other Amherst students and alumni to come forward and announce they, too, had been sexually assaulted at Amherst.

Another incident at Amherst is Trey Malone, a student who committed suicide after he could no longer cope with the sexual assault he endured while at school. His family released his suicide note for publication, where he alludes to Amherst’s incapability to help him,

“What began as an earnest effort to help on the part of Amherst, became an emotionless hand washing. In those places I should’ve received help, I saw none.”

Since Epifano, Malone, and others have stepped forward with their accounts of assault, Amherst has employed new measures to assist students who undergo such traumatic incidents.

Case Study: Occidental College

Students and alumni of Occidental College filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education stating the school failed to protect women from sexual assaults in April 2013. In their complaint, it was stated that they were, “raped, sexually assaulted, battered, harassed or retaliated against for speaking out against sexual violence.”

After the complaint was filed, the college was accused of tracking down students who had used anonymous sexual assault reports. When a student who had used the anonymous report was brought in to the college’s Title IX coordinator to discuss her accusation, she was denied information on how the college had been able to track her down.

Also, Occidental admitted that they failed to report 19 sex crimes to the annual Clery report statistics in recent years.

While the college has implemented new measures to combat sexual misconduct, many find these changes to be superficial and an attempt to salvage their reputation.

Omitting the incidents at other schools does not trivialize the horrific events those victims endured; there regrettably has been too many to thoroughly cover. Schools such as Wesleyan University and Tufts University have also been in the news for sexual assault.

Government Involvement

Department of Education Investigation

On May 1, 2014 the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights released a list of 55 colleges and universities under investigation for potential violations of federal law over the handling of sexual violence and harassment complaints. The Office of Civil Rights compiled this list to create more public awareness and transparency to enforcement work.

The release of the list works to advance a key goal of President Obama’s White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. It is hoped that this will increase discussion among communities about the issue and the best ways to combat assaults.

By having a college or university on the list does not indicated that the institution has violated or is violating Title IX. The schools under investigation will be continuously updated and accessible to the public upon request.

White House Involvement: President Obama

President Obama has taken great measure to combat sexual assault compared to previous administrations. He has publicly spoken out against sexual crimes, bringing to the nation’s forefront how it is an attack to the basic humanity and decency. The president has signed a memorandum creating a task force to respond to campus rapes.

The White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault was created with the objectives of:

• Provide educational institutions with best practices for preventing and responding to rape and sexual assault.
• Build on the federal government’s enforcement efforts to ensure that educational institutions comply fully with their legal obligations.
• Improve transparency of the government’s enforcement activities.
• Increase the public’s awareness of an institution’s track record in addressing rape and sexual assault.
• Enhance coordination among federal agencies to hold schools accountable if they do not confront sexual violence on their campuses.

As of April 3 the task force has received 30 Title IX complaints, equal to the total number of complaints in all of fiscal 2013.

The government also made a website, NotAlone.gov, to track enforcement and provide victims with information.

White House Involvement: 1 is 2 Many Campaign

Developed by Vice President Biden, the 1 is 2 Many Campaign focuses on dating violence and sexual assault suffered by teens and young women. After seeking ideas from students on how to prevent violence on campuses, it was found that an abundant amount of respondents answer was to get men involved.

Biden and Health and Human Services started an “app challenge” that in turn created apps geared toward young people. An example is Circle of 6 that puts a group of friends instantly in touch with each other. This is incase someone is in trouble they are able to send a “come and get me” message, complete with a GPS map to show the exact location.

Legislation: Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013

The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 is federal law that was signed by President Clinton on September 13, 1994. It is a part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. President Obama signed on March 7, 2013 imposes new obligations on colleges and universities under its Campus Violence Elimination Act (SaVE Act) provision. The provision states that, “Most higher education institutions – including community colleges and vocational schools – must educate students, faculty, and staff on the prevention of rape, acquaintance rape, domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.” Under the new requirements, colleges and universities are required to:

1. Report stalking, domestic violence, and dating violence further than the Clery Act already has mandated
2. Accept certain student disciplinary measures
3. Enhance or adopt institutional policies that will address and prevent campus sexual violence

Legislation: The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act

Commonly referred to as the Clery Act, the federal statute requires all colleges and universities that participate in federal financial aid programs to keep a daily public crime log provisions, maintain reporting obligations, and have extensive campus security-related provisions.

Legislation: Title IX

Signed into law in 1972 as part of the Education Amendments of 1972, Title IX prohibits schools receiving federal funding to discriminate based on gender. Under Title IX discrimination on the basis of sex can include sexual harassment, rape, and sexual assault.

Student Activism

Students Active for Ending Rape

Started in 2000 at Columbia University students, Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER) battles sexual violence and rape culture by empowering student-led campaigns to improve college sexual assault policies. The organization released a report in April 2013 examining how schools fail to completely address the problem, giving more than 80 percent of college policies a grade C or below, an F to nearly one-quarter, and said one-third don’t fully comply with the Clery Act.

Know Your IX

The mission of Know Your IX is to inform students in the United States of the rights guaranteed to them under Title IX. Survivors and activists who wish to share their expertise of their first-hand experience with violence, the law, and activism built the campaign. The ED ACT NOW campaign is a part of Know Your IX as an advocacy measure to better federal enforcement of Title

End Rape on Campus

Activists a part of End Rape on Campus (EROC) strive to assist individuals who are filling Title IX and Clery complaints. They want to hold schools accountable for the mishandling of sexual wrongdoing.

Of the 55 schools being investigated by the Department of Education, it cannot be ignored that some of the country’s highest ranked institutions make up a significant portion of the list. Why is that? Why are the schools that should be the pinnacle of our education system conducting themselves in such a lowly manner? Is it to preserve the good name of the school, even if that means endangering the very students that give it such a respected reputation? Thankfully students, organizations, and (some) government officials have taken measures towards reform. If the school administration will not mend their ways, then hopefully, newly enacted  legislation and courageous activists will led the charge.

UPDATE: July 17, 2014

Since this post was originally published, more stories have been reported about sexual assault taking place on colleges. In a particularly high-profile case, a freshman named Anna at Hobart and William Smith Colleges was reportedly raped by three football players during a fraternity party. Before this story broke, Hobart and William Smith Colleges was already one of the schools under investigation by the Department of Education.

Compared to the 60 days that are typical of a sexual-assault investigation, the Hobart and William Smith Colleges cleared the accused of all charges after only 12 days. The school’s disciplinary panel was ill equipped to handle this case, lacking tact and omitting evidence such as Anna’s rape kit and medical records. As with many individuals who are assaulted, Anna has been re-victimized by the community, receiving “physical threats and obscenities on her dormitory door, being pushed in the dining hall and asked to leave a fraternity party. Her roommate moved out with no explanation.”

Anna’s story has become all too common. It should not be a regular occurrence for these horrific acts to take place. Colleges need to reform their handling of sexual assaults, and fast.

 Resources

Primary

Amherst Student Newspaper: An Account of Sexual Assault at Amherst College 

Good Men Project: Lead a Good Life, Everyone: Trey Malone’s Suicide Note

U.S. Congress: Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013

U.S. Department of Education: List of Higher Education Institutions with Open Title IX Sexual Violence Investigations

Additional

One in Four USA: Sexual Assault Statistics 

Associated Press: Obama Targets College Sexual Assault Epidemic

National Institute of Justice: The Campus Sexual Assault (CSA) Study Final Report

Medical University of South Carolina: Drug-facilitated, Incapacitated, and Forcible Rape: A National Study 

National Institute of Justice: Sexual Assault on Campus: What Colleges and Universities Are Doing About It

Huffington Post: Occidental College Accused Of Secretly Tracking ‘Anonymous’ Sexual Assault Reports

Huffington Post: USC, Occidental Admit Underreporting Campus Sex Offenses 

Los Angeles Times: Occidental College Settles With Students in Sexual Assault Case

Los Angeles Times: Occidental College Fell Short In Rape Response, Victims Allege

Clery Center for Security on Campus: Summary Of the Jeanne Clery Act

ACLU: Title IX and Sexual Violence in Schools

Campus Save Act: The Campus Sexual Violence Elimination Act of 2013

American Council on Education: New Requirements Imposed by the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act

White House Council on Women and Girls: Rape and Sexual Assault: A Renewed Call to Action

Students Active for Ending Rape: Moving Beyond Blue Lights and Buddy Systems: A National Study of Student Anti-Rape Activists

Alex Hill

Alex Hill studied at Virginia Tech majoring in English and Political Science. A native of the Washington, D.C. area, she blames her incessant need to debate and write about politics on her proximity to the nation’s capital.

The post College Rape Crisis: All the Facts on the Rape Epidemic appeared first on Law Street.