Weingarten proposes plan to overhaul teacher-dismissal process [New York Times, 2/25/11]: American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten announced a proposal to revamp methods for evaluating and dismissing teachers. The new plan would give tenured teachers with unsatisfactory ratings one year to improve or be fired within 100 days. However, some were critical of the proposal, saying that administrators would not have enough input and that it does not address the role of seniority in teacher layoffs.

Teacher Drug-Testing Policy Struck Down [School Law Blog, 2/24/11]: A Tennessee school district's program of random drug testing of its teachers was constitutionally flawed, a federal district court has ruled.

Patriotic T-shirt legal battle marches on [Morgan Hill Times / Gilroy Post-Dispatch, 2/21/11]: The First Amendment lawsuit over the Cinco de Mayo incident last year at Live Oak High School advanced after federal Judge James Ware refused to dismiss the case as requested by defendants the Morgan Hill Unified School District, former LOHS principal Nick Boden and former assistant principal Miguel Rodriguez.

Gender-equality lawsuit costly for Sweetwater District [San Diego Union Tribune, 2/23/11]: Superintendent Jesus Gandara asked trustees of the Sweetwater Union High School District approve an $800,000 increase to its legal services budget at the same time the South County school district is looking to close a $24 million shortfall in next year’s budget.

State teachers' pension system headed toward insolvency [San Jose Mercury News, 2/22/11]: As California school districts anticipate possibly the worst budget crisis in a generation, many will try to lighten their burden by enticing older teachers into retirement.

High Court Cases Focus on In-School Questionings [Education Week’s School Law blogger Mark Walsh, 2/22/11]: A pair of cases to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court next month highlight broad questions about interactions between the police and the schools and the implications for school officials when investigators come knocking.

PERB: Poor Personnel Practices Do Not Prove Discrimination [PERB Blogspot, 2/15/11]: This case involved an employee who was rejected during probation. The employee alleged that he was rejected during probation because of protected activities, in violation of the MMBA. Specifically, the employee argued that the City retaliated against him because of comments he made criticizing his supervisor during an employee meeting. Read the City of Alhambra PERB Decision No. 2161-M (Issued 2/8/11).

Ravitch: Why teachers across the country are enraged [CNN, 2/21/11]: Attacks on the teaching profession have escalated over the past two years, says author and education historian Diane Ravitch. She writes that the protests in Wisconsin are the result "of a simmering rage among the nation's teachers," brought on by attempts to tie teacher evaluations to test scores, threats to collective bargaining, widespread teacher firings and other issues. She predicts an increasing number of teacher protests, as such attacks and impending teacher layoffs continue.

Labor faces a moment of truth [Politico, 2/21/11]: Some strategists and labor officials watching the protest conflagration from the outside are beginning to fret that a large-scale defeat in Wisconsin will have a devastating ripple effect, weakening labor state by state throughout the rest of the country.

Legislation may bring pay cuts for substitute teachers [San Bernardino Sun, 2/21/11]: Substitute teachers may start to feel the effects of dwindling school budgets if legislation recently proposed by state Sen. Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, becomes law. Under the law, S.B. 266, school districts could pay all substitutes the same wage, regardless of tenure, thus saving school districts millions of dollars per year, according to Dutton. Read SB 266.

Want to fix the Oakland schools? Ask a teacher [Oakland Tribune, 2/20/11]: The Oakland teachers union and the school district administration do not have an easy relationship. And yet, in the midst of budget cuts, an unsettled contract and threat of a strike, an unlikely -- though delicate -- partnership has arisen.

9th Circuit probes anti-Christian ruling against teacher [Orange County Register, 2/12/11]: A panel of three federal appellate judges Friday probed whether a Mission Viejo high school teacher who violated his student's First Amendment rights should be held financially liable for his actions, even as the judges reconsidered the merits of the case itself. During a 45-minute morning hearing, judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena grilled the two parties about whether Capistrano Valley High School history teacher James Corbett should be forced to pay attorney fees and damages, and whether he could have reasonably known he was being hostile toward religion in the classroom, as alleged. [See other posts on this case, in particular the one dated 2/17/11 below entitled "Student a 'whiny little boy,' teacher in anti-Christian case says."

Court Rejects Reimbursement Over Unfunded School Mandates [School Law Blog, 2/18/11]: Times are tough, a California appellate court says, and the judiciary cannot compel state lawmakers to come up with nearly $1 billion to reimburse unfunded education mandates imposed on school districts. But in a partial victory for school districts, a panel of the California Court of Appeal said they could seek to temporarily get out of mandates not fully funded by the state. Read the decision in CSBA v. State of California.

Student a 'whiny little boy,' teacher in anti-Christian case says [Orange County Register, 2/17/11]: Capistrano Valley High School history teacher James Corbett is firing back against the student who sued him three years ago for disparaging Creationism in class, posting a series of recent comments on the Register's website in which he refers to Chad Farnan as "a whiny little boy" who didn't do his homework and whose "helicopter parents" intervened frequently in their son's affairs.

The politics of education upended [Politico, 2/17/11]: In Wisconsin, about 1,000 teachers called in sick Wednesday to protest Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to strip their union bargaining rights. In Washington, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie recounted his battle with his state’s teachers unions Wednesday, calling their leaders “greedy” and “selfish.”

Unions, officials in 150 districts attend collaboration summit [Wall Street Journal / New York Times, 2/16/11]: Education Secretary Arne Duncan urged union leaders and administrators in 150 districts to collaborate during a summit in Denver this week organized by Duncan and two national unions. The event is intended to ease conflict over teachers' contracts and other contentious education-reform issues such as tenure, layoffs and teacher evaluations. Those who attended were selected by lottery and had to agree to work together on the "hiring, retention, compensation, development and evaluation of a highly effective work force."

Report: reform 'deeply flawed state education funding system [Orange County Register, 2/15/11]: California's schools have survived billions in state cuts by relying heavily one-time federal aid, but will find themselves in serious trouble next year as the aid runs out, according to a new report from the Legislative Analyst's Office.

Obama's 'Disparate Impact' Policy Draws Criticism [Education Week, 2/15/11]: Critics are challenging the U.S. Department of Education's new focus on curbing school discipline policies that disproportionately affect some student groups.

Fensterwald: LAO: Change pensions for new teachers [Thoughts on Public Education, 2/14/11]: New teachers would be among public employees whose state-financed retirement benefits would shrink under a proposal that the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office outlined last week to limit taxpayers’ future liability. Read the proposal.

2nd Circuit rejects whistleblowing custodian's appeal [First Amendment Center, 2/14/11]: High court's Garcetti ruling continues to punish public employees for speaking up, even about safety. A former custodian who warned school officials about possible asbestos in a gymnasium lost his appeal before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Read Morey v. Somers Central School District.

Obama's 'Disparate Impact' Policy Draws Criticism [Education Week, 2/15/11]: Critics are challenging the U.S. Department of Education's new focus on curbing school discipline policies that disproportionately affect some student groups.

Fensterwald: LAO: Change pensions for new teachers [Thoughts on Public Education, 2/14/11]: New teachers would be among public employees whose state-financed retirement benefits would shrink under a proposal that the non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office outlined last week to limit taxpayers’ future liability. Read the proposal:

2010 Census Figures and Legislative Redistricting

By Jessica R. Alexander, J.D., M.L.S., Reference Librarian

The Houston Chronicle annotates the release of the 2010 Federal census in its February 18, 2010 print edition, with its headline article,"Trends show Texas increasingly urban and Latino," by Jeannie Kever. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7432703.html. The Houston Chronicle also provides an interactive map of the Texas census figures at http://www.chron.com/databases/Census2010Texas.

The apportionment of representatives from various counties in the Texas House of Representatives is prescribed by Texas Constitution Article 3, §§ 26, 27, and 28. These sections provide that apportionment is based on the most recent United States Census. Government Code § 2058.001 provides that no action can be taken by a governmental entity of Texas until September 1 of the year after the calendar year during which the census was taken. Important exceptions are set out in §2058.002 -- the Legislative Redistricting Board and a governing body elected from single-member districts may act before September 1 of 2011.

The website of the Legislative Redistricting Board has further information on redistricting and the role of the Board. Also see the website of the United States Census Bureau.

Current Awareness

By Jessica R. Alexander, J.D., M.L.S.,Reference Librarian

The library's "Current Awareness" service is directed to our faculty. However, an article entitled "The Natural Law Lecture, 2010, Torture, Suicide and Determinatio" by Jeremy Waldron in the "American Journal of Jurisprudence, Volume 55, 2010, page 1, is worth pointing out to law students at any level of study. The article contains beautiful illustrations of "natural law" v. "positive law" (the process of determinatio).

Waldron shows how complex philosophical concepts can be illustrated in every day terms. He approaches two controversial criminal questions: torture and assisted suicide. He starts with the reality of physical suffering as a factor in each determination. In cases of assisted suicide, there is usually an individual who is or will be in the future, living with some unbearable physical suffering. In torture an individual is being subjected to some degree of physical pain. Each situation requires two or more actors. Someone has to assist with suicide. Self-inflicted pain is not criminalized as torture.

Before Waldron tackles the specifics of determinatio (defined in the article as the method whereby general forms are particularized as to details) on assisted suicide and torture, he provides an everyday illustration of how "natural law " evolves into "positive law":

"And something similar may be true for law. Natural law principles---indeed, commonsense moral thinking by itself---might indicate to any sensible person the need to slow down whatever they are driving (a horse and cart or an automobile) when they move from a rural to an urban setting. But human law is needed to specify exact speed limits and determine where exactly the limits kick in (where the signs are posted) and that is a task for determinatio." (page 2)

When trying to master complicated concepts even first-year students might want to draw pictures in their minds or on paper of ordinary events or examples of such concepts.

Of course Waldron's article is very scholarly and his arguments tightly drawn. A law student might benefit from just how clearly he defines the issues. He does this again by use of vivid scenarios. He compares the case of a woman seeking to make assisted suicide legal in England with the treatment of water boarding and other painful interrogation measures by officials in the United States.

While reading his article we can see the lady and the water boarder asking, "How far can I go with my planned course of action, before I bump up against the criminal laws?" Where is the bright line? In his article Waldron argues that the woman suffering from an incurable and painful illness has the right to ask where the bright line is drawn. Suicide itself was de-criminalized in England. As for torture, he contends that an interrogator who wants to inflict physical pain has no such right to request a bright line determination. Again, his illustrations are beautiful :

"An example of someone who does have such a legitimate interest might be a tax-payer who says, "I have an interest in arranging my affairs to lower my tax liability much as possible, so I need to know exactly how much I can deduct for business expenses." Another example is the driver who says, "I have an interest in knowing how fast I can go without breaking the speed limit." For those cases, there does seem to be a legitimate interest in having clear definitions. Compare them however to some other cases: the husband who says, "I have an interest in pushing my wife round a bit and I need to know exactly how far I can go before it counts as domestic violence..." (page 23).

The illustrations make the article easier to read and digest. Students will benefit by such examples of clarity in legal thinking and reasoning, regardless of whether one agrees with the legal conclusions that Waldron draws .

Schools craft budgets in the dark -- and prepare for deep cuts [San Jose Mercury News, 2/13/11]: In what has become a fantasy-like world of school finance, school districts are scurrying to build their 2011-12 budgets, preparing for bad and worst cases

LAUSD announces potential layoff plans [Los Angeles Times, 2/12/11]: Los Angeles school officials unveiled a plan Friday to send preliminary layoff notices to more than 5,000 teachers and other staff members to help close a projected budget gap. This is the first time that the nation's second-largest district will protect some campuses that previously had been hit hard by layoffs.

An Oakland school cut its last AP course, but teachers are teaching it anyway [Oakland Tribune, 2/11/11]: The sacrifice made by these teachers and students for an opportunity that's a given in other schools illustrates their commitment to education. It also highlights the system's inequities and the shortcomings of the Oakland school district's attempts at high school reform.

Court Upholds Federal Teacher-Protection Law [School Law Blog, 2/10/11]: A federal statute meant to give teachers and school administrators protection from legal liability over their efforts to maintain safe and orderly schools has been upheld against a constitutional challenge. The case is Dydell v. Taylor.

Kerchner: Analysis of LA Times series shows pitfalls of using test scores to evaluate teachers [Thoughts on Public Education, 2/10/11]: Nearly half the rankings handed out to L.A. Unified teachers by the Los Angeles Times may be wrong. This is one of the conclusions reached by Derek Briggs and Ben Domingue of the University of Colorado at Boulder, who conducted a reanalysis of the data used by the Times in their value-added analysis of teacher performance.

Fewer young people becoming teachers; schools could be short-staffed in years ahead [Lodi News-Sentinel, 2/8/11]: Baby Boomers are retiring, and college students appear hesitant to step into those roles due to decreasing salaries, increasing layoffs and a less-than-welcoming teaching atmosphere.

On Evolution, Biology Teachers Stray From Lesson Plan [New York Times, 2/8/11]: Teaching creationism in public schools has consistently been ruled unconstitutional in federal courts, but according to a national survey more than 900 public high school biology teachers, it continues to flourish in the nation’s classrooms.

U.S. Plan to Replace Principals Hits Snag: Who Will Step In? [New York Times, 2/8/11]: The aggressive $4 billion program begun by the Obama administration in 2009 to radically transform the country’s worst schools included, as its centerpiece, a plan to install new principals to overhaul most of the failing schools. That policy decision, though, ran into a difficult reality: there simply were not enough qualified principals-in-waiting to take over.

High schools walk a tightrope in seeking funding from sports participants [Sacramento Bee, 2/8/11]: The website was clear: Inderkum High School students had to pay $75 to participate in sports. Problem was, since 1984, forcing public school students to pay to play has been against state law.

More districts shorten school year [Capitol Alert / California Watch, 2/8/11]: In the face of ongoing state budget problems, nearly three times as many K-12 districts have shortened the current school year than did so last year, according to a new survey released by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office.

First-of-Its-Kind Lawsuit Seeks to Improve Los Angeles School [The National Law Journal, 2/8/11]: Two firm partners have sued the Compton school district under an act giving parents the legal means to make changes to underperforming public schools. Other states are weighing similar "parent trigger acts."

Separate study confirms many Times findings on teacher effectiveness [Los Angeles Times, 2/7/11]: A study to be released Monday confirms the broad conclusions of a Times' analysis of teacher effectiveness in the Los Angeles Unified School District while raising concerns about the precision of the ratings.

Schrag: Pepperdine’s Soggy Waffle [California Progress Report, 2/7/11]: Education research, someone famously said many years ago, “is a soggy waffle.” Nothing demonstrates that better than the latest version of a Pepperdine University report purporting to show that, as one headline summarized it, since 2003 “California schools spent less in the classroom as budgets increased.” You can read the Davenport Institute Pepperdine reports.

Reference Tidbits

Jessica Alexander, J.D., M.L.S. Reference Librarian

Sexy Title, Pedestrian Concerns - Texas Transportation Code "Rules of the Road."

The Texas "Rules of the Road" are located in Tex. Transp. Code Ann. Sections 541-600 (West 1999 & Supp. 2010). Not only do these rules cover the operation of motor vehicles but also rules for the safety of pedestrians. They give certain rights of access to pedestrians but also restrict their movement upon and adjacent to a roadway. Most case law interpretations concern motor vehicle accidents or incidents where a pedestrian violates a law and then is arrested for a more serious criminal offense. Consult the case blurbs in the annotated code.

Online see http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/TN/htm/TN.552.htm

For procedural issues concerning traffic tickets a good starting place is the Texas Criminal Practice Guide Volume 1, Chapter 3. Proceedings in Inferior Courts. The Criminal Practice Guide is also online for in-house patrons, and available off campus for students and faculty, via Stanley. Check with a reference librarian for further information.

Calif. parents sue school district over charter effort [AP / First Amendment Center, 2/4/11]: Six parents and their children sued the Compton Unified School District yesterday, alleging officials are trying to thwart their push to convert a failing elementary school to a charter school. The parents immediately won a temporary injunction from Superior Court Judge Robert O'Brien, who blocked the district from using a complex process to verify signatures on a petition for the charter school.

Schools Tackle Legal Twists and Turns of Cyberbullying [Education Week, 2/4/11]: High-profile incidents put legal, policy issues in the spotlight but lack of clarity remains. School leaders across the country are dealing with routine cases daily and often feel they have little legal advice or precedent to guide them in their decision making.

Autism rate triples among K-12 students [California Watch, 2/4/11]: Special education students with autism in California have more than tripled in number since 2002, even as overall special education enrollment has remained relatively flat, according to an analysis of state education data released yesterday.

L.A. boy can use religious song at school talent show [AP, 2/3/11]: School district, lawyers for fifth-grader reach agreement allowing him to perform; mother had filed suit after principal said performance would violate church-state separation. Read the legal complaint.

Searches of Students Who Leave and Return to School Upheld [School Law Blog, 2/2/11]: A high school's policy of searching students who leave the campus and return during the school day does not violate the Fourth Amendment, a California state appellate court has ruled. Read the decision in In re Sean A.

South Texas College of Law Closing due to Weather

The South Texas College of Law, including the Fred Parks Law Library will be closed from noon Thursday February 3 until Saturday February 5, when we will resume normal business hours. During this time no library services will be available.

G.O.P. Governors Take Aim at Teacher Tenure [New York Times, 2/2/11]: Seizing on a national anxiety over poor student performance, many governors are taking aim at a bedrock tradition of public schools: teacher tenure. Governors in Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada and New Jersey have called for the elimination or dismantling of tenure. As state legislatures convene this winter, anti-tenure bills are being written in those states and others. Their chances of passing have risen because of crushing state budget deficits that have put teachers’ unions on the defensive.

If two budgets weren’t enough, try three [Educated Guess, 2/2/11]: If two budgets weren’t enough, try three -- Not knowing what will happen in four months, most school districts are building two budgets for next year: the good one, if voters in June agree to extend $11 billion in temporary taxes, and the bad one, in case they don’t.

Fensterwald: No easy way to cut CalSTRS benefits [Educated Guess, 2/1/11]: Call it pension envy, matched by frustration over higher pension contributions that taxpayers will eventually be asked to fork over. The clamor for cutting public employees’ pension benefits has grown louder.

A Bold Idea to Stop the Pink-Slip Blizzard [San Diego Union Tribune, 1/31/11]: Year after year, San Diego Unified has grudgingly prepared for the worst based on budget plans made by the California governor. It once warned hundreds of teachers that they would lose their jobs. That threat fizzled, but not before it sent the school district into an uproar. School board members want that painful pattern to stop, and they have a risky idea in mind.

Rowland Unified wins legal case against Walnut Valley in battle for students [San Gabriel Valley Tribune, 1/28/11]: The Rowland Unified School District scored a major legal victory Thursday over Walnut Valley Unified in a case in which Rowland accused Walnut Valley of stealing students. The California 2nd District Court of Appeals ruled that Walnut Valley had already taken the maximum amount of students - 10 percent - from Rowland Unified's boundaries. Read the decision in Walnut Valley USD v. Superior Court (Rowland USD).

Families hire lawyers, sue schools over student bullying [Orlando Sentinel, 1/29/11]: More parents in central Florida and across the country are hiring lawyers and filing lawsuits against school districts when their children are bullied. The prevention of school bullying now is the subject of a nationwide campaign. The U.S. Department of Education has issued guidelines for schools on how to handle the behavior, which also may serve to help minimize future lawsuits.

Special Education Court Decisions on the Rise [Education Week, 1/28/11]: After two decades of decline, education litigation appears to be on the rise, with special education leading the way, according to an analysis from Lehigh University professor Perry Zirkel, an expert in special education law. Zirkel's paper on his findings will appear in full in an upcoming issue of West's Education Law Reporter, but he walked blogger Christina Samuels through the findings.

Student settles with Fla. district over Facebook posts [SPLC, 1/20/11]: A former Pembroke Pines Charter High School student suspended for critical Facebook postings about her teacher has settled with the school after a three-year legal battle. Katherine “Katie” Evans signed the settlement in November, in which the school agrees to remove any record of her suspension or the initial incident and pay $15,000 in attorney fees and $1 in nominal damages. The school signed the settlement in December.