Education Law - History, Student Speech And The First Amendment, Searches Of Students And Lockers, Separation Of Church And State
federal children example public
The body of state and federal constitutional provisions; local, state, and federal statutes; court opinions; and government regulations that provide the legal framework for educational institutions.
The laws that control public education can be divided into two categories: those written exclusively for schools and those pertaining to society in general. Federal statutes regarding the education of children with disabilities are an example of the former, and Title VII (CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964, §§ 701 et seq., as amended, 42 U.S.C.A. §§ 2000e et seq.), a federal statute that covers employment in schools and elsewhere, is an example of the latter. Much of the litigation, legislation, and debate in education law has concerned nine main issues: student speech and expression; searches of students; the separation of church and state; racial SEGREGATION; the education of disabled children; EMPLOYMENT LAW; employee SEXUAL HARASSMENT and abuse of students; instructional programming; and the financing of public education.
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In the mid-twentieth century, the U.S. Supreme Court began to recognize that children do not give up their constitutional rights as a condition of attending public school. The Court acknowledged that the public school is an appropriate setting in which to instill a respect for these rights. Freedom of expression is perhaps the most preciously shielded of individual liberties, and the Court has not…
The U.S. Supreme Court addressed these questions in 1985, in New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 105 S. Ct. 733, 83 L. Ed. 2d 720. The case involved a 14-year-old girl, T.L.O., and a female companion, whom a teacher observed smoking in the girls' restroom in violation of school rules. T.L.O. denied smoking on that occasion and claimed she did not smoke at all. The assistant principal opened…
The First Amendment provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The First Amendment has been incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment and applies to the states and their subdivisions. The first provision is called the Establishment Clause; the second, the Free Exercise Clause. Thus, the guarantee of r…
In Brown, four separate cases—from Delaware, Kansas, South Carolina, and Virginia—were consolidated for argument before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court framed the issue before it as being whether "segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other tangible factors may be equal, deprives the children of the min…
Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (20 U.S.C.A. §§ 1400 et seq.)—formerly the EAHCA—in 1975 to address the failure of state education systems to meet the educational needs of children who have disabilities. Congress's enactment of IDEA was, in part, a response to two well-publicized federal court cases: Mills v. Board of Educat…
The myriad federal and state laws and regulations that control public employment in general apply with equal force to public-school employment. In addition, all states have statutes that control the school board–employee relationship. These state laws pertain to contracts, tenure, certification, retirement, and other matters of special interest to teachers. Despite the similarities of the i…
Litigation involving claims of sexual abuse by teachers is expanding rapidly. The courts are creating new legal avenues of redress, and students are becoming more willing to confront their abusers. Further, some state courts have waived statutory time limits on the filing of claims in cases involving sexual abuse of minors, permitting lawsuits many years after an alleged abuse. …
Contemporary debate on the school curriculum by advocates of a return to the basics, multicultural studies, and a range of educational approaches continues to attract public attention as those advocates press their claims in courts and legislative chambers. With some notable exceptions, courts generally give state legislative and local administrative authorities wide latitude to tailor curriculum …
Public schools in the United States are financed through a system of fiscal federalism—that is, the funds used for their operation have been appropriated on the federal, state, and local levels. Nationally, from the mid-1970s to the
mid-1990s, the combined federal and state support for public education accounted for slightly less than 50 percent of all operating expenses, with the fede…
Bilingual education purports to make use of both the English language and a child's native language for educational instruction. It is premised upon the belief that this approach enables children to grasp the tenets of basic mathematics, science, and social studies in their own language, while simultaneously being exposed to English instruction. In theory it works, but in reality, children …
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