Posts Tagged ‘schools’

Schools roundup

  • Union contracts can result in truant-teacher syndrome [Larry Sand, City Journal]
  • “A Review of Department of Education Programs: Transgender Issues, Racial Quotas in School Discipline, and Campus Sexual Assault Mandates” [Linda Chavez et al., Regulatory Transparency Project]
  • Why is the FBI getting involved in college sports recruiting scandals? [Cato podcast with Ilya Shapiro]
  • School lobby in Pennsylvania, unable to defeat taxpayer advocates at ballot box, hopes to win in court instead [Matt Miller, PennLive on school finance suit]
  • “End Federal Pressure for Racial Quotas in Special Education” [Hans Bader, CEI]
  • Irvington, N.J.: “Student to get $6M after tripping, breaking arm in gym class” [AP/TribLive]

Schools and childhood roundup

Connecticut SC backs $41.7M verdict against school for failing to warn of tick bites

The Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled “that schools have a duty to warn parents and students of potential hazards associated with field trips – in particular, dangerous insect bites – and let stand a $41.7 million verdict to a student who was disabled after developing encephalitis from a tick bite while on a school trip to China.” The Second Circuit had certified the question to the Connecticut court as part of the case of Munn v. Hotchkiss School. [Edmund H. Mahony/Hartford Courant, more] “According to the CDC, Munn was the first reported case of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) in a U.S. traveler to China.” [Jennifer Morgan DelMonico, Murtha Cullina Appellate Insights]

Liability roundup

  • Entrepreneurs launch plaintiff’s insurance to cover costs of pursuing litigation, not quite same thing as the “legal expense insurance” commonly found in loser-pays jurisdictions [ABA Journal]
  • More on the class action procedure case Microsoft v. Baker, from the just-ended Supreme Court term [Federalist Society podcast with Ted Frank, earlier]
  • Why Bristol-Myers Squibb, the Supreme Court case on state court jurisdiction, “is one of the most important mass tort/product liability decisions ever” [James Beck/Drug & Device Law, earlier]
  • Sandy Hook massacre: “Newtown And Board Of Education Seek Dismissal Of Wrongful Death Lawsuit” [AP/CBS Connecticut]
  • Pennsylvania: “Evidence-Manipulation Claims Dog Asbestos Lawyer” [Lowell Neumann Nickey, Courthouse News] “California’s Latest Litigation Invitation: A Duty to Protect Against ‘Take-Home’ Exposure” [Curt Cutting, WLF]
  • It’s almost as if trial lawyers were in the driver’s seat of these ostensibly public actions: Tennessee counties’ opioids suit also seeks to strike down the state’s tort reform law [Jamie Satterfield, Knoxville News-Sentinel]

Schools roundup

  • Georgia sheriff mass-frisks 900 students at a high school. Is that legal? [Scott Greenfield, Lowering the Bar]
  • Federal judge dismisses “clock boy” discrimination suit against Dallas-area school district [CBS News]
  • Ilya Shapiro on Gloucester County v. G.G., the transgender school bathroom Title IX case [Federalist Society]
  • Social worker on public reaction against Named Person program in Scotland: families “had wanted a single point of contact for parents,” but Scottish government instead created “point of contact about parents” [No2NP campaign, earlier]
  • “In places like New York City, schools have made it more difficult for principals to suspend disruptive or threatening students. The results? Increased violence, drug use, and gang activity, according to the Manhattan Institute’s Max Eden.” [Hans Bader/CEI, Eden paper, related on national policy]
  • Rethink your assumptions about Betsy DeVos’s appointees [Erica L. Green, New York Times] More on appointee Candice Jackson [George Leef, Martin Center, earlier]

Judge in Ireland rules on playground fall

A child hurt herself falling on a playground in Dublin, Ireland, and this is what Mr. Justice Raymond Groarke of the Circuit Civil Court wrote:

She was engaged in a game of chase pure and simple and, while it is most regrettable that she became unbalanced and fell, this was simply an old fashioned accident and I fail to see any liability on the part of the school for that accident.

Lenore Skenazy comments:

Score one for those of us who understand that there is NO activity, even climbing out of bed, that is always 100% safe. So if we start outlawing activities that are generally, but not 100% completely safe, we will end up outlawing any movement whatsoever.

The judge also seems to realize that something is LOST even if a modicum of safety could be gained. Are kids really safer if they do NOT run around, use their bodies, burn calories, learn to play, deal with disappointment, organize their friends, and create something out of nothing — a game?

Nope. Kids need to play.

Reports The Independent: “The school did not seek an order for costs against the girl’s mother.”

Schools roundup

  • “It’s like open carry, but for Coppertone”: lawmakers in Washington move to “allow students to use sunscreen at school without a doctor’s note.” [Lenore Skenazy, Free-Range Kids]
  • Chicago Mayor Emanuel’s “life plan or no diploma” scheme meddles in grads’ lives [Amy Alkon]
  • Sounds like must viewing: School, Inc. is a three-part documentary on state of US education system based on work of late Cato scholar Andrew Coulson;
  • On both health care and K-12, U.S. tops the charts in cost but not in outcome quality. Yet people tend to draw very different lessons from the one case than the other [Arnold Kling]
  • Attacking appointee Candice Jackson, civil rights orgs “defend [educational] practices that the courts have ruled illegal, and every current U.S. Supreme Court justice would find illegal.” [Hans Bader, CEI]
  • Keen to “decolonize” curriculum, Boston Public Schools buy into dubious map theories [Kevin Mahnken, The 74 Million]

DC may require child care workers to have college degrees

Among other effects, it will make care more expensive, and will saddle some child carers with unwanted and burdensome student debt. How did humanity ever raise children before there were college degrees? [Washington Post] More: Ryan Bourne, Cato (measure proceeds from debatable premise “that child care should be seen as formal pre-school education rather than whatever parents decide is best for their children”), and follow-up (“policy: restrict supply, then subsidize it”).

Advocates seek tighter state reins on homeschooling

Pointing out that it sometimes turns out badly for the kids involved, an emerging group of advocates critical of homeschooling “want stronger oversight, methods to monitor the quality of the education and ways to protect children from the dangers that can unfold behind a family’s closed doors.” One lesson of the American past — which has included long periods in which most states either banned homeschooling outright or subjected it to onerous legal restrictions — is that there’s an inherent conflict of interest when the state is allowed to regulate a substitute (home-based schooling) that competes directly with the state’s own educational enterprise. [Washington Post] More: Charlotte Allen, Weekly Standard.