Summary

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  • Caselist.RoundClass[14]
  • Caselist.CitesClass[20]

Details

Caselist.RoundClass[14]

EntryDate

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1		-2016-12-03 03:10:14.394
	1	+2016-12-03 03:10:14.0

Caselist.CitesClass[20]

Cites

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	1	+Our education system is on the brink – Pennsylvania proves—schools need funding to survive. Black 9/12
	2	+Derek Black, Professor of Law University of South Carolina School of Law, 9-12-2016, "A School District On The Brink Of Collapse: Educational Opportunity At The Intersection Of Race, Poverty, And Geography," Education Law Prof Blog, http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/education_law/2016/09/a-school-district-on-the-brink-of-collapse-educational-opportunity-at-the-intersection-of-race-pover.html MG
	3	+For the past few years, Pennsylvania's education system has stood at the brink of disaster in some shape, form, or fashion. First came the state's decision to retreat from its new school funding formula and impose new cuts. Then came stories of completely upside down budgets, with public schools bleeding money to brick and mortar charter schools. Those were followed with rampant corruption and a federal indictment of a virtual charter school operator. Mixed in was the story of a Philadelphia girl who fell ill and died on a day when no nurse was present at school due to funding cuts. This brought national attention on the state's policies. This past school year did not look much better. It started with no state education budget. As late as March, the state was still flirting with finishing the school year in the same position~-~-with no school budget. Along the way, there were stories of unpaid teachers, shuttered pre-kindergarten programs, extended winter breaks to save money, and the potential collapse of entire school districts. The Erie School District was one of those districts pushed to the brink. Its superintendent indicated that the small district might be forced to dissolve itself and allow its students to be subsumed by the much larger neighboring suburban districts if the state did not pass a budget and adopt a more equitable funding formula. The state passed a budget and tinkered with the funding formula, but neither was substantial enough to change the underlying reality in Erie. According to NPR, it still is far from having the resources it needs and is considering dissolution: Erie's schools have been pushed to the brink after six years of deep budget cuts, and he believes the children in the city's district — which predominantly serves students of color — are being systematically shortchanged. That's in part because urban school districts in Pennsylvania face a particularly brutal logic. They serve the poorest, most needy students. Yet, when it comes to state funding per pupil, most of them don't make the top of the list. Even though Erie is one of the most impoverished districts in the state, and has one of the highest percentages of English language learners, the district currently receives less per-pupil funding from the state than hundreds of other districts. Excluding pension costs, per-pupil spending in Erie is less than it was in 2008-09. . . . . The issue in Erie is even more complicated because of Pennsylvania's education funding policies. For most of the past 25 years, the state has distributed money without a rational, student-based formula. So although Erie is one of the state's most challenged districts, the state sends more money per-pupil from its main pot of cash to most other districts in the county — including wealthier ones, with less pressing needs, that already have an easier time raising local funds. "The differences between the resources we have in the county compared to in here are just shocking," said Brian Polito, chief financial officer for Erie Public Schools." Polito used to have a similar job in North East, a rural district in Erie County. Drawing a comparison, he says last year Erie spent $6,000 dollars on its 18 libraries. "In the school district that I came from, we had three libraries and our budget for library resources was almost $40,000." It's examples like these that has Millcreek parent Genene Mattern completely supporting the stand that superintendent Jay Badams has taken on closing the city's high schools. "People need to get mad. People need to get loud, because the more you just sit and let it happen, I think the more they figure, 'well, they're okay with that,'" she says. The Erie district did receive a modicum of relief in the state budget that recently passed, including a $3.4 million boost in basic education funds, and a one-time $4 million dollar emergency supplement. But the systemic issues will persist, and Erie's finances are slated to be in the same straits by the end of the school year. Talk of dissolving Erie's district, however, is causing a lot of uneasiness in surrounding districts. They are predominantly middle-income and white, while Erie is predominantly poor and minority. Some of the concerns are more explicitly related to race, while some others hearken back to the facially neutral but coded language that opposed busing during desegregation in the south. The problem, they would say, is not race but the difficulties children will face when they attend something other than a neighborhood school. NPR also asks: "Would Erie's crisis even be happening if it was a majority white district?" This question, however, may be best directed at state policy than just local politics. The unfortunate situation in which Erie's school children find themselves is the sad story of race, poverty, and geography in American schools. Geography is highly determinate of educational opportunity and probably even more so in most northern locales, where school districts are much smaller. The smaller we draw district lines, the higher the capacity to wall-in or wall-out particular neighborhoods. As a practical matter, districts become far more homogeneous than an overall county's or region's demographic population. In other words, small districts increase racial and socio-economic isolation. When this isolation is coupled with state policy that largely bases education funding on local property taxes, it produces highly unequal resources between districts. In other words, the districts become segregated and unequal. When this occurs, state level funding solutions become politically more difficult. The education world has been divided by race, class, and resources and there is little incentive for the "haves" to agree to plans that would send more resources to the "have-nots." In other words, the suburb votes are stacked against urban school districts. The only apparent solution for districts like Erie is to cut through the structural morass of inequality and blow up the system~-~-to, in effect, say we reject district lines, we reject inequitable funding systems, we reject a system that leaves inner city children to fend for themselves. We give up, and the state and its suburban school districts must now find a way to integrate us into its flawed system. No wonder those who control the levers of power are so upset in Erie. They should be upset in Harrisburg too.
	4	+
	5	+Aff plan bankrupts schools by allowing them to sue school officers. Bouchard 03
	6	+Rebecca L. Bouchard, EDUCATION LAW—THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE INDIVIDUALS WITH DISABILITIES EDUCATION ACT AND SECTION 1983: ARE COMPENSATORY DAMAGES AN AVAILABLE AND APPROPRIATE REMEDY?, 25 W. New Eng. L. Rev. 301 (2003), http://digitalcommons.law.wne.edu/lawreview/vol25/iss MG
	7	+*HCPA = Handicapped Children’s Protection Act
	8	+In Sellers v. School Board of Manassas,178 the Fourth Circuit held that a plaintiff could not bring a compensatory damages claim pursuant to § 1983 for an alleged violation of IDEA. In Sellers, the plaintiff was an eighteen year-old boy who had recently been diagnosed as learning disabled and emotionally disturbed.179 He and his parents sought compensatory damages under IDEA, arguing that the school should have known that he required special education services in grade school.180 In denying their damages claim, the court conceded that although HCPA, which created § 1415(1), did effect a legislative reversal of much of the Smith holding, it did not afford the plaintiff a right to demand compensatory damages.181 Since IDEA provides a comprehensive remedial scheme for violations of its requirements, students and parents may not rely on § 1983 to sue for violations of IDEA.182 Permitting recovery of general damages through § 1983 would subject school boards to potential liability "exponentially greater" than any liability for tuition reimbursement that they currently face.183 The vague language of § 1415(1) does not place them on notice of such open-ended liability.184 . In Padilla v. School District No.1 ,185 the Tenth Circuit joined the Sellers court in holding that § 1415(1) left intact Smith's implication that IDEA may not provide the basis for § 1983 claims based on violation of IDEA. It also noted that since Congress passed HCPA, the Supreme Court has cited Smith and the IDEA as examples of an exhaustive legislative enforcement scheme that precludes § 1983 causes of action.186 These courts, along with the other courts on this side of the controversy,187 essentially assert that § 1415(1) overrules much, but not all, of the Supreme Court's decision in Smith. Claims under § 1983 for ADA, § 504, or constitutional violations may be permissible, but § 1983 claims based on violations of IDEA are not. Neither the text nor the legislative history clearly authorizes such claims, and there are strong policy reasons against doing so.
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	10	+Education is key to combatting ableism—turns case. Hutcheon and Wolbring 12
	11	+Emily J. Hutcheon and Gregor Wolbring, University of Calgary 2012, " Voices of “Disabled” Post Secondary Students: Examining Higher Education “Disability” Policy Using an Ableism Lens" Journal of Diversity in Higher Education , https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/dhe-a0027002.pdf MG
	12	+How can ideas of “normal” and “typical” be deconstructed in a practical way? How can this deconstruction be used to better the experience of disabled students in higher education? In light of the emergent findings presented here, it is incumbent on policymakers, educators, and students, both disabled and nondisabled, to critically examine their own assumptions regarding difference. Policymakers and those working in disability services may engage in this examination within existing initiatives, which are currently structured to reactively address the accessibility needs of students (Kraus, 2008). Postsecondary students, who are the most informed as to their own needs, should be involved in these initiatives. Initiatives explored below include revisiting processes which underlie reasonable accommodation, awareness raising, changes in delivery of curriculum content, legitimizing different ways of learning, and changing the language of policy. The first of these initiatives (seen by participants of this study to be positive) is that of reasonable accommodation. (Note that in the case of postsecondary students entails the provision of course or program modifications, extension of assignment due dates, alternate testing procedures, access to adaptive technologies.) Given that students are currently obligated to initiate and maintain their own accommodations, it has been suggested by Devlin and colleagues (2006) that “accommodation” be more flexible in theory and practice. In other words, the authors suggest that accommodation be built into the academic standard, in essence lessening its individualized delivery. This, they say, would shift our gaze away from delivering accommodations relative to a given “typical” or “normal” standard (Devlin and Pothier, 2006). Another of these initiatives, awarenessraising (traditionally understood as the act of informing professors of the various functioning needs of those with differences), is suggested by study participants. This may take the form of blogs, newsletters, and presentations created and run by both students and staff in diversity services. In addition to ensuring that students’ accessibility needs are met through awareness, efforts should be made to integrate other educational components (which may, for example, bring to awareness the multiple conceptualizations of disability to which students may align, and ways in which difference is often rejected). These educational components, made available to both students and faculty, may provide space in which difference can be embraced. The third of these initiatives, also suggested by participants, aims to change the process by which academic information is delivered in the classroom. Barnes (1999) notes that “ . . . the current presentation of ‘disability’ in universities fosters the notion that disability is an individual or a family ‘problem’; that the ‘disabled voice’ is absent from the curriculum; that disabled people are objectified as a result; that there is a lack of critical analysis, and that this is due to the absence of disabled scholars and researchers within universities” (p. 567). Students, staff, and policymakers should act collaboratively to design course material which integrates a diversity-conscious perspective. Additionally, there is little acknowledgment of peripheral ways of learning (e.g., the use of American Sign Language, Auslan, or Braille), and little interrogation of dominant methods of learning. Devlin and Pothier (2006) suggest that a legitimization of these peripheral ways of learning would provide another avenue in reshaping policy. Finally, the language of policy which addresses the needs of the ability-diverse population should be changed to reflect nonableist and inclusive sentiments. Existing postsecondary services for those with perceived impairments, while usually addressing immediate concerns such as accessibility, do not provide this student group with media of expression, social outlets, or opportunities to embrace their identities (Kraus, 2008). We submit that this is, in part, a consequence of policies which address ability difference in higher education and the choice of language used within these policies. We have demonstrated the utility of the ableism lens in reconsidering policy language and implementation and further suggest changes in existing initiatives (accommodations, awareness, and changes in course design and delivery) as practical first steps.

EntryDate

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	1	+2016-12-03 03:10:16.611

Judge

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	1	+x

Opponent

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	1	+Harker

ParentRound

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	1	+14

Round

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	1	+4

Team

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	1	+Harvard Westlake Paul Neg

Title

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	1	+NovDec - DA - Education

Tournament

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	1	+Alta