Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor Lawrence

J.D. Seminar 098 | 3 credit hours

This seminar will examine the right to equal educational opportunity. We will consider the various legal efforts, at the state and federal level, to improve K-12 education and examine how those efforts serve to ameliorate or reinforce hierarchies based on race, class, gender and sexual orientation. The course will explore a range of topics including school segregation, the racial achievement gap, high stakes testing, the No Child Left Behind Act, school choice, teachers unions, curriculum reform, the role of independent schools and school finance. We will consider the federal government’s expanding role in education, charter schools, vouchers, national and state standards, and single-sex education. In addition to examining the relevant cases and legislative responses, we will read historians, education policy experts, teachers, economists, novelists and legal scholars.

Students may not receive credit for both this seminar and the Law, Public Education, and Equality of Opportunity Seminar; Education Law and Policy; or Public School Reform: Policy, Practice and the Law Seminar.

Enrolled and waitlisted students must attend the first class to be enrolled. Students must register for the three-credit section of the seminar if they wish to write a paper fulfilling the Upperclass Writing Requirement. Students in the two-credit section will write a paper.