Describes judicial attitudes toward the needs of linguistic minorities in the 1960s and 1970s and the shift during the last decade from mandating national standards to emphasizing local community discretion. Explores the implications for the national-value/community-value distinction for bilingual education and for current controversies concerning…

Discusses the issue of gender equity in the schools from the perspective of a national values/community values distinction. An overview of the major U.S. Supreme Court decisions on sex discrimination issues is presented followed by a detailed analysis of the implementation of legal mandates regarding sex equity in program access, athletics, and…

Demonstrates how the legal, educational, and technical determination of adequacy is a process of social construction. Identifies the social values of accountability, responsibility, and community as underpinning the societal consensus building around the concept of a "minimally adequate education." At present, educational reform does not…

Focuses First Amendment claims within the public schools: (1) claims of students to free expression; (2) right of students to receive information; (3) right of teachers to use materials and teaching methods of choice; and (4) right of parents to have their children exempted from assertedly objectionable materials. (MLF)

In "Mozert," fundamentalist parents claim that the reading curriculum interfered with their right to transmit religious values to their children. The district court fashioned an excusal scheme; however, the Sixth Circuit reversed this decision. Reviews the facts, analyzes points of law left unresolved, and discusses the broader…

The Solomon Amendment provides that only by registering with the Selective Service System can males aged 18-26 receive federal aid. Fourteen states have explicitly enacted similar legislation. Examines whether these legislative initiatives are constitutional under the supremacy clause. (MLF)

Addresses allegations that public schools are unconstitutionally promoting secular humanism. Presents perspectives defining secular humanism and explores whether secular humanism is considered a religion under the establishment clause. Deals with charges by conservative parent groups. (164 references) (MLF)

Focusing on Jefferson's and Madison's writings, demonstrates that the popular education/liberal republican democracy linkage constitutionalized by founders was real and correct. Conservative Congressional Republicans who tout their Jeffersonian and Madisonian political underpinnings should reconsider before undermining the federal role in U.S.…

Surveys court decisions and constitutional challenges by homosexual teachers faced with job terminations. Provides nine guidelines for use by school officials. The primary concern of boards assessing a teacher's fitness should be the educational competence of the teacher and the possibility of actual harm to students resulting from the teacher's…