Approximately 19 percent of undergraduate students in the United States identify as having a disability, yet postsecondary institutions often lack the legal infrastructure necessary to support their academic success. National data show that only 49.6 percent of disabled students graduate from four-year institutions, compared to 68.1 percent of…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) appears to offer states and districts discretion to develop teacher evaluation policies, including those that may use Value Added Models (VAMs). While scholars are discussing this flexibility, limited attention has been paid to the potential role of the law in connection with the future use of VAMs in…

In 2012, families in California filed a lawsuit alleging that five state statutes governing teacher tenure, dismissal, and seniority together violate the state constitution's requirements for equal protection. Central to the case were competing narratives about the relationship between these statutes, the work of teachers, and the achievement of…

Raising academic standards and eliminating achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students are America's prime national educational goals. Current federal and state policies, however, largely ignore the fact that the childhood poverty rate in the United States is 21%, the highest in the industrialized world, and that poverty…

This paper reviews State constitutions and State laws providing for race equity in education. Results of a comprehensive survey of constitutions and statutes reveal a substantial State commitment to the goal of education equity. Constitutional provisions in an overwhelming number of States mirror the requirements of the Federal equal protection…

Utilizing official records and reports, the Arizona Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights conducted an investigation of the criminal justice process afforded American Indians in Flagstaff, Arizona. The investigation focused on Indian treatment from arrest through sentencing and 2 days of informal hearings held in both Tucson…

This report, prepared by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, collects federal, state, and other legisltation in effect as of April 15, 1975. This is an update of the report published by the Center for Applied Linguistics in 1971. The notes preceding the statutes presented here indicate the laws in the previous compilation which were…

Each summer more than 18,000 migrant farmworkers and their families travel to Indiana from Texas, Florida, Missouri, and Arkansas to plant, cultivate, and harvest the State's crops. Of these, more than 80 percent are Mexican Americans from Texas. These migrants work in 43 counties, primarily in the State's central region. The migrant population…