During the past two decades, lawmakers have reshaped the realm of educational policy. Courts have reviewed a wide range of issues that historically have been resolved by school administrators and boards of education. New mandates have also emerged from Congress and State legislatures. This casebook examines that emergent law and attempts to assess its impact on American schooling policy and practice. This volume is not a traditional "school law" book. It does not treat "the law" as an isolated entity, but rather focuses on the interaction between legal decisions and educational practice. It borrows liberally from social science sources to afford greater understanding of the problems that become legal issues. It identifies factors that promote present patterns of behavior and looks at the institutional and social demands that the behavior satisfies. Social science material is also used to assess the effects -- negative and positive -- of legal change. Sufficient material on the techniques of legal analysis is included so that the person unschooled in the law can read finely nuanced court decisions and statutes with some confidence. To the law student, this approach provides at least a rudimentary sense of the educational policy issues that the law reaches. (Author)