This class will examine the issue of inequality in primary and secondary education, particularly with respect to race and socioeconomic status. The course will distinguish between inequality in terms of inputs versus outputs, presenting the empirical evidence about each and the relationship between the two. The course will also explore the history of legal and policy responses to persistent inequality, in particular the controversies surrounding Brown v Board of Education and subsequent related to achieve racially integrated public education, as well as efforts to achieve equitable education through school finance reforms.
The course will consider the challenge of contemporary educational inequality and survey the competing policy approaches, from increased and redistributed funding and efforts to improve instructional quality, to centralized accountability and testing and market based solutions such as vouchers and charter schools. Throughout, we will consider the role of law in facilitating or impeding desirable reforms, and reflect upon the practical question, in light of political impediments and constraints, of how a lawyer or social scientist might best move our nation toward a more just and less unequal educational system.
There will be a preference for law school and graduate school of education students, and then for other graduate students. The class will also be open to junior and senior undergraduate students.
This course is cross-listed with the School of Education.