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Ethnic charter schools reject diversity in education

April 12, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author: Ralph W. Kasarda In the interest of attaining a diverse student population, may schools consider a student's race when making student assignments?  We know from the 2003 case, Grutter v. Bollinger, that the Supreme Court says yes, at least for law schools.  In Grutter, the Court held that diversity is a compelling state inte ...

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School Choice Week : the best answer to a multiple choice problem

January 26, 2012 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

What is the goal of School Choice Week?  The official slogan of School Choice Week is: “Shining a spotlight on effective education options for every child.”  In essence, then, the purpose is to bring attention to two glaring realities of our nation’s traditional public education system: 1) it has been failing; and 2) we need &# ...

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School Choice Week 2013 : An introduction

January 28, 2013 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

Yesterday marked the first day of School Choice Week 2013.  School choice is the remarkable idea that parents should have the freedom to choose where their children are educated. School choice rejects the idea of government run, one-size-fits-all, “Solidarity Forever” education. “School choice gives parents the freedom to choos ...

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President's weekly update — June 7, 2013

June 07, 2013 | By ROB RIVETT

Obamacare — Platonic Guardians We filed a friend of the court brief in Coons v. Geithner challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare’s “Independent Payment Advisory Board.” That’s the agency created by Obamacare that is charged with controlling Medicare reimbursement rates. But unlike any other agency Congress has e ...

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A kind of bad decision by the California Supreme Court in Today's Fresh Start

July 11, 2013 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

Earlier today the California Supreme Court issued its opinion in an important charter school case, Today’s Fresh Start v. Los Angeles County of Education.  PLF had filed an amicus brief in support of the charter school.  In a unanimous opinion, the court sided with the county board. The case presented a due process challenge to the … ...

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#Back2SchoolChoice — Protecting charter schools in California

August 23, 2013 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

Thanks for joining us this week for Back to School Choice Week.  All week we discussed PLF cases, important ideas in school choice, and explained why supporting choice in education is vitally important for American students.  We discussed a lot of these issues in this school choice podcast as well. In this final installment, I wanted to … ...

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Failing public schools selfishly try to prevent students from transferring to better schools

January 02, 2014 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

In my home-state, the largest and worst school district has 15 vacant school buildings, down from 27 a few years ago.  Maintaining these buildings costs taxpayers in the City of Milwaukee almost three-quarters of a million dollars each year.  The Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) district refused to sell or lease the vacant buildings to high-perform ...

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Rural school choice : a personal perspective

January 29, 2014 | By JONATHAN WILLIAMS

People across the country are celebrating National School Choice Week. The vast majority of school choice discussions focus on the struggles of kids in failing urban school districts. However, school choice also has a role to play in rural areas. Schools in these communities enroll one of four American students. In these communities four out ̷ ...

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President's weekly report — September 12, 2014

September 12, 2014 | By ROB RIVETT

Environment — When is a wetland not federally controlled? We filed this complaint this week in Universal Welding v. United States Army Corps of Engineers.  The Corps is asserting jurisdiction over some of Universal’s low-value wetlands in North Pole, Alaska, just outside of Fairbanks.  The problem is that under the Corps’ own r ...