Successful educational negligence case

This post is based on an article on educational negligence which I wrote last yr during my Dip-Ed studies, and on my own former professional interest in legal issues.

http://www.ipsea.org.uk/phelps.htm

http://education.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4564801-110908,00.html

http://www.rbs2.com/edumail.com

Educational negligence is defined as the liability of an educational authorityu or teacher for failing to provide an adequate education to a school student. Up to the present, there's never been a successful claim mounted in the US, whose courts have consistently refused to recognise a cause of action in tort for educational negligence/malpractice by the schools, on key policy grounds such as the extremely subjective nature of what constitutes an 'adequate' education, the consequently extremely difficult nature of proving that a student's failure to learn or develop life skills was definitively due to educational negligence, and the public policy fear of floodgates litigation with large nos. of disgruntled ex-students seeking to sue their former schools on the grounds of not receiving a proper schooling. However, as stated in the 2nd-mentioned article above, there has been a recent (2002) British case where a career criminal was able to arrange a 100,000 pound settlement against his former school for failing to act on a professional diagnosis that he be given specialised teaching during his time in school.

WI during the 1970s or 80s there'd been a successful claim for educational negligence recognised in the US legal system by the Supreme Court ? How greatly would the provision of education have been affected by the expansion of litigation into the educational field ? Would the recognition of educational negligence by the legal system have simply been another instance of the increased litigiousness of contemporary Western society ? Is anybody aware of any prominent US cases on educational negligence which might've had such an earth-shattering effect had they been decided differently ?

The problem, as I see it, is determining who is negligent. Some “teachers” shouldn’t be allowed within 100 yards of a potential student.

On the other hand, I’ve had undergraduate students complain about my “hard” tests. When I went over the test questions, they had to admit that I had covered the material to answer every question in class, the material to answer every question was covered in the textbook, and I had emphasized the material to answer all but one question. The syllabus stated that questions could come from lecture, homework, or the textbook.

Good question

I suspect that the only way to prove such a case - and this is doutpful - would be to have the child not live up to his/her potenial, as measured by intelligence tests. For example, a child with no brain problems who can't read at 10. A child who can't apply basic logic. A child who can't write is a bit tougher, but still.

I guess a sucessful case would mean better schools or worse tests.

Chris

Every single school would adopt some form of rigourous standardized testing. No student would graduate who had not passed these tests UNLESS that student and their parents had signed documents attesting that basically they were not expecting their child to be conventionally educated.

That is pretty basically what is being done now in the US. (at least in my state and in most others that have federal oversight.) This is being done in the wake of cases bought by learning disabled students who have successfully sued because they were entitled to 'accomodation' in their education and they did not get it.

Basically, the test is used as defense against the charge of not educating. Admittedly, no test is perfect, but the defense is that its the best instrument around.

Yes, I was quite astonished when I learnt that there was no national standard and examination system and that 'graduating from high school' was more or less on the whim of the individual institution.

I could imagine that such a case would be the spark for a series of national education reforms, including an external examination system under federal auspices

Grey Wolf

NapoleonXIV said:

Every single school would adopt some form of rigourous standardized testing. No student would graduate who had not passed these tests UNLESS that student and their parents had signed documents attesting that basically they were not expecting their child to be conventionally educated.

That is pretty basically what is being done now in the US. (at least in my state and in most others that have federal oversight.) This is being done in the wake of cases bought by learning disabled students who have successfully sued because they were entitled to 'accomodation' in their education and they did not get it.

Basically, the test is used as defense against the charge of not educating. Admittedly, no test is perfect, but the defense is that its the best instrument around.

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Couldn't the schools claim that they're too underfunded to provide special education for students who need them?

I'm glad to hear that American education is becoming more standardized. When I was in school, there were lots of tests, lots of classes, and yet illiterates graduated anyway. I'm surprised it has taken this long to get standardization, but then I shouldn't be. Politicians seem to be promoting all sorts of hair-brained schemes for improving education, like spending more on X. It works for their popularity but not on anything else.

As far as I'm concerned, you don't need "accomodation" for learning disabled students. Instead, put them in their own classes with others like themselves. Likewise, put the bright students in their own classes. Otherwise, the least-intelligent student in any class will drag the whole class down.

Standardized tests are notoriously inaccurate. When I was 12 or 13, I told that the results of a certain test (the name of which escapes me) proved that I had no aptitude for language. Today I teach a language (Arabic), conduct linguistic fieldwork in another group of languages (Aramaic), and have a couple of degrees in linguistic matters from decent universities.

Several years before that exam, I had been classified as learning-disabled (no wisecracks, please). Fortunately the examiners were friends of the family, who insisted that I be kept in the normal track and not moved into any SPED classes.

One might be forgiven that I'm in favor of a proposal like Adamanteus', but in fact, I'm quite pro-SPED. Personally I feel that a homogenized curriculum fails to address the special cases of individuals with learning, emotional, adaptive, and developmental disabilities, or individuals like myself who are simply a little "slow" (at least that's what we called it back then; today you'd probably say that I'm ADT). My mother had a sign over her desk which read (roughly) "If they can't learn the way we teach, then we had better teach the way they can learn."

I am a little confused by some of the terms and acronyms people are using - whats SPED ? And are people saying that physically disabled students should not be in mainstream education because...um, I can't think of a reason ? Whilst Hawking may not have been at all disabled as a student, one would have thought his example proved that being physically disabled does not affect the mind.

Grey Wolf

Of course, let's not forget the possibility that it's the student who's negligent.

Grey Wolf said:

I am a little confused by some of the terms and acronyms people are using - whats SPED ? And are people saying that physically disabled students should not be in mainstream education because...um, I can't think of a reason ? Whilst Hawking may not have been at all disabled as a student, one would have thought his example proved that being physically disabled does not affect the mind.

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SPED is short for Special Education. While not all physically disabled students need be taken out of the main educational track for their age, they often do have special considerations that might hinder their ability to learn in the main track - think, for example, of students who are deaf or blind, or unable to write without much difficulty. Certainly Hawking managed to overcome the constraints of his disability, but he does have certain needs even now that must be met.

Grey Wolf said:

I am a little confused by some of the terms and acronyms people are using - whats SPED ? And are people saying that physically disabled students should not be in mainstream education because...um, I can't think of a reason ? Whilst Hawking may not have been at all disabled as a student, one would have thought his example proved that being physically disabled does not affect the mind.

Grey Wolf

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SPED actually has two meanings. It was once a commonly used acronym for Special Education. Some people still use it today, though not as often. Over the years though, it's also become part of slang and taken on a derogatory meaning.

Nowadays most students with disablities are integrated into classes. However, IEPS (Individualized Education Plans) are used to determine just what sort of work is expected of them, what classes they'll take, what their needs are, etc.

Hawking

Grey Wolf said:

I am a little confused by some of the terms and acronyms people are using - whats SPED ? And are people saying that physically disabled students should not be in mainstream education because...um, I can't think of a reason ? Whilst Hawking may not have been at all disabled as a student, one would have thought his example proved that being physically disabled does not affect the mind.

Grey Wolf

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Hawking did very well in school, and in college, and in post graduate work. He did not become disabled until he was an adult. He has a progressive genetic disease that affects his body, but not his mind.

I'm not in the education field. What's the deal with this "No Child Left Behind" program? Isn't that some kind of national testing? It's been in the news a lot lately, but I don't know anything about it...