Robinson v. Cahill: The “Thorough and Efficient” Clause

In Robinson V. Cahill, the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously affirmed a trial court invalidation of the state\u27s school finance statute on the basis of the thorough and efficient education clause of the state constitution. This article reviews this case in detail, its genesis, its legal theories, its constitutional guidelines, and its implications for New Jersey and possibly other states

Remedying School Segregation: How New Jersey's Morris School District Chose to Make Diversity Work

Beyond the districtwide numbers, the Morris district has achieved remarkable diversity at the school building level. Since the district has only one middle school and one high school, these are not where the diversity rubber meets the road. Rather, the test is the elementary school populations. There, the Morris district shines. Despite the fact that students live in relatively homogeneous, segregated neighborhoods, the elementary schools they attend defy that pattern. For example, to achieve perfect racial balance between black and white students at the elementary school level, only about 2.6 percent would have to change their school assignments.The Morris district still struggles with two aspects of diversity, however. First,—in common with virtually every diverse school district in the country—it is still attempting to bring meaningful diversity to every program and course within its school buildings, from higher-level Honors and Advanced Placement courses to special education classifications and rosters of disciplinary actions. Second, in common with some but hardly all diverse districts across the country, the Morris district is trying to cope with the explosive growth of Hispanic students, many of them in recent years economically disadvantaged students from Central American countries where they often failed to receive a solid educational foundation in their own language and culture. Understandably, these students tend not to score well on standardized tests, especially in their early years in MSD. This contributes substantially to the Morris district's record of relatively poor achievement levels in three substantially overlapping student categories—Hispanic, English Language Learners (ELL), and economically disadvantaged students—as compared to its relatively strong achievement levels for white and black students.As to both challenges, the Morris district is manifesting a remarkably can-do spirit and a palpable will to succeed.In all these respects, the study of the Morris district reported on here is designed ultimately to extract lessons for other school districts in New Jersey and the rest of the nation. This report begins by exploring briefly the historical, political, and legal context of educational integration in New Jersey, and how that led to the creation of the Morris School District. It then analyzes and discusses the successes—and the challenges—of MSD's integration efforts. Along the way, it contrasts the successes of MSD with two other districts in New Jersey—Plainfield and New Brunswick—that attempted integration by district merger, but failed. It concludes by making recommendations not only for improvements in MSD's approach, but for school districts across New Jersey and the country that are seeking to integrate their schools and classrooms

Review of \u3cem\u3eInequality in the Promised Land: Race, Resources, and Suburban Schooling\u3c/em\u3e. R. L\u27Heureux Lewis-McCoy. Reviewed by Paul L. Tractenberg

R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy, Inequality in the Promised Land: Race, Resources, and Suburban Schooling. (2014). Stanford University Press. $24.95 (hardcover), 232 pages

Taxation - Federal Income Tax - Capital Gain Treatment of Amount Received from Sublessee by Lessee-Sublessor for Surrender of Lease to Lessor

The lessor and the sublessee of a valuable piece of business property sought to remove the intervening interest of petitioner, the lessee-sublessor. Petitioner agreed to release to the lessor all his right and interest in the leasehold and in consideration therefor petitioner received a sum of money from the sublessee. The Tax Court decided in a deficiency proceeding that the entire amount should be taxed as ordinary income on the ground that it was merely a substitute for future rental payments. On appeal, held, reversed. Since the substance of the transaction was the transfer of the leasehold from the lessee to the lessor there was a sale of a capital asset and the sum was taxable as capital gain under the predecessor of section 1231 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. Metropolitan Bldg. Co. v. Commissioner, 282 F.2d 592 (9th Cir. 1960)

Federal Courts-Choice of Law-Refusal to Apply State Limitation to Federally-Created Right

Plaintiffs, two corporations and a joint venture, brought suit in a federal district court in California for damages arising from alleged unfair labor practices by defendant unions. Jurisdiction was based primarily on section 303(b) of the Labor-Management Relations Act which creates a private right of action in persons injured by unlawful secondary boycott activities. Defendants moved to dismiss, contending that the action was barred by the applicable statute of limitations, which, in the absence of any federal limitation specifically pertaining to actions under section 303, was the appropriate California statute. Plaintiffs, on the other hand, maintained that the pervasiveness of Congress\u27 coverage of the labor field indicated an intent to make diverse state statutes inapplicable, arguing that either an analogous federal statute must be used or the federal courts should apply no period of limitations until Congress has acted. Ruling on defendant\u27s motion to dismiss, held, motion denied. A state statute of limitations will not be applied to a federally-created cause of action if the effect is to defeat the legislative purpose. Fischbach & Moore, Inc. v. International Union of Operating Engrs, 198 F. Supp. 911 (S.D. Cal. 1961)

Training Lawyers to Be More Effective Dispute Preventers and Dispute Settlers: Advocating for Non-Adversarial Skills

After briefly recounting some milestones in the history of legal education, and especially efforts to train lawyers in non-Langdellian techniques, I will explore re-orientation of lawyer training, first globally and then more specifically. Most of the ideas in this article are not new. Many of them date back 50 years and more. Articles by Llewellyn and Frank in the 1920\u27s and 1930\u27s could be reprinted with modest changes and seem totally relevant. 3 This in itself bears serious pondering. We do have the advantage of some relatively recent studies which, in the main, tend to support Llewellyn\u27s and Frank\u27s intuitions. In the final portion of this article, I will describe some legal educational ventures I have been developing which represent a further step toward the kind of legal education which I believe must be embraced into the core of American legal education if we are to respond to the needs of lawyers and to the broader society

Using the Guttman Scale to Define and Estimate Measurement Error in Items over Time: The Case of Cognitive Decline and the Meaning of “Points Lost”

We used a Guttman model to represent responses to test items over time as an approximation of what is often referred to as “points lost” in studies of cognitive decline or interventions. To capture this meaning of “point loss”, over four successive assessments, we assumed that once an item is incorrect, it cannot be correct at a later visit. If the loss of a point represents actual decline, then failure of an item to fit the Guttman model over time can be considered measurement error. This representation and definition of measurement error also permits testing the hypotheses that measurement error is constant for items in a test, and that error is independent of “true score”, which are two key consequences of the definition of “measurement error” –and thereby, reliability- under Classical Test Theory. We tested the hypotheses by fitting our model to, and comparing our results from, four consecutive annual evaluations in three groups of elderly persons: a) cognitively normal (NC, N = 149); b) diagnosed with possible or probable AD (N = 78); and c) cognitively normal initially and a later diagnosis of AD (converters, N = 133). Of 16 items that converged, error-free measurement of “cognitive loss” was observed for 10 items in NC, eight in converters, and two in AD. We found that measurement error, as we defined it, was inconsistent over time and across cognitive functioning levels, violating the theory underlying reliability and other psychometric characteristics, and key regression assumptions

What the CERAD Battery Can Tell Us about Executive Function as a Higher-Order Cognitive Faculty

Executive function (EF) is believed to control or influence the integration and application of cognitive functions such as attention and memory and is an important area of research in cognitive aging. Recent studies and reviews have concluded that there is no single test for EF. Results from first-order latent variable modeling have suggested that little, if any, variability in cognitive performance can be directly (and uniquely) attributed to EF; so instead, we modeled EF, as it is conceptualized, as a higher-order function, using elements of the CERAD neuropsychological battery. Responses to subtests from two large, independent cohorts of nondemented elderly persons were modeled with three theoretically plausible structural models using confirmatory factor analysis. Robust fit statistics, generated for the two cohorts separately, were consistent and support the conceptualization of EF as a higher-order cognitive faculty. Although not specifically designed to assess EF, subtests of the CERAD battery provide theoretically and empirically robust evidence about the nature of EF in elderly adults