Smart Charter School Caps

By primarily focusing on quantity, charter school caps do not always address the greater concern of quality. Education Sector Co-director Andrew J. Rotherham offers an innovative solution to managing both the growth and quality of charter schools

Fair Trade: Five Deals to Expand and Improve Charter Schooling

Andrew J. Rotherham offers policymakers five win-win solutions to address the challenges created by charter schools and to help high-quality charters expand

Challenged Index: Why Newsweek's List of America's 100 Best High Schools Doesn't Make the Grade

Some schools on Newsweek's list of America's Top 100 high schools have large achievement gaps, grossly shortchange disadvantaged groups, and have a substantial number of drop-outs

States' Evidence: What It Means to Make 'Adequate Yearly Progress' Under NCLB

States will soon announce the schools or districts that did or did not make "adequate yearly progress," or "AYP" under NCLB. But the question that provides the most insight into a school's performance is not whether a school made AYP, but rather how a school did or did not make AYP

Friends without Benefits: How States Systematically Shortchange Teachers' Retirement and Threaten Their Retirement Security

Americans are often reminded that it's never too soon to start saving for retirement. Many of the nation's public school teachers are doing just that -- buying into their state pension system with plans to retire comfortably. However, this new study estimates that nearly 50 percent of all public school teachers will not qualify for even a minimal pension benefit, and less than 20 percent will stay in the profession long enough to earn a normal retirement benefit.This Joyce-funded report demonstrates the consequences of poorly structured state and city policies that can exacerbate retirement insecurity for our nation's teachers. For example, an individual teacher could forfeit up to 6.5 percent of her annual salary for one year, or, due to compound interest, 22.6 percent of her annual salary after three years according to Bellwether's analysis. To put these penalties in dollar terms, a hypothetical teacher earning $40,000 a year could face a savings penalty of$2,601 for teaching only one year and $9,035 if she left after three years. This money stays with the pension funds and is used to supplement the pensions of the remaining teachers.Tackling the pension system is critical for reducing teacher turnover and retaining the profession's most talented educators. Several policy solutions are offered

Better Benefits: Reforming Teacher Pensions for a Changing Work Force

Explains how defined-benefit pension plans create barriers to attracting, retaining, and distributing effective teachers equitably. Proposes reforms including changing the benefit formula or structure, limiting political pressure, and phasing in changes

A Sum Greater Than the Parts: What States Can Teach Each Other About Charter Schooling

States with a significant charter sector know firsthand that the success or failure of a charter school is not a matter of chance, but subject to variances in state laws and a state's educational, political, and regulatory climate. In this report, Sara Mead and Andrew J. Rotherham draw on the experiences of 12 states, proposing those lessons that are necessary for charter school quality and growth

Morally blameless wrongdoers and the change of position defence

This article argues that, contrary to the position taken by some judges and commentators, morally blameless defendants who have committed torts of strict liability should be able to raise the change of position defence against claimants who sue for a release fee (also known as “Wrotham Park damages”). For the defence to be available, however, release fees need to be understood not as compensatory, as many currently insist, but as gain-based. The defence should not necessarily be available in the context of restitution for wrongs to all defendants who have changed position in good faith, as is the case for unjust enrichment by subtraction. Those who changed position by dissipating wealth for their own benefit should be denied the defence if their breach of the claimant’s rights was careless. Defendants who, in contrast, altered their circumstances in such a way that they derived no net enrichment as a result of their wrong should be allowed to rely on the defence, even if they acted without care

Constructive Trusts and Theft

The Theft Act 1968 (UK) marked a major reform of United Kingdom criminal law resulting in numerous offences being superseded by a broad crime of theft. The Act explicitly provided that theft extended to interferences with equitable property rights. While the extension of the offence to express trusts might be largely unproblematic, the possibility of it applying to trusts arising by operation of law has been more controversial. This article suggests that the issue is likely to arise less often than is commonly supposed. Many rights enforced by way of a constructive trust can only properly be regarded as initially giving rise to a mere equity that will mature into a full proprietary interest only following the exercise of a power of election and/or the intervention of a court. It follows that, prior to such steps being taken, assets affected by such an equity will not be "property belonging to another" for the purposes of the definition of theft under the Act. Nonetheless, the concerns regarding the extension of theft to constructive trusts are well founded. The reasons for providing that equitable proprietary rights arise by operation of law have little to do with sound rationales for characterising conduct as theft

The Metaphysics of Tracing: Substituted Title and Property Rhetoric

Tracing is conceptualized as the following of an object through an exchange transaction and into the product of that exchange. Why is this so and what are the consequences? This article argues that the presentation of tracing in the metaphysical language of transmutation allows the doctrine to be depicted as consistent with axiomatic notions of property that understand it as pre-political and that preclude judicial readjustment of proprietary rights. However, the metaphysical conceptualization of tracing gives the remedy a conceptual structure that has resulted in the doctrine developing dysfunctionally when compared with the normative justifications that motivated its initial development. The reformation of the law of tracing necessitates understanding property as a social construct-the type of shift in perception that took place in the United States in the first half of this century. Signs of this understanding are apparent in the recent proprietary remedies jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada