A few odds and ends at the end of the week:
California Homeschool Case Returns:The homeschooling case that caused a major stir earlier this year is scheduled for reargument before a California appeals court on Monday, according to Liberty Counsel. The organization has this press release and has filed this friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of several members of Congress.
I haven’t been able to confirm the argument date on the Web site of the California courts, but I don’t have any reason to doubt Liberty Counsel. The court sent shock waves through the home-schooling community when it ruled that parents have no state constitutional right to teach their children at home. After the uproar, the appellate court agreed to reconsider its ruling. (I blogged on the ruling here and here, and Education Week wrote about it here.)
Background Checks for Federal Contractors: A federal appeals court has ruled that background questionnaires used by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration raise privacy interests for federal contractors, and it ordered a lower court to reexamine a request for a preliminary injunction to block the policy. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is here.
I’m not sure whether the U.S. Department of Education uses the same questionnaires as NASA, but I do know that more intensive background checks required since Sept. 11, 2001, have been a source of controversy among educational researchers, as EdWeek reported here and here.
Growing Education Law Blogosphere: At the Edjurist Accord, Justin Bathon reports that there are at least 15 blogs dedicated to education law. He has created a search widget allowing Web users to search all the education law blogs at once. And Justin is redesigning his site, which also touches on educational leadership issues, and is looking for input.