Catching up with some developments of the week:
School Vouchers: The Arizona Supreme Court struck down two voucher programs as violating the state constitution’s prohibition against appropriating money for private or religious schools.
The court’s March 25 decision in Cain v. Horne, which concerns voucher programs for students with disabilities and for children in foster care, is here.The Arizona Republic reports here.
The decision is the latest evidence that despite voucher proponents’ 2002 victory in the U.S. Supreme Court in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the opponents of vouchers have many state constitutional arguments to pursue.
End to Single-Sex Classes: The Mobile County, Ala., school system has agreed to stop offering single-sex classes in some of its schools, the Mobile Press-Register reports here.
The American Civil Liberties Union issued this press release about the case. The settlement agreement can be downloaded at this site.
In These Times: The New York Times had a couple of interesting school law articles this week. On Tuesday, Times Supreme Court correspendent Adam Liptak got the jump on a preview of next month’s arguments in Safford Unified School District v. Redding, the case examining the strip-search of a middle school student by school officials looking for prescription drugs. Adam’s site visit to the Arizona community where student Savanna Redding lives is here.
And on Thursday, the Times reported on students in Pennsylvania who sued the local prosecutor over a “sexting” case. The story raises questions about the role of school officials in the case.