Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Cardozo School of Law'

Despite rapid expansion of charter schools since the first enabling legislation was passed in 1991 there remains little understanding of the relationship between charter school law components and their relation to the percent charter school enrollment. This study focuses on the twenty charter school law components identified by the National Alliance of Public Carter Schools as being necessary for a strong charter school law and their correlation to charter school enrollment. Results suggest that, of the twenty components, Multiple Authorizers and Equitable Access to Capital Funding are most strongly correlated with an increase in the percentage of charter school enrollment. An additional five components, Equitable Operational Funding, Access to Retirement Systems, Adequate Authorizer Funding, Automatic Exemptions from State and District Rules and Regulations and Multi-school Charter Contracts Allowed, had a moderate correlation to the percentage of charter school enrollment. Additionally, one component, Authorizer and Program Accountability, shows a negative correlation to the percent of charter school enrollment. These findings suggest that if policymakers desire to increase the percentage of charter school enrollment they should carefully consider inclusion of these components in state law.

Within some areas of traditional legal education there has been discussion of and advocacy for greater acceptance and integration of online technology. This study addresses the enormous gap in the legal literature concerning perceptions of online legal education and adds to the robust body of literature concerning perceptions of online education in general, with a focus on a specific type of institution: law school. This qualitative exploratory study involved the collection and analysis of perceptions among 15 recently retired full-time faculty members from traditional brick-and-mortar law schools regarding online legal education. Through a process of examination and coding, this research identified and clarified topics and patterns in the data. Perceived benefits of online learning in law school included its facilitation of a diversity of learning styles, improved accessibility, and a reduction of fear and pressure. Critical perceptions included worries over the loss of physical face-to-face presence, reduction of fear and pressure, and possible incompatibility with clinical legal education. Other concerns involved engagement/discipline in online (and live) education, the approach of some for-profit institutions, technological issues, cheating, and class size (in live and online settings). The findings suggest a relationship between exposure to and appreciation of online learning and an anomalous relationship (with caveats) between faculty gender and appreciation of online learning. Future studies should examine the effectiveness of all forms of delivery of legal education, with emphasis on whether online education is used to replicate traditional law school education or to accommodate different learning styles through distinct pedagogies.

Recent research suggests that many U.S. students graduate from college with under-developed critical thinking skills. College graduates with deficits in critical thinking skills who pursue legal education face difficult barriers to academic and professional success which, if not effectively addressed, may impact the affected students, as well as the legal profession and society as a whole. Legal education is likewise facing intense criticism regarding educational practices and graduates? level of preparation for the competent practice of law. The purpose of this study was to construct a comprehensive theory of the development of critical thinking skills in law students. Through a process of grounded analysis, the researcher developed a conceptual model of the development of critical thinking in law students based on interview data collected from 14 academic support professionals at third- and fourth-tier law schools in the U.S. The model, referred to as the Critical Thinking in Law Students (CTLS) Model, considers student learning needs, student learning challenges, and legal education system challenges, and identifies twelve factors to optimize the development of critical thinking in law students. The CTLS Model may help law school governing authorities, law school administrators, law school faculty, law school academic support professionals, and law students better understand how critical thinking develops in law students so that students may achieve their full academic, intellectual, and professional potential.

School resource officer programs, characterized as a major crime control model and violence prevention program have earned the designation as an effective prevention strategy to mitigate against student misconduct and violations of the law. This study explored school resource officers? perceptions of how arrests decisions influenced order within middle and high schools. The purpose of the study was to determine if a relationship existed between factors, circumstances, and the arrest decisions in middle and high schools. It was assumed the officers? decision to arrest or not arrest were dependent upon factors and circumstances that were interconnected to the functionality of maintaining social order within the school setting. The structural-functionalism theory offered a comprehensive approach to explore the relationship between the social structure of schools, functions of school resource officers and the impact of their arrests decisions in creating balance and stability in the school environment. For this study, the dependent variable was the arrest decisions of school resource officers and the independent variables were factors, circumstances and years of experience. The study hypothesized a correlation between the dependent variable (arrests decisions) and the independent variables, which were collapsed into three facets - factors, circumstances and years of experience. Although, it was presumed years of experience would influence arrests decisions, logistic regression analysis revealed it did not influence the arrest decision as much as the facet factors. The study further revealed females were more likely to arrest than males and more students were arrested at the high school level than at the middle school level. Academic achievement and criminal records were considered at the middle school level with little consideration in high school.

In this quantitative study, the perceptions of safety and preparedness of Missouri’s high school administrators after participating in active shooter training as mandated by Missouri’s Senate Bill No. 75 were analyzed. As school shootings continue, states have passed legislation to prepare schools to provide safety for students and faculty members (Shah, 2013b). There are currently limited data about the perceived effectiveness of Missouri’s Senate Bill No. 75 and its ability to help administrators feel safe and prepared in the event of an active shooter. This study involved examination of what schools can do to prepare for a school shooting before one occurs and what schools can do during a school shooting. It also included information on what schools can expect after a shooting has occurred. Fifty-two Missouri high school administrators were surveyed, then data were aggregated by gender, years of educational experience, years of administrative experience, district size, and district location (urban or rural) as reported by the administrators. The majority, or 86.6%, of Missouri high school administrators felt more safe and prepared after participating in active shooter training. Differences did exist between rural and urban administrators in the perception of safety and preparedness with three of the smallest districts indicating feeling the least amount of safety and preparedness. When parsing data by gender only two of the 26 females did not feel prepared after training, while 10 males indicated they did not feel prepared after training. A slight majority, or 53.8%, of the administrators, were not in favor of arming selective school personnel after proper training.

Legum Magister, or LL.M., degrees have come under increasing criticism in recent years in the United States. Observers have accused law schools of offering these and other graduate law degrees simply to increase revenue, and argue that they provide no value to graduates as they are not respected in the traditional legal services market. Despite these negative appraisals, the number, size, and types of these programs have continued to grow rapidly. While much has been written criticizing this growth, almost nothing has been written on how and why these programs came into existence, even though a number of law schools claim that their programs were founded over a century ago. As graduate law programs continue to blossom and law schools attempt to address the rising tide of criticism aimed at them, law school leaders would be well advised to examine the origin and history of these degrees. Is it possible that law schools have been hoodwinking innocent lawyers into getting a useless degree for decades? Who were these degrees originally intended for and who ultimately chose to matriculate into these programs? What were the curricula for these programs like?

Through historical analysis and archival research, this case study of the development of graduate law programs at the University of Pennsylvania reveals that they were founded in response to a perceived need to make the study of law more scholarly, and to ensure that law school training was not wholly confined to the necessities of legal practice. These programs arose amidst a drive toward professionalization and standardization at the turn of the twentieth century that was visible across a wide sector of American society, and reflected one aspect of the long simmering tension between those who viewed law as a scholarly enterprise much like philosophy or political science, and those who viewed it as a trade, to be mastered like medicine or engineering. This disagreement persists to the present day and an examination of the origins of graduate programs vividly illustrates that the study of law has meant different things to different people from the earliest days of legal education.