Group Says 'Lawsuit Culture' Hampers Schools Caroline Hendrie
Education Week, November 12, 2003 Convinced that "America's lawsuit culture" is holding public education by the throat, the organizers of a bipartisan legal-reform group launched a campaign last week to reduce the "legal fear" that they say needlessly divert schools' attention from the mission of educating children.
At a Nov. 5 forum held at the Brookings Institution here, the New York City- based organization Common Good assembled panels of social scientists and education leaders to discuss the question "Is Law Undermining Public Education?" It also released a study on the subject by Public Agenda, an opinion-research organization also based in New York City.
Common Good's founder, the New York City corporate lawyer and best-selling author Philip K. Howard, opened the forum with a call for support of his group's "radical mission": to free people from being so worried about ending up in court that they "go through their day looking over their shoulder and stop doing what they think is right."
Educators, Mr. Howard said, have been particularly hamstrung by that fear. "It diverts teachers from doing what they do best, which is to be themselves and focus on the children," he said.
Among the speakers at the event were Eugene W. Hickok, the acting deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, San Diego schools Superintendent Alan D. Bersin, and William Ouchi, a veteran school reform advocate who is a professor of management at the University of California, Los Angeles.
They and others suggested that Mr. Howard's group had put its finger on a compelling problem, but that finding solutions for it wouldn't be easy. Also emphasized throughout the proceedings was the valuable role that litigation has played in securing educational opportunities for students from racial and ethnic minorities and children with disabilities.
"Litigation in the realm of public education really does have an exceptionally honorable history," said Deborah Wadsworth, the recently retired president of nonpartisan Public Agenda. "It is also true that excessive litigation has teachers and principals literally walking on eggshells."
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