Almost 7 million children aged 3 to 21 received special education services under Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in school year 2016-17. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to review parents' use of the Individuals with IDEA dispute resolution options. This report examines (1) how often IDEA…

This report is designed to assist school administrators and school boards to prepare for negotiating issues relating to class size. It includes a brief summary of the research on class size, adapted from ERS's report Class Size: A Summary of Research. Viewpoints of both school management leaders and teacher organization leaders on negotiating the…

In this article, the author points out the decision of U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III, issued Dec. 20, regarding the constitutionality of Dover, Pa., district's policy that promotes "intelligent design" in public school sciences. In the ruling, Judge Jones not only found the district's policy promoting intelligent design…

Describes six representative grievances that have arisen in Pennsylvania state colleges since enactment of public employee collective bargaining legislation, focusing on case backgrounds, applicable contract provisions, contentions of opponents, and arbitrators' decisions. The grievances discussed involve termination of employment, tenure,…

Intended primarily for educators, legislators, and the general public in the state of Pennsylvania, this public affairs brochure addresses the question of whether binding arbitration should be legislated in that state as a means of resolving labor disputes between a local school district and its employees. The brochure reviews the history of…

The first known analysis of a substantial number of arbitration awards in higher education is presented in an effort to determine whether arbitrators have confined their awards within the contract limitations. All of the arbitration awards generated by the four-year colleges of the State University of New York as well as the awards of the…

This document analyzes the events and circumstances surrounding the collective negotiations between faculty and administration at the Community College of Beaver County (Pennsylvania) during the summer of 1976; the impasse that resulted concerning the issue of retrenchment; the Board's refusal to accept a faculty offer to continue negotiations…

This volume is intended to help public administrators and attorneys deal with the legal problems in Pennsylvania public sector labor relations. In it, the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board is discussed and public sector labor relations court decisions are cited. The volume is intended to be a reference book and to reveal inconsistencies in…

Few laws enacted by the Pennsylvania General Assembly have been more profoundly felt than Act 195 of 1970, which granted teachers and other public employees the right to bargain and to strike. In July 1992, after years of disruptive teacher strikes, a school strike reform bill was passed in the form of Act 88. This resource book presents a…

The suspension of Pennsylvania's educational employees due to declining enrollment is examined in this paper. The controversy over whether teacher suspension should be based on seniority or on evaluation criteria has resulted in intervention by the judicial system to establish legal precedents for reduction-in-force policy. Methodology is based on…

In 1991 Pennsylvania began implementation of a direct writing assessment at the sixth-grade and ninth-grade levels. A total of 18,758 sixth graders and 16,575 ninth graders wrote a response to 1 of 9 prompts reflecting 3 modes of writing. A six-point holistic scale was used to score the papers, with two readers scoring each paper. A third reader,…

The collective bargaining agreement between the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF; 4,200 members) covering the period July 1, 1981 to June 30, 1984 is presented. Also included for this American Association of University Professors affiliated union is the reopener and…