Dov Waisman*
Two major approaches to regulating industrial health risks have emerged over the past fifty or so years. Feasibility analysis—the approach required by parts of the Clean Air Act of 1970 (Clean Air Act), the Clean Water Act of 1972 (Clean Water Act), and the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 19704 (OSH Act)—says to reduce risks to the maximum extent possible without threatening the existence or competitive stability of the regulated industries. By contrast, cost-benefit analysis (CBA)—the approach that has dominated regulatory policy since the Reagan administration—says to reduce risks to the point at which net social benefits would be maximized, that is, to invest in risk reduction up to (but not beyond) the point at which further investment would cost more than it would save in accident costs.
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* Associate Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School. A.B., Harvard College; M.A., Philosophy, U.C. San Diego; J.D., U.C.L.A. I am indebted to Alan Calnan, Michael Dorff, David Driesen, Dave Fagundes, Johann Frick, Barbara Fried, Ezra Goldschlager, Warren Grimes, Danielle Kie Hart, Aaron James, Greg Keating, Hila Keren, David Neumark, Shira Sergant, and Byron Stier for their feedback and support. My thanks also to participants in the 2014 Harvard-Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum and the 2015 Southern California Junior Law Faculty Workshop. I thank Andy Lugo and Sharrel Gerlach for excellent research assistance. Of course, any errors are mine.
Dustin Knight
The right of exclusivity powers the engines of innovation within the United States. Patent law is designed to reward the inventor with a monopoly over his or her creation. The scope of the monopoly a patent holder enjoys, however, has historically been limited in time and space to control its anticompetitive effect. The exhaustion doctrine is a key tool used by courts to police this effect and protect consumers.
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Rachel Willer
In the pilot of her television show Girls, Lena Dunham satirizes unpaid internships by depicting the protagonist, Hannah Horvath, asking her employer to pay her after more than a year of unpaid work.1 Her employer responds with a quip about the competitive nature of her internship at a New York publishing firm and distinguishes her from another employee who the firm hired after a year of interning. While flagrant violations of U.S. labor laws are breezed over as a matter of comedic relief in today‘s media, they represent very real controversies for nearly a million unpaid interns every year.
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Preston C. Green III *
Bruce D. Baker **
Joseph O. Oluwole ***
Julie F. Mead ****
Since 1992, forty-three states and the District of Columbia have passed charter school legislation. Charter schools are commonly defined as public schools that are given considerable latitude from state rules and regulations that apply to traditional public schools while being held accountable for student achievement. There are more than 6700 charter schools nationwide, serving nearly three million students, which accounts for 6% of public school enrollment.
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* John and Carla Professor of Urban Education, Professor of Educational Leadership and Law, University of Connecticut.
** Professor of Education, Rutgers University.
*** Associate Professor of Educational Administration, Montclair State University.
**** Professor of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Analysis, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Jerusha Conner *
Kelly Monahan **
Over the last decade, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB or the Act) has proven to be a boon to the charter school industry. The law enabled districts to turn over the responsibility for running a school to a charter provider if that school has gone five years without consistently raising the test scores of students in any one subgroup or demographic category for which there are more than forty students. The student sub-groups governed by this legislation include, among others, those with special needs, English language learners, low-income students, and students of a particular racial minority. Many districts across the country have availed themselves of the charter conversion option, which the law intended as a sanction that would compel struggling schools to improve. No additional sup-port or resources were provided to these struggling schools under the law.
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* Associate Professor of Education, Villanova University.
** Graduate Student, School Counseling Program, Villanova University.
The authors gratefully acknowledge Jason Hodge and Joseph Szesko for their technical assistance and Neil Horgan for sharing his expertise.
Katherine E. Lehnen *
Charter schools have become a hot topic in education nation-wide. Advocates believe the hybrid public and private structure of charter schools enables them to provide education superior to traditional public schools. Charter schools have more freedom than their traditional public school counterparts because they are not subject to the same laws and restrictions. Charters use that freedom to set high standards for themselves and their students, and then strive to meet those standards using alternative, experimental curricula and teaching methods. However, the schools are not without controversy, and opponents question the educational effectiveness of charters, while entities such as teachers unions and local school boards often staunchly combat their formation. Still others believe charter schools conflict with integration efforts. In addition to ideological challenges, charters face various legal battles regarding issues such as religion and equal protection. Nevertheless, the charter school movement has swept across many states in the nation.
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