Overview
In the struggle to ensure that schools receive their fair share of financial and educational resources, reformers translate policy goals into legal claims in a number of different ways. This enlightening new work uncovers the options reformers have in framing legal challenges and how the choices they make affect politics and policy beyond the courtroom. Focusing on two of the most controversial and far-reaching court decisions in the nation in school finance and education reform, Framing Equal Opportunity follows lawyers and activists in New Jersey and Kentucky as they negotiate the complicated political terrain of educational change in their respective states. Unlike other books on law and reform, this work emphasizes the importance of legal translation-the process through which reformers transform their visions and goals into plausible legal claims. As it reveals, the kinds of arguments lawyers choose to make matter not only to their success in the courtroom, but also to the nature of the political fights they face in the community at large.
Full Product Details
Author: Michael Paris
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Imprint: Stanford University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.00cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.454kg
ISBN: 9780804763547
ISBN 10: 0804763542
Pages: 336
Publication Date: 01 December 2009
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
In this exhaustively researched and admirably written book, Michael Paris demonstrates the intrinsic synergies between the political mobilization of law and American democracy. Through case studies comparing school finance litigation in New Jersey and Ke
In this exhaustively researched and admirably written book, Michael Paris demonstrates the intrinsic synergies between the political mobilization of law and American democracy. Through case studies comparing school finance litigation in New Jersey and Kentucky, Paris shows that school reform litigation produced optimum results when, as was the case in Kentucky, reformers from the outset 'coordinated their lawsuit with broader political strategies...[which together] created a favorable environment for bold judicial intervention and sweeping policy change.' His theoretical account of 'legal translation' makes a singular contribution to the literature on law and social movements. A splendid book. --Stuart A. Scheingold, University of Washington
Author Information
Michael Paris is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York.
