This course will analyze several topics in the law governing public and non-public K-12 schools in the United States. The specific topics will include (1) parents’ constitutional right under Pierce v. Society of Sisters and Meyer v. Nebraska to control their children’s education and how such doctrines might affect state laws requiring education of children and certification of non-public teachers/home educators; (2) First Amendment and Equal Access Act controversies over education in the public schools, including parents’ rights to use school facilities for religious purposes or receive public money for private religious education; (3) the various laws governing the internal governance of schools, including state laws governing union organization collective bargaining by public school teachers; civil service and constitutional law protecting teacher tenure; site-based school management; and charter schools; (4) legal controversies over busing to promote racial or social class integration; and (5) school finance, including controversies over state finance of education, fiscal equalization between rich and poor school districts, and voucher programs. But, just as important as these legal topics will be discussion of policy controversies and history of public and non-public education. The central themes will be (1) the competition between and among non-public and public schools in the United States and how the law ought to regulate such competition and (2) the relation between such competition and the availability of equal and adequate education for all children. To shed light on these issues, we will read histories of the religious and political underpinnings of the struggle between non-public and public schools, including work by Diane Ravitch (The Great School Wars) and Charles Leslie Glenn (The Myth of the Common School). The course will also include readings from Gary Orfield on busing; John Chubb & Terry Moe and their critics on vouchers; Coons, Clune & Sugarman on district fiscal power equalization; and a variety of other readings. In short, the course will be an introduction to policy literature and disputes just as much as a course on specific laws.