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Using the contemporary example of same-sex marriage, the author uses his first-hand experience as a Member of Parliament to examine the "dialogue" theory of Charter of Rights and Freedoms politics and decision-making role of legislators. The dialogue between courts, legislatures and Canadians is robust and having a significant impact on public policy in Canada. However, many of those in the legislature are either unaware or uninterested in this changing fact of Canadian policy making. This is particularly troubling given the power MPs have when voting in the House of Commons on an issue of equality rights in the House of Commons in a free vote - as was the case in the issue at the centre of this thesis, the issue of same-sex marriage.

Using the contemporary example of same-sex marriage, the author uses his first-hand experience as a Member of Parliament to examine the "dialogue" theory of Charter of Rights and Freedoms politics and decision-making role of legislators. The dialogue between courts, legislatures and Canadians is robust and having a significant impact on public policy in Canada. However, many of those in the legislature are either unaware or uninterested in this changing fact of Canadian policy making. This is particularly troubling given the power MPs have when voting in the House of Commons on an issue of equality rights in the House of Commons in a free vote - as was the case in the issue at the centre of this thesis, the issue of same-sex marriage.

On April 17, 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was proclaimed into force. By including a set of constitutionally entrenched core legal rights (i.e. ss. 8, 9, and 10(b), and a remedial mechanism designed to enforce those rights (i.e. s. 24(2)), the Charter had the potential to alter certain repressive elements of the criminal justice system that had endured in Canada for over a century. Despite this potential, both the core legal rights and s. 24(2) were drafted using vague terminology. As a result, the Charter ‘s ability to succeed where previous attempts at instituting effective due process protections for Canadians had failed would depend largely on the judiciary’s ability to satisfactorily craft such protections out of imprecise statutory language. This thesis will argue that the Supreme Court of Canada has created a test for the exclusion of unconstitutionally obtained evidence under s. 24(2) that fails to adequately protect the core legal rights of the socially, racially and economically marginalized individuals to whom the Canadian criminal justice system is disproportionately applied. In advancing this argument, the relevant jurisprudence and academic literature will be analyzed according to a methodology inspired by the Critical Legal Studies movement. The issue of exclusion will be examined in its social context, primarily by analyzing the current system of Canadian criminal justice and acknowledging its over-application to the socially disenfranchised. It will be argued that the Supreme Court’s test for exclusion has developed as it has because of the judiciary’s subconscious tendency to interpret unclear constitutional provisions in keeping with the dominant conservative ideology, a method that favours maintaining the social status quo. The purpose of this thesis is to set out a framework for a reform of the Charter ‘s exclusionary mechanism. This new approach will attempt to situate social context at the forefront of the s. 24(2) decision-making process. It will be argued that the concept of “disrepute” within s. 24(2) must be redefined so that it captures investigatory practices made possible by unjust social, racial and economic divisions that render certain groups powerless, and thus more vulnerable to police surveillance.

As charter schools continue to proliferate across United States, their impact on the public education system is becoming an increasingly important public policy question. Charter school proponents argue that combined pressures of consumer choice and market competition will induce traditional public schools to respond by providing higher quality education and promoting innovation and equity. Skeptics worry that charter schools pose risks of segregating students by race and economic level, and reducing per-pupil resources available to traditional public schools. This dissertation provides a comprehensive evaluation of the effects of charter schools on regular public schools by addressing the following questions: 1) How do the charter schools affect the racial, ethnic and cosio-economic distribution, student-teacher ratios and achievement of traditional public schools? 2) How do the size and scope of competitive effects vary according to different measures of competition? Using two-period panel data from the National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core Data (CCD) for traditional public schools in Florida, New Jersey, Texas and Ohio, I compare changes in racial and ethnic distribution, student-teacher ratios and achievement in public schools that do and do not face competition. I use a variation of the difference-in-differences (DD) estimation strategy to study the effect of charter schools on the outcome measures. The findings from the study suggest that introduction of charter schools in the educational landscape has affected student distributions, and at least in some cases, student-teacher ratios and the performance of traditional public schools. Charter schools seem to contribute to declines in the share of non-Hispanic white students in traditional public schools in all four states. The results show variation in other outcome areas across states and competition measures. The findings highlight the importance of monitoring what will happen to non-choosers in traditional schools as well as the role of considering state context and empirical measures while generalizing from charter school studies.

This dissertation examines the effects of charter schools in Texas, using data from the Texas Education Agency for 190 charter schools and over 60,000 charter students. In Chapter II we examine charter effect test score gains for charter students. After controlling for individual student characteristics, we find that students in their first year in a charter school have large negative test score gains compared to when they were in traditional public school, and that charter schools that have been in operation for more than one year have higher average test score gains than new charter schools. Charter schools appear to have the most positive effects on African-American students. We find that the overall effect of being in a charter school for multiple years is that students have slightly lower average test score growth than when they were in a traditional public school. In Chapter III we examine the effect of charters on test score gains for students attending nearby traditional public schools. After controlling for campus and student characteristics, we find traditional public school districts and campuses that face greater competition from charter schools have higher average test score gains than other traditional public schools. This positive effect of charter competition is strongest for African-American and Hispanic students, and is focused entirely on students attending traditional public campuses in the bottom 50% of the initial campus average achievement distribution. In Chapter IV we examine the charter effect on the distribution of students by ability and race/ethnicity, as well as examining what factors are associated with a student choosing to move to a charter school. We find that students who move to charter schools tend to move to schools with a higher percentage of students of their same race/ethnicity, and that this gap is largest for African-American students. We also find that average math and reading test scores are lower than the statewide average at the traditional public schools that charter students leave, and that charter schools are attracting, on average, the lower-performing students from these lowperforming schools.

The main purposes of this study are (1) to clarify the function of NEA and AFT and original source of law, concrete action, and case study relating to teachers¡¦ rights. (2) to explore the roles of American teacher organizations in dealing with controversial events related to teachers. (3) to discuss the strategies American teacher organizations adopt in striving for the rights of teachers. (4) to make recommendations to the development of teacher organizations in Taiwan. The scope of this study includes three important controversial events related to teachers: charter school, strike and takeover. Moreover, the subjects of the study are as following: (1)charter school: Minnesota, Michigan, Washington;(2)strike: Philadelphia School District, Detroit School District, Chicago School District;(3)takeover: Cleveland School District, Philadelphia School District, Newark School District. In order to achieve the above purposes, this study had adopted content analysis and Bereday¡¦s comparative studies. Firstly, to describe and interpret the subjects of the study. Secondly, four tentative conclusions were achieved: 1. Because local teacher organizations are affiliated with different teacher organizations (NEA or AFT), they pay attention to different educational issues. 2. When teacher organizations deal with controversial events related to teachers, they adopt systematic strategies and steps. 3. The criteria whether teacher organizations support or oppose the controversial events is based on self-interest and the quality of public education. 4. The trend of the merge of NEA and AFT affects the cooperation of two teacher organizations and their local organizations in dealing with controversial events related to teachers. To support the four hypotheses above, four findings were concluded: 1. The operation of teacher organizations is accordance with systemic strategic. 2. The controversial events which teacher organizations oppose usually violate teachers¡¦ rights and public education. 3. The cooperation among teacher organizations is the trend of changing time. 4. The role of teacher organizations deeply affects the educational reform of nation. Finally, suggestions based on the research findings were proposed to the educational authorities, teacher organizations, and future research.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 354-367).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Lehigh University, 2004. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 189-201).

Drawing on interview data from charter school policy actors in New York State, this study applied Kingdon’s (1984, 1995/2002) multiple streams model to explain how the system of multiple statewide charter authorizers was created as part of the New York State Charter Schools Act of 1998. A combination of factors influenced the emergence of the law and resulted in an authorizing system that included an effective set of policy entrepreneurs, a strong executive, and a key political opportunity. Ultimately Governor Pataki promoted charter school policy to high agenda prominence by deciding to use the issue as his desired policy in exchange for a legislative pay raise (agenda setting). The findings of the study suggest that the applicability of Kingdon’s national-level model to the state level is valid and features a strong participation of the state executive branch. / text