Eighteen University of Colorado at Boulder students are now published authors, thanks to a School of Education class where they each wrote and edited chapters of a newly released book.
In summer 2006, Associate Professor Kevin Welner of the School of Education was asked to edit a book series about legal issues in education. He suggested, and the publisher embraced, the idea of turning his graduate-level class, "Education Policy and the Law," into a book-writing experience.
The book, "Current Issues in Education Policy and the Law," was published and released in early February by Information Age Publishing, a commercial academic publisher headquartered in Charlotte, N.C.
"Before the class was to start, I sent an e-mail to all the students enrolled and asked them if they'd be interested in structuring the class in this way, stressing that it would be different and that it would almost surely require substantially more work than a typical class," Welner said. "The responses I received were very positive so we embarked on the project and learned as we went along."
The book delves into 12 current education issues through a legal lens. Topics include the federal No Child Left Behind law, school finance and adequacy, school choice, equal education opportunities, immigrant education and the rights of students and teachers.
Graduate students from the School of Education, political science and continuing education participated in the class, resulting in a diversity that helped create a valuable book, according to Welner.
"The different backgrounds that people brought with them meant that the writers started the process with different levels of expertise about their topics, which strengthened the project," Welner said. "Some of the students embarked on topics that they knew nothing about, while others wrote about things they were already quite knowledgeable about and were developing their expertise further. Each chapter had three authors, so they learned a tremendous amount from each other."
The book's chapters were peer reviewed by other students in the class, and by the end of the fall 2006 semester, the class had produced a polished draft of the book. Welner then arranged for each chapter to be reviewed by external experts, generally professors of education law and policy from universities across the country. Over the winter and spring of 2007, the authors received feedback and then refined their chapters over the summer.
Wendy Chi, a doctoral student in the Educational Foundations, Policy and Practice program in the School of Education, co-edited the book with Welner and garnered invaluable experience. Chi's research focuses mainly on school choice, specifically the politics of the school choice movement as well as its effects on marginalized populations.
"This book really aligns with my interests," said Chi, who also has a law degree from the University of Michigan. "It was a great opportunity to learn the process of working on a book project through editing and peer reviewing the chapters. This experience will help me in any path I choose to take."
For more information about the book visit .