Join us on Monday, April 14, at 12:20, for the second event in Y-Lab’s spring 2025 Working Paper Lunch Series, a discussion with Sarah Berton and Brian Broderick.
12:20-1:20
WCC 3007
*Be sure to RSVP here for lunch (this event has passed).
Reimagining the McKinney-Vento Act: Applying a “Housing First” Approach to Students Experiencing Homelessness
Sarah Berton, Harvard Law School J.D. Candidate
Paper Topic: The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act provides robust and integral protections for students experiencing homelessness and housing instability across the country. However, the Act largely institutes a set of unfunded mandates. This paper argues that the McKinney-Vento Act does not sufficiently support students experiencing homelessness. The Act’s insufficient grant resources and resultant lackluster implementation, and the overall lack of coordination required or effectuated between other school-based supports perpetuates unhelpful barriers to highly mobile students’ success in school. The statute should be amended to address gaps in the law, including amendments that more explicitly institutionalize supports and outline what coordination looks like in situations that are likely to arise. Ultimately, though, short of solving the housing crisis, these shortcomings would be most effectively addressed with more robust funding and programming under McKinney-Vento that (1) prioritizes housing stability and (2) provides holistic, rather than purely logistical, supports for students and families experiencing homelessness. The paper borrows from “Housing First” literature common among housing advocates to argue that McKinney-Vento funding and programming should prioritize efforts that prevent homelessness among youth and their families in the first place.
Biography: Sarah is a 3L in the Y-Lab Fellows Program. Originally from San Antonio, Texas, Sarah is passionate about educational equity and justice for marginalized and overlooked youth across the country. On campus, Sarah has represented public housing tenants and worked with housing advocates across the Boston area as an Advocate and Policy Co-Director with HLS’s Tenant Advocacy Project. She has also spent the last four semesters in various Y-Lab Clinics, contributing to systemic education litigation in California and Kentucky and representing the families of students with disabilities in special education proceedings. After graduation, Sarah will be clerking for a federal judge in Albuquerque, New Mexico, before pursuing a career focused on youth advocacy and civil rights.
School “Choice” For Whom? The History and Tradition Behind Efforts to Establish Religious Charter Schools
Brian Broderick, Harvard Law School J.D. Candidate
Paper Topic: This term, the Supreme Court will decide St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School v. Drummond, which will determine whether states must allow charter schools to be religiously affiliated. This paper examines the history of traditional public common schools in the United States, the pushback against the common school model (namely, school vouchers and charter schools), and the legal doctrines that have developed for each. In so doing, this paper will show St. Isidore’s role in a larger plan by the modern far right to exclude certain students from public education in the name of ostensible “religious freedom,” and why public education advocates should be very concerned if St. Isidore wins its case.
Biography: Brian is a 3L at HLS. He is from Philadelphia, but spent his years before law school as a public educator in Oklahoma teaching 10th-12th grade mathematics. On campus, he is the Co-President of Advocates for Education and the Academics Co-Chair of First Class. His primary academic interests include constitutional law, legal history, and the intersection of law and policy. After graduating, Brian will be clerking on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, after which he will return home to Philadelphia to begin his legal career.