In this month’s episode of the NEPC Talks Education podcast, NEPC Researcher Christopher Saldaña interviews Drs. Bruce Baker and Preston Green, leading experts in K-12 school finance and school choice policy. Baker is a professor in the Department of Educational Theory, Policy, and Administration at Rutgers University. Green is the John and Maria Neag Professor of Urban Education at the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut.

“The Tinker case marked the first time that the Supreme Court addressed whether the First Amendment applied to speech by students within public schools,” says Preston Green, a professor from the Neag School of Education at UConn. “The Court ruled that a school district violated the First Amendment by suspending students for wearing black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. In reaching this decision, the Court ruled that public schools could not censor student speech unless it ‘materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasions of the rights of others.’ “