Written without legal jargon, accessible to all teachers and school administrators, Teachers and the Law, Fourth Edition focuses on legal issues reflecting national trends most important to educators today. The text aims to help school professionals avoid unnecessary litigation by educating them about their legal rights and responsibilities. Teachers and the Law, Fourth Edition features up-to-date, objective coverage of major new courts cases and laws affecting teachers in their daily lives; a new final chapter on key topics for the 1990s (some cross-referenced to other chapters), including school choice and public funds for private education, sexual harassment, dress codes and free speech, AIDS, and protection of gay faculty and students; and a new introductory chapter in the form of an actual case study that teaches students about the workings of the legal system. Emphasizing practical concerns - including tenure, teacher contracts, and student rights - the authors clarify complex material by providing a unique and engaging question-and-answer format that is tied to specific cases and especially relevant topics; a logical organization and good balance of clearly written description and analysis of actual cases that is more user-friendly to students with little or no legal background than a casebook; and an Instructor's Manual with edited Supreme Court cases, discussion questions, and suggested teaching activities.