If an incompetent doctor provides substandard care that leaves you with ongoing physical problems, you can sue for medical malpractice. What if an incompetent teacher—or an entire school—provides substandard education, leaving you or your child functionally illiterate or simply unprepared for the work world? Or what if you paid a lot of money to a for-profit college for training in a particular field, only to find that the instruction didn’t prepare you for work in that field? A lot of students and parents think they should be able to sue for educational malpractice. Unfortunately for them, courts have been throwing these cases out for decades.
What Is Educational Malpractice?
Malpractice literally means “bad practice.” People who’ve tried to sue schools for educational malpractice usually based their lawsuits on the principles of professional negligence that apply in medical or legal malpractice cases. In order to be successful, someone who sues for malpractice (the plaintiff) must prove that:
- the defendant owed the plaintiff a “duty of care” (meaning a legal obligation to provide services that meet reasonable standards)
- the defendant negligently violated (or “breached”) that duty
- the negligence caused the plaintiff harm, and
- as a result, the plaintiff suffered losses (or damages).
In the context of educational malpractice, plaintiffs generally argue that schools breached their duty to provide students with an adequate education in basic academic skills, that school officials misled students into believing that their skills were at the appropriate grade level, or that the schools didn’t properly test children or place them in the right classes or programs.
Some examples of unsuccessful claims by students about their schools’ failures:
- A high school graduate argued that the school didn’t give him adequate teaching and promoted him through graduation even though he couldn’t understand written English well enough to complete a job application. (Donahue v. Capiague Union Free School Dist. 391 N.E.2d 1352 (N.Y. App. 1979).)
- A mother claimed that the school system ignored her concerns about her daughter’s reading skills and inappropriately placed the child in a special education class. (McGovern v. Nassau County Dept. of Social Servs. 876 N.Y.S.2d 141 (N.Y. App. Div. 2009).)
- A college basketball player accused a university of failing to provide an atmosphere for learning by scheduling practices that interfered with his tutoring schedule and requiring him to enroll in easy courses in order to keep his academic eligibility. (Jackson v. Drake University, 778 F.Supp. 1490 (S.D. Iowa 1991).)
- A law student claimed that his constitutional law professor regularly came late to class, ended classes early, or canceled them entirely, without providing make-up classes. (Bittle v. Oklahoma City University, 6 P.3d 509 (Okla. Civ. App. 2000).)
Why Don’t Courts Allow Educational Malpractice Suits?
Courts have identified several reasons for rejecting lawsuits based on educational malpractice:
- As a practical matter, it’s difficult to come up with a uniform standard of care for providing an adequate education, given the wide range of educational theories.
- It may be practically impossible to prove that the teachers or school were responsible for a student’s academic shortfalls, because so many other factors may play an important role in learning, including the student’s home environment, attitude, and motivation.
- On a policy level, courts have expressed a concern that unleashing a flood of educational malpractice lawsuits could place a serious burden on schools, especially financially strapped public schools.
- And finally, judges are reluctant to get involved in telling schools how to do their job—particularly in the college or university setting, where academic freedom is highly valued.
A Rose by any Other Name?
Even when lawsuits against schools don’t use the words “educational malpractice”—focusing instead on specific conduct on the part of instructors or school officials—courts have generally frowned on any attempt to hold schools legally responsible for providing an inadequate education. In a few cases, however, students have been able to pursue lawsuits against educational institutions by making different kinds of arguments—for example, by claiming that a school broke a specific contractual agreement or made false promises.