20 years ago ... Oct. 27, 1982
• Twenty-three New York state school districts ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower-court decision on school finance that some districts contend exacerbates the disparities between property-rich and property-poor districts.
• The Hawaii Supreme Court upholds the state education department’s authority to license religiously affiliated schools, rejecting the argument that such power infringed on the schools’ religious freedom.
• The Oakland, Calif., school board unanimously rejects a curriculum prepared by the Federal Emergency Management Agency that purportedly outlines how to survive a nuclear attack.
10 years ago ...October 28, 1992
• The Wisconsin attorney general rules that school nicknames that have Native American themes could violate the state’s anti-discrimination laws, and that the state education department has the authority to decide which names are not acceptable.
• A Japanese foreign-exchange student who understands little English is shot to death near Baton Rouge, La., by a neighbor when the student fails to understand a command to “freeze.”
• Despite the filmmaker Spike Lee’s suggestion that students skip school to see the premiere of a new biographical movie about Malcolm X, Attallah Shabazz, the slain leader’s eldest daughter, urges students not to do so.
