Most federal statutes relating to education are in 20 U.S.C. Federal regulations relating to education promulgated by the U.S. Department of Education are in 34 C.F.R.
See The United States Government Manual, REFERENCE JK421.A3, or through http://www.archives.gov/federal-register, for the official handbook of the government, which gives flow charts and other information about federal government agencies. For more detailed federal agency information, see the latest edition of the Federal Regulatory Directory, REFERENCE KF5406.A15F4.
The Department of Education website: http://www.ed.gov/, links to the statutes, regulations and guidance documents related to the topics given on the website, linked through the federal agency section of QuickClicks.
Both West Group and LEXIS Publishing annually offer separate print compilations containing the selected text of relevant statutes, regulations and guidance documents.
This publication contains many authorities relevant to education law: U.S. Constitutional provisions, selected federal statutes (most of 20 USC and selected other federal statutes relating to labor, tax, discrimination, etc.), selected regulations (much of 34 CFR and other selected regulations relating to agriculture, labor, discrimination, transportation, etc.) and many guidance documents relating to education law.
Guidelines or guidance documents are internal agency documents which represent the federal Department of Education’s interpretation of the applicable statutory and regulatory requirements, frequently in the context of specific facts. They are sometimes very specific and detailed, providing formulas and illustrations to help school administrators, teachers and parents understand legal requirements relating to education. They are not legally binding and do not impose any requirements beyond those given in the statutes and regulations. However, they do represent the agency’s current thinking on a particular topic and are a valuable secondary source. They are issued by the U.S. Department of Education and published in the Federal Register and are also published in some of the more complete education law treatises. Generally, they are not published in the Code of Federal Regulations. They are published selectively in the West compilation mentioned above and they are available from the Department of Education website.
The publishers of the state statutes frequently offer similar selected education law annual statute volumes on the state level for the most of the state statutory sets which it publishes, which is merely an extraction of selected statutes from the full state statute publication. For example, New Hampshire has New Hampshire Education Laws Annotated (in REFERENCE collection at the end of the N.H. Revised Statutes Annotated), an annual publication providing a handy one volume copy of state education laws.
WESTLAW and LEXIS offer topical databases in education law. These provide extractions from the general databases of federal statutes, regulations, other administrative authorities, cases, and secondary authorities relating to education law. It does not appear that either of these cover the Department of Education’s guidance documents separately, although they should be included in the Federal Register coverage within this topical database. These databases also cover state statutes and case law relating to education.