47 | FERPA and Peer Grading

What does the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, say about the practice of peer grading? When does something become an “educational record” protected under FERPA? Do you think the people who wrote FERPA knew we were going to call it 'FERPA'? Couldn’t they have come up with a better acronym? This is our first FERPA episode! This is the law that’s designed to protect the privacy of student records. So, what information is protected under FERPA, and what isn’t? Today’s case involves a parent who took issue with a teacher’s use of peer-grading, saying that it violated her children’s privacy and subjected them to unnecessary embarrassment. This is the Supreme Court case of Owasso Independent School District v. Falvo. We also discuss a recent decision out of the 5th Circuit that makes it more difficult to challenge the removal of books from a local library, at least in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

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Keywords: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Education Records, Peer Grading, Libraries, Book Bans

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