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American Teacher November 2000--Class Notes Illegal trade in the classroom
It's a common classroom routine: Students put down their pencils, trade quizzes with a classmate, mark wrong responses and pass the graded papers forward so the results can be recorded by the teacher. It's also illegal, a U.S. Circuit Court recently ruled. A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last summer unanimously shot down the practice of having one student grade another's paper as a violation of the federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). The decision stemmed from a suit brought by an Owasso, Okla., woman whose daughters had participated in this type of in-class grading exercise. The suit claimed the practice was a violation of privacy rights guaranteed under the 14th Amendment as well as FERPA, which prohibits disclosure of student education records without parental consent. Although the court dismissed the constitutional argument, it found the grading practice did, in fact, violate FERPA. The ruling overturned a district court decision that deemed student-graded papers to be outside the scope of FERPA. These papers, the lower court held, could not be considered the type of "educational records" covered by the federal law because they had not yet been formally recorded by the school or teacher. That was also the interpretation of the U.S. Education Department in a written analysis submitted by the school district in the case. The Circuit Court judges rejected that argument, however, as a too-narrow interpretation of federal law. It ignores "the broader language of FERPA, which encompasses records 'maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a person acting for such agency or institution,'" the judges wrote, adding emphasis. "If Congress intended FERPA to preclude a teacher from revealing to one student the grades of another when written in a grade book, it would be incongruous to permit a teacher to disclose or allow the dissemination of those grades to other students immediately before recording them in a grade book." The district is asking the full Circuit Court to review the decision. The three-judge panel has interpreted the law so broadly as to call into question a wide variety of school activities, from publishing student names in an honor roll to displaying graded papers on a school wall, attorneys for the district recently told Education Week. The Education Department is developing new classroom guidelines in the wake of the decision.
The U.S. Mint reports that teachers are responding enthusiastically to its offer of free lesson plans built around its 50 State Quarters Program. Launched in 1999, the state quarters program has achieved immense popularity, with approximately 50 percent of Americans collecting the commemorative quarters. Each quarter, featuring a design specific to the state it honors, is minted for only 10 weeks, making it ideal for collecting. "Kids across the country are collecting these coins and having fun learning about their country's history and heritage," U.S. Mint director Jay W. Johnson said. The free, easily adaptable lesson plans provide elementary school teachers with new ways to teach core subjects. U.S. Mint staff dedicated a year to the creation and development of the education program. "We are getting the word out to community leaders, school superintendents and principals that every elementary school teacher who would like to receive these free lesson plans has the opportunity to request them from the U.S. Mint," Johnson said. For each lesson plan, the Mint researched education guidelines set by the National Center for History in Schools, the National Council for Geographic Education, the Center for Civic Education and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Teachers interested in obtaining free lesson plans from the U.S. Mint can visit the Mint's Web site at www.usmint.gov or call 1-800-USA-MINT.
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