{"id":1678,"date":"2001-11-27T10:12:56","date_gmt":"2001-11-27T15:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=1678"},"modified":"2001-11-27T10:12:56","modified_gmt":"2001-11-27T15:12:56","slug":"speaking_of_bru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/11\/27\/speaking_of_bru.html","title":{"rendered":"Speaking of bruised egos"},"content":{"rendered":"

Does the reading aloud of a student’s grade in class constitute an invasion of privacy<\/a> under Federal law? The Supreme Court will get to rule on the matter.<\/p>\n

It happens thousands of times each day in classrooms across the United States. Students grade the papers of their fellow pupils and then announce aloud the results to the teacher.
\nTo many instructors, this is a timesaving way of giving a pop quiz or checking homework. But to Kristja Falvo, a mother of three in Tulsa, Okla., such oral recitation of her kids’ grades in front of other students was an embarrassing and degrading violation of her children’s privacy.
\n[…] “There is a mentality in the schools over the last 10 years in which educators act more like a parent and make parental-type decisions with no consultation with parents,” says John Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute in Charlottesville, Va., which is underwriting Falvo’s case. “What this case can do,” he says, “is send a message that maybe the schools should be a little more responsive to parents.”<\/p>\n

No, what it says is that if parents object to anything teachers do, they can probably find a Federal statute to sue them under. Yeah, that should improve the educational system pretty quickly.<\/p>\n

As a former teacher, I can certainly understand being sensitive to avoiding embarrassing students. On the other hand, this whole thing strikes me as another example of trying so hard to protect people from unpleasantness that we end up with nothing getting done at all.<\/p>\n

In a friend-of-the-court brief, the National School Boards Association and the American Council on Education say peer-grading is a common practice in US classrooms. “The court of appeals’ novel interpretation would profoundly affect how teachers across the country educate students,” the brief says. “It would bar not only peer-grading but also many other commonly utilized, benign, and effective instructional methods that involve student review of others’ work, teacher evaluation of work in a group setting, and the like.”
\nThe brief adds, “The effect of such a doctrine would be to proliferate lawsuits against school districts.”<\/p>\n

At issue is a 1973 Federal law regarding confidentiality of student records. The intent is clearly to avoid grades and other transcript information being handed out to inappropriate people. To extend this into this arena … well, heck, does this mean that giving uneven verbal praise (or criticism) of students within a class is also a violation? What about posting (graded) papers up on the bulletin board, either all papers or the “best”?<\/p>\n

“The Owasso grading practice is harmful to children,” says Dennis Owens, a Kansas City lawyer, in a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs. “Educational practices that degrade and humiliate students undermine the efforts of counselors to build positive attitudes toward learning.”<\/p>\n

When education becomes more concerned with making kids feel good, and less with … well, with education, then we’re in trouble. Not that making kids feel good (or not, inappropriately, making them feel bad) isn’t important, but it’s not the goal, but a tool toward that goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Does the reading aloud of a student’s grade in class constitute an invasion of privacy under Federal law? The Supreme Court will get to rule on the matter. It happens…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":131589,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/21\/just-in-case-you-thought-stupid-zero-tolerance-school-rules-were-passe.html","url_meta":{"origin":1678,"position":0},"title":"Just in case you thought stupid Zero Tolerance school rules were passe","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 21-Sep-16 4:37am","format":false,"excerpt":"Kid finds knife in a used backpack his mom bought him at Goodwill.Kid turns in knife to his teacher.Kid gets suspended for a year (later reduced to 30 days) for having a knife at school.School district's official statement: \"Coldwater Community Schools does not disclose information regarding the discipline of individual\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1188,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/02\/tests.html","url_meta":{"origin":1678,"position":1},"title":"Tests","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 2-Oct-01 3:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Think our testing's rough? 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Arkansas legislator proposes cutting lunch funding from schools that struggle to improve reading skills One Arkansas lawmaker wants to get more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27350,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/04\/10\/adventures-in-eduspeak.html","url_meta":{"origin":1678,"position":4},"title":"Adventures in Eduspeak!","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 10-Apr-12 6:34pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, I went to a prestigious liberal arts school, had a mother who was a school teacher, and who taught school himself. I know how to sling words, I understand bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo, and know a bit about the Ed Biz. 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