Joel Reidenberg discusses reforming the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) policy blog. FERPA was passed in 1974 to protect the privacy of student education records and allow parents to inspect and review those records maintained by the schools. If schools violate FERPA, they lose federal funding. To date, the Department of Education has not exercised this option.
Professor Joel Reidenberg of Fordham University School of Law offered the possibility of graduated penalties or fines depending on the severity of a violation. According to him, schools should not face “crippling penalties” for small technical violations, but there must be some mechanism in place to ensure that FERPA is effectively enforced in districts throughout the country.
Read the full AEI policy post here.