The idea that individuals have the right to view their own information files may seem inherent to our twenty-first century mindsets where individuals control their own social media profiles and can easily search for and find information about themselves on the Internet. Traditionally, however, schools have denied students and parents access to educational records. This page provides historical information on the impetus for and the particulars of the passing of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act which served to address such issues.

 

 

Impetus for Policy

 

• Schools began keeping educational records for students around the 1950s to help them identify students with high academic performances and specific talents and to keep information on a student’s background to cater to that individual student’s needs (Elliott, Fatemi, & Wasan, 2014).

• Despite compiling these often elaborate records, most schools did not allow parents and students the right to access this information (Sorenson & Chapman, 1985). Not only were students and parents denied access, but schools often disclosed such records to other entities who did not have legitimate education interests in the information (Weeks, 2011). In particular, a study conducted on behalf of the Russell Sage Foundation in the 60s found that almost all of the schools studied readily gave educational records to the police, the FBI, and the CIA while in 90% of the cases they denied parents access to these records (Sorenson & Chapman, 1985). Schools were also known to disclose records to the federal government who then abused the provided information. For example, in the 70s, Congress published a report on disciplinary problems which named specific students and provided information about their disciplinary history despite not having parental consent to do so (O’Donnell, 2003).

• Furthermore, the educational records kept by some schools included non-relevant or not validated information such as statements concerning student’s psychological state which were made by individuals without qualifications (Weeks, 2001).

• Another cited reason of the need for FERPA is that many elementary and secondary schools were administering federally-funded surveys to students without receiving parental consent. Some surveys included questions parents found troubling such as asking students to quantify how much their parents love them or to identify if they have ever thought about running away (O’Donnell, 2003).

 

 

Passing of the Policy

 

• Many of the previous instances served as justification for FERPA.

• An amendment to a federal education bill, FERPA was created by Senator James Lane Buckley who brought the legislation to the floor of the Senate (DOE, 2004).

• In explaining his purpose behind petitioning for the amendment, Buckley said: “My initiation of this legislation rests on my belief that the protection of the individual privacy is essential to the continued existence of a free society. There has been clear evidence of frequent, even systematic violations of the privacy of students and parents by the schools through the unauthorized collection of sensitive personal information and the unauthorized, inappropriate release of personal data to various individuals and organizations” (qtd. in O’Donnell, 2003, p. 618).

• Because he positioned the legislation as an amendment, Buckley bypassed committee proceedings to bring the law to the floor of the Senate which denied interested parties the opportunity to voice any concerns they had (Weeks, 2001).  

• FERPA, also known as the Buckley Amendment, was signed into law on August 21, 1974 by President Gerald Ford (DOE, 2004).