Does reading grades aloud invade privacy?

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.

To 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.

In particular, one of her sons , a special-education student assigned to a "mainstream" class, and was being ridiculed by his classmates for his low marks.

When school administrators at the Owasso Independent School District declined to change the grading practice to accommodate Ms. Falvo's concerns, she filed a federal lawsuit.

Today, the legal dispute is set for argument at the US Supreme Court in a case that could dramatically change the way American teachers conduct classroom exams, grade papers, and interact with students.

The case is being closely watched by educators who are concerned that a Falvo victory could open a new frontier of legal liability and expensive litigation for school districts and individual teachers.

On the other side, a number of conservative groups are hopeful that the case will help bolster parental rights. They say school officials are increasingly making important decisions about a child's well-being without seeking approval or input from parents.

"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."

At the center of the case is a dispute over the scope of a 1973 federal law, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, also known as FERPA.

The law was passed by Congress to help prevent the unauthorized disclosure of educational records. But, despite nearly three decades on the books, it remains unclear which educational records are covered.

Does the law bar the airing by students of their own pop-quiz grades? Or is it limited to maintaining the confidentiality of final grades and transcript-type materials retained in a student's permanent educational file?

"Congress intended the statute to apply only to the permanent, institutional records maintained by a registrar or other central-records custodian," says Jerry Richardson, lawyer for Tulsa's Owasso Independent School District, in his brief to the court.

Others say the law is far less specific.

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