CollegeKidsHaveTooMuchPrivacy

MicheleWillins,

LosAngelesTimes,September8,2015

A few years ago, an acquaintance received a stunning phone call from her daughter's former college roommate. The conversation went something like this:

"I thought you should know your daughter never graduated from college." "What? She claimed she was just skipping theceremony."

"Well, the truth is she didn't attend classes the last two years."

The parents were shellshocked, concerned and ultimately furious at the school. "Why didn't they tellus?"

The answer is FERPA.

Passed in 1974, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act is an unwieldy piece of legislation affecting all institutions that receive funding from the Department of Education.

Although it has been amended over the years, the law's bottom line remains: "Once a student reaches 18 years of age or attends a postsecondary institution, he or she becomes an 'eligible student' and all rights under FERPA transfer from the parent to the student."

This essentially means that you have no right, as a parent, to know what or how your children are doing in school. They can binge-watch "True Detective" rather than attend classes, never disclose their grades, maybe become seriously anxious or depressed, and you have to take their word for it when they say "everything's fine."

For sons and daughters who move through college in four efficient years, the law has little consequence. Unfortunately, even kids who never played hooky, told a lie or got less than a B in high school can become socially and academically lost in a distraction-filled, unfamiliar setting.

A recent report by the nonprofit Complete College America found that "only 50 of more than 580 public universities graduated a majority in four years." And according to the National Student Clearinghouse, roughly 45% of students who enter college each year — 2 million individuals — will not graduate at all.

The Department of Education's original intentions were admirable: to protect students' privacy, ensuring that no outside parties could gain access to their educational information. Even though privacy is still a precious, albeit threatened, asset, the question is why should parents, who are perhaps financially supporting their children's continuing studies, be tossed into the same category as perfect strangers?

"With FERPA's birth, things got very liberal and pro-student," says Robert Gatti, dean of student affairs at Otterbein University in Ohio. "And now you might say there are a lot of folks who would like to see the pendulum swing back the other way."

Indeed. After all, school officials cannot even conduct a meeting with parents about their child's mental health or academic performance unless the student signs a form.

"The breadth of FERPA is so large that it covers everything from preventing faculty from leaving students' papers in boxes outside their offices to influencing how we respond to media inquiries," says Gordon Stables, assistant dean of student affairs at the Annenberg School at USC.

Though it's possible for parents to obtain a waiver, it's a laborious process. Either the student must give specific written permission, or the parents must submit a slew ofdocumentation, including recent tax forms, to prove that they still claim the student as a dependent. Amendments to FERPA over the last few years have also allowed schools to alert parents if a student is violating campus policies, but that's limited to drug or alcohol use and, more recently, sexual offenses. It is, therefore, up to concerned friends and roommates (who probably don't want to fink and may not even know there is a problem) to reach out to parents.

Dan Caldwell, a political science professor at Pepperdine, says if he notices a student has missed a few classes, he will contact the student. "But I can't let the parents know, nor can I let them know their son or daughter may be getting a 'D.' It seems funny because if they are 17, I can."

Few would argue that parents should expect to have the same level of involvement or control when their kids move from high school to college. (This is not about helicoptering — demanding to know why your kid didn't start on the tennis team.) But many people who deal professionally with twentysomethings agree that FERPA treats college students as responsible adults too soon.

"It's one thing for confidences within a therapist's office between your child and a shrink not to be revealed," says Herb Pardes, former dean of the faculty of medicine at Columbia. "It's another not to alert parents when a school may know about the potential downfall of a child. It's not even so much about the money; it's about these are the people who most care about that young person, and they have the right to know if he or she is suffering."

FERPA affects rich and poor alike. "The university considers students as adults, regardless of age or financial dependence," reads the law. Granted, there's a special kind of pain associated with discovering that your kid took a gap year while still enrolled — if it so happens you're coughing up $60,000 a year. But taxpayers foot the bill when students of any socioeconomic stripe flunk out of, or extend, their college experiences.

Some in Congress, notably Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) are agitating to revise the law. But perhaps it is time to throw it out altogether. Without FERPA, universities could send students' records directly to their guardians, and allow administrators to immediately alert or respond to families if a student is in crisis. Where's the harm in that? Of course, if a student has good reason to keep her family in the dark, she should have the right to apply for an exemption or waiver (inverting the status quo).

Transferring all power to the students is not fair to them; they never asked for that responsibility. At a time when young people seem perfectly happy to share every moment of their lives online, they'd probably not blink an eye if they were forced to continue to share their educational records. Rescinding this law may improve the shameful college completion statistics. Most important, it will keep families connected and allow our children to remain young just a little bit longer.

Skill of the Week: Evaluating the evidence used to support the author’s claim

Corresponding Standard: 9-10.RN.4.1: Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning.

Notes:

  • Use this text to specifically model and allowstudent practice with evaluating the evidence to support claims.
  • Example questions:
  • What argument is presented?
  • What claims support the argument?
  • What evidence is presented?
  • Is the reasoning presented logically?
  • Is the evidence relevant to the argument? Explain.
  • Is enough evidence presented to support the argument?
  • Additional literacy skills may be incorporated (e.g. citing text evidence), but the primary focus while using this text should be the Skill of the Week.
  • This text can also provide an opportunity for students to practice the Constructed Response strategy you have selected. The Constructed Response prompt should be reflective of the Skill of the Week.
  • Example Constructed Response question:
  • The author claims that ______because ______. Evaluate how relevant and sufficient the author’s evidence is for making the claim that ______. Support your answer with details from the text.

The following document is written by Davis Oldham, an instructor at Shoreline Community College. It can be found at

Evaluating Evidence

Once you have identified the claim, the evidence, and their relationship, you’re on much stronger ground for evaluating the evidence.

When we evaluate evidence we go beyond simply describing what it is and how it relates to the claim. We also say whether it is good or bad. Obviously this is an essential step in evaluating the overall quality of an argument. If the evidence fails for any reason, the argument fails and the claim is not proven.

There are a lot of things we could look at in deciding if a piece of evidence is good or bad. The obvious one, and the most basic one, is truth or accuracy. Is it really true? If it’s not, of course it can’t support any claim.

A lot of academic debate is focused on proving that a piece of evidence is or is not true. For example, in the debate over global warming one key piece of evidence was the shrinking of glaciers around the world. Only when scientists had made enough observations of the glaciers over a long period of time were they able to present evidence that they were confident was true or accurate.

There are practical problems with evaluating the truth or accuracy of a piece of evidence, however. Often we don’t have the time, the resources, or the expertise to determine if a so-called “fact” is really accurate. This is even more of a problem in a three-week assignment where you’re reading about a topic you may know nothing about.

In the real world we are often forced to evaluate evidence whose accuracy we can only guess at. Fortunately, there are other criteria we can use, even when we don’t know about the accuracy.

As a practical matter, in this assignment we will not be concerned with the accuracy of the evidence. Instead, we will give the author the benefit of the doubt, and assume all of their facts are correct.

Even if the evidence is completely accurate, it may still be faulty. We will look at three other questions you can ask about the evidence to help evaluate its overall quality.

  1. Is the evidence sufficient? Is there enough of it, or do you need more to feel convinced?
  2. Is the evidence relevant? Is it really about the claim the author wants to prove, or did they go off on a tangent, providing facts that don’t have anything to do with the claim?
  3. Is the evidence representative? This is the hardest one to understand, but also the most important. Representative evidence is evidence that accurately portrays the object of study, not distorted and not just a select piece. Another word for representative is typical.

Sufficient Evidence

Every fact an author provides might be accurate, and yet they might leave out crucial information needed to prove the claim: They might have insufficient evidence. One key step in evaluating evidence, therefore, is to decide if it is sufficient.

How do you know there’s enough? What makes evidence sufficient to prove a claim?

There is no simple answer to this question. To a large extent it’s a matter of individual judgement, based on what you know about a topic, the assumptions you make, your ability to draw conclusions from the facts available.

Let’s say I want to prove it’s going to rain soon. This is my claim. For evidence, I point out that it’s cloudy. This might be true, but is it enough? Probably not, since it’s often cloudy without actually raining. Suppose I add that the barometer is dropping, the temperature is dropping, wind is picking up and the air smells “damp.” Is that enough to prove it’s going to rain? For many people, that would be enough to convince them that rain is coming, or at least likely.

Generally speaking, of course, more evidence is better, and more types of evidence are better. In the first example above, there was just one piece of evidence (clouds) and one type (physical detail). In the second, there were four additional pieces of evidence (barometer, temperature, wind and smell), and two types (barometer and temperature are numerical evidence, while wind and smell are physical detail, although from different senses—touch and smell).

You can also consider the total evidence that could be included, if one were able, and ask whether the author has provided a significant portion of that. For example, say I wanted to prove that Community and Technical Colleges in Washington are suffering from budget cuts, and I give examples from 15 of the 34 colleges in the state. I’ve cited nearly half the entire group under discussion. For many, this would be enough to show that the colleges in general are suffering.

It’s usually easier to spot claims that you think do not have enough evidence than to explain why you think something does. But even when discussing insufficient evidence, try to think about what it needs: what would be “enough,” and why?

Each case is different and will require its own evaluation. Don’t expect to have the “right” answer, because the definition of “enough” is too subjective. Instead, think about whether the evidence feels like enough to you, and why. Think about how many separate facts or examples have been given, the different types of evidence, and the total amount of evidence that could be given if there was room. Aim for a convincing explanation of your reasons, not the “right” answer.

Relevant Evidence

Evidence is relevant when it has a definite relationship to the claim.

Notice that I said definite. The relationship does not have to be direct or clear, but it has to be there. Of course, a direct and clear relationship is preferable, but it’s not required.

Here, too, evidence may be 100% accurate and yet worthless, because it does not relate to the claim.

Irrelevant evidence is one of the most common problems in arguments, and is used at times by unscrupulous writers and speakers in a deliberate attempt to confuse or mislead. However it’s more commonly used by people who are confused themselves and think they see a relationship where there is none.

In testing whether evidence is relevant, don’t jump to conclusions. Just because it looks irrelevant at first glance does not mean it has no connection to the claim. Sometimes the connection is there but not direct or obvious. A good technique is to start by assuming the evidence is relevant and then try to figure out how. This trains your mind to spot connections that may be hidden. If after giving the author the benefit of the doubt in this way you still cannot see a connection, you can be more confident that the evidence really is irrelevant.

Relevance is not a binary (yes-no, either-or). Rather, it is a matter of degree. Suppose I’m shopping for a used car. I’ve found one I’m interested in and I want to know if it’s a good car. The person selling it points out that it has a really nice paint job. Is this relevant? Somewhat—after all, most people would prefer a car that looks good. But it’s not as relevant as how well the engine runs, the condition of the transmission, or the bent frame that the paint job is trying to disguise.

Relevance is probably the easiest of our three criteria to evaluate. The simplest way to do it is, if you think the evidence is relevant, to explain how it relates to the claim. If you think it is not, explain why it does not connect, or give an example that would be more relevant.

Representative Evidence

Representative comes from the word represent. Evidence represents, or gives us a picture of, the topic, and representative evidence gives us a complete and undistorted picture.

Another word for representative is typical. Representative examples are those that are typical, or most like the majority of other items in the same group.

This is different from saying the evidence is true or accurate. I can give you a true statement that nevertheless completely distorts reality. For instance, in trying to prove the age of my students, suppose I point to the oldest or the youngest person present. The facts are true—I’ve given their age correctly—but I’ve given a distorted picture, because my evidence is not representative. (This is sometimes called selective evidence or cherry picking, because you select or pick only that evidence that supports your position.) On the other hand, if I chose a more typical student, I’d be giving a better picture of the age of most of the students. (Notice that it’s not likely to tell you about all of the students, but most. Representative evidence is rarely 100% representative.)

Representative evidence is absolutely essential. One reason is simple and practical: we rarely have room to include every single example of whatever we’re talking about. Therefore, the examples we do use should be the ones most like all the others—most typical, most representative.

Let’s say I want to prove that Americans are generous, and to prove it I point to Bill Gates. He gave away billions last year! Does this prove my claim? Is Gates a typical American? No—he has tons of money to give away, and he has made that a special goal for himself. Therefore, he does not represent Americans in general. He is not the best example. A much better example would be an ordinary working person who makes an average income, because such a person is more likely to represent a typical American.