News: Rights Watch
Supreme Court Upholds Peer Grading

High Court rejects parent's claim that the practice violates students' rights.

In a striking victory for teacher autonomy, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that the common practice of having students grade each other's papers does not violate federal law.

The February 19, 2002, ruling reverses a controversial decision by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals that peer grading violates the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). That's a 26-year-old federal law that prohibits schools from disclosing to third parties a student's "educational records" without parental consent.

The case arose when Kristja J. Falvo, the mother of three students enrolled in the Owasso (Oklahoma) Independent School District, learned that several of her children's teachers occasionally used students to grade one another's work and to call out their grades.

When her complaints about the practice fell on deaf ears, Falvo sued the district and various administrators, charging that the grading practice embarrassed her children and violated FERPA.

The Tenth Circuit in Owasso Independent School District v. Falvo upheld her claims, but the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the decision.

In an opinion by Justice Kennedy, the Court recognized that peer grading can be a valuable educational tool. "It is a way to teach material again in a new context," and it enables the teacher to discover "whether the students have understood the material and are ready to move on," the Court said.

The Court also stressed that a ruling prohibiting teachers from using peer grading "would impose substantial burdens on teachers across the country.

"It would force all instructors to take time, which otherwise could be spent teaching and in preparation, to correct an assortment of daily student assignments," the Court concluded.

Finally, the Court emphasized that to sustain the lower court's opinion would empower the federal government to "exercise minute control over specific teaching methods...in classrooms throughout the country" and would "effect a drastic alteration of the existing allocation of responsibilities between states and the national government in the operation of the nation's schools."

The 2001 NEA Representative Assembly adopted a New Business Item expressing the association's "strong opposition" to the Tenth Circuit's decision in the Falvo case. In response, NEA filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to throw out the lower court ruling.

While noting that "many teachers" have found peer grading to be "educationally beneficial," the NEA brief emphasized that the practice has not been "universally embraced by all teachers."

The brief went on to argue that "the question of whether to engage in this practice...is uniquely suited to local resolution by teachers and school districts," rather than by Congress or the courts. Happily, the Supreme Court agreed.

As always, there's a caveat. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, a school district still may decide on its own to ban the practice. Depending on state law, however, the district may be required to bargain over the issue before implementing such a policy.

The Supreme Court's decision in the Falvo case can be found on the Web at: www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/ 01slipopinion.html.

--Michael D. Simpson
NEA Office of General Counsel

Taking a Stand for Integrity

NEA member resigns over school board vote to ignore plagiarism.

Christine Pelton, the former second-year teacher from Piper, Kansas, quit her job after the local school board overturned her decision to punish students for cheating on a major class assignment.

In explaining her principled stance, Pelton said that one of the roles of teachers is to teach students "to be honest people, to have integrity, to listen, to be good citizens....I'm not expecting more than what would be expected of them either at home or down the road."

The school board's action has created a firestorm of controversy in this small community and garnered a remarkable amount of media attention.

The assignment Pelton gave to her 118 science students was to collect and study 20 different leaves, prepare a written report about each, and present the findings in an oral report to the class. The assignment would count for 50 percent of the semester grade.

To save time, many students used the Internet, and Pelton noticed that some of the written reports contained identical passages. So she used a computer program she found at http://turnitin.com and discovered that 28 students had copied substantial portions of their reports directly from Web sites.

The punishment for first offense cheating, according to school board policy, is no credit for the assignment. In addition, Pelton had required parents and students to sign copies of her classroom rules, which included the notice that "cheating and plagiarism will result in failure of the assignment;...all work turned in by the student [must be] completely their own." So the 28 students who plagiarized their reports received a zero.

And then the parents complained. To their credit, both Pelton's principal and her superintendent supported her decision. But meeting behind closed doors last December, the school board voted to overturn Pelton's judgment and ordered her to give all of the offending students partial credit for the assignment and to reduce the assignment's value from 50 to 30 percent of the semester grade.

The next day, according to media reports, some of Pelton's students taunted and ridiculed her. "I went to my class and tried to teach the kids, but they hollered and said, 'We don't have to listen to you anymore'," Pelton said. "They knew if they didn't like anything in my classroom from here on out, they [could] just go to the school board and complain."

Pelton resigned from her job several days later. Despite the intense media scrutiny that followed, school board members refused to offer any explanation or to reconsider their action.

The controversy continues. One parent started a recall petition to oust the sitting board members. In late February, the Wyandotte County District Attorney filed charges accusing the seven school board members of violating the Kansas Open Meetings Act by ordering the grade changes in a secret, executive session.

Pelton's principal has announced his resignation and other teachers have threatened to leave as well. All 12 deans at Kansas State University signed a letter to the Piper School Board complaining that the board has "unwittingly encouraged and rewarded dishonesty."

And what of Christine Pelton? After a one-and-a-half-year teaching career, she has left the profession and plans to open a day care center in her home.

--Michael D. Simpson
NEA Office of General Counsel