New FERPA Regulations to Improve Data Sharing and Services to Youth
The Department of Education's new guidance on FERPA makes significant strides in recognizing that a young person's development takes place both inside the classroom and out, by making it easier for agencies to share important data about young people - data that will help them improve services and supports.
In First Look: New FERPA Regulations, the Forum's Thaddeus Ferber and Danielle Evennou examine the new FERPA regulations, identify important changes on who is allowed to share information, and explore the Department's intentions.
Ensuring young people are ready for college, work and life requires a number of institutions, systems and organizations working together. To do so with precision, community leaders need rigorous data that crosses departmental lines to hold decision-makers collectively accountable for results. Too often, instead of pooling resources and developing one effective data and accountability system, communities and states are faced with redundant technological expenditures, overlapping or missing sets of information, and cumbersome (if not impossible) flow and transfer of data. Consequently, most community leaders and service providers still do not have the information they need to be effective despite having new resources to build and improve data systems.
The Forum commends the Department for its thorough response to this issue. However, our work is not done. More complete flexibility would require action by Congress, not just the administration. But, one less bureaucratic hurdle stands in the way of community efforts to hold departments and institutions collectively accountable for achieving results.
*The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) are most often cited by communities as reasons why they cannot develop one holistic data system capable of providing community leaders with the information they need to be effective. Accordingly, the Forum has been spending a lot of time and energy trying to get these policies changed.
Want to thank the Department and call on Congress to finish the job? We made it easy!
Thaddeus Ferber is the Vice President of Policy for the Forum for Youth Investment. Danielle Evennou is a Senior Policy Associate at the Forum for Youth Investment.
Nice post, good to know that New FERPA Regulations is being covered also in this web site.
Thanks for taking time to discuss this, keep up with this interesting work.
Good job !
This is good idea that will really educate every student. This also filter the activity of each student.