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Not when there is an existing law limiting it. FERPA specifically protects student records.

• galangalalgol 3y ago
  Even anonymous records? That would seem to preclude studying the effectiveness of the education system. And if they weren't anonymous, what possible conclusions could you draw compared to anonymous records that would warrant that access?
• rovr138 3y ago
  > as long as individual PII is removed https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html, "The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99) is a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records" Now the question is if aggregated data with no PII is protected.
  • jasonlotito 3y ago
    Data aggregation does not guarantee privacy.
    • prepend 3y ago
      Of course not, but there are tests that can be applied to determine if privacy is protected. It’s not possible to just aggregate and be done. But it is possible to set some privacy threshold and then insure that all records conform to that acceptable risk level.
• jrochkind1 3y ago
  If FERPA makes it illegal to share the data with researchers, then certainly it shouldn't have been shared. If FERPA allows sharing the data with researchers, is it right/proper/legal to share only on the condition it can't be used to harm the schools in court? Presumably that part is not in FERPA. (And to be clear, California here didn't just say they couldn't use the data in court, they said the researchers could not testify in any court case at all against the state. But we're talking hypothetically)