THE BUCKLEY AMENDMENT

...Support on the far left trails off toward a vague egalitarian leveler's sense that any sorting into elites-even by education-is unacceptable...

...So anonymous was the bill that it was already passed by Congress and virtually in place before some of the major educational lobbying groups were aware of its existence...

...Under the Buckley Amendment, students (or parents) have a right to see letters of recommendation...

...At the same time, elites are (supposedly) not selected by ancestry, color, sex, religion, or favoritism...

...I would not suggest that there are simple answers here...

...One would like to believe that a perceptive comment is better than a test score...

...The case cited is clearly unacceptable and the legislative remedy seems apt...

...If one extends the provisions of the NLRA to cover faculty unions, just exactly who constitutes management in a university...

...If nothing else, it shows that the bill is quite "democratic" since it covers not only the "lowly" (secondary schools, proprietary schools, labor and business) but the "elite" ("prestige" colleges and universities...

...Are students in the act at all and if so, are they with "management" or "labor...

...Most of the more bizarre interpretations of the law have been ironed out either in the implementation decisions of HEW or via a series of amendments set forth by Senators Pell and Buckley...

...The Buckley Amendment to the General Education Provisions Act of that year mandated the right of parents to examine the educational records of their children so that careless, false, misleading information could be discovered, checked and corrected...

...If there are positions in a society which are regarded as more advantageous because of economic power or prestige, how is it decided who shall fill those positions...

...a bill aimed at proprietary (profit making) educational programs, e.g., "Learn technotronics and raise your income!," laps over onto non-profit colleges and professional schools...

...The Buckley Amendment scrubs the official record but this may simply drive the commending or dys-commending process underground...

...The focus of concern has been the process of recommendation...

...Not being a leveler this side of Judgment, I do not find pure egalitarianism either realistic or desirable...

...Add ". . . and alumni" after "parents" in the previous sentence and it could read right out of brother Buckley's famous tome God and Man at Yale...

...Lacking a legislative history, no one was quite sure what the "educational record" was that could now be reached...

...The Buckley Amendment may stand poised and sterile between the rigidity of standardized tests and the chummy elitism of the old boy network...

...Although some states already had laws which guaranteed parental dennis o'brien, formerly Dean of Middlebury College in Vermont, has become the 12th President of Bucknell University in Pennsylvania...

...That has a ring to it and I suspect that the vision of zealot social engineers disguised as second-grade teachers capturing tots from passive parents is abhorrent...

...Is Buckley's intent to remove corruption from educational credentialing or is it a subtle questioning of the validity of credentialing by educators rather than parents or some other favored group...

...is it equally appropriate to have Harvard trace the placement of its MBA recipients...

...To illustrate clearly what a difference this makes, one of the immediate concerns of colleges and parents was whether the act meant that student sons and daughters could have access to parent financial records which must be submitted in applications for scholarship assistance...

...department heads...

...It was only toward November of that year when the legislation was to take effect that the higher educational world discovered that such legislation even existed and began to "view with alarm" the consequences...

...It may be appropriate consumer legislation to have proprietary institutions validate their claims to higher income...

...In the original version of the bill this right was universal but such a protest was made by placement and admissions counselors at all levels of educational transition that in the amended state students may sign waivers of their right to examine recommendations...

...And finally, there is no guarantee against malicious reference since the vehicle is no farther away than the telephone...

...This is an actual case and is invariably cited by proponents of the Family Rights and Privacy Act of 1974-commonly known as the Buckley Amendment after its author, Senator James Buckley of New York...

...On the whole, despite the added paper and cost and blanding up of the recommendation process, the Buckley Amendment is probably a useful piece of legislation...

...How Serious...

...Since there were no hearings on the act, there is no record at hand to show that the problem of careless or malicious records is widespread in colleges and universities...

...The use of the educational system as discriminator for elites raises all sorts of grave issues about the kinds of qualities of education at all levels which it would be desirable for the educational community to consider...

...A bill aimed at schools gets extended to colleges...

...Presidents...

...access to educational records these were few and, rather surprisingly, parents often experienced considerable difficulty reaching educational records in states lacking such access laws...

...In the admission of so-called disadvantaged students to higher education, scores and grades are notoriously untrustworthy and letters of appraisal can be vital if they are credible and sensitive...

...There is no doubt that the right to waive access has lessened some of the worst fears but the hovering presence of the Buckley Amendment has produced a "chilling effect" on references and there is a general impression that the process is becoming blander by the moment...

...So far, so good...

...What brought it to the general attention of the educational community was the fact that somewhere in the course of its gestation from perceived problem to accomplished law, the scope of the bill was extended beyond parents' rights to school records to students' rights to college records...

...A college official should at least be entitled to some lingering curiosity about the gravity of the problem addressed by the legislation...

...The whole complex situation into which the Buckley Amendment enters rather awkwardly is characteristic of unresolved and probably unresolvable tensions in American society...

...Educators have frequently been narrow-minded in drawing up curricula and it has taken everything from Parliamentary decrees on down to effect change...

...It is always suspect, I suppose, to argue that one's own case is different but it does seem that there are some special aspects of higher education which are glossed over if not entirely mangled by some of this afterthought legislation...

...Two items in the legislative history of the amendment begin to suggest that there might be problems...

...Education is too important to be left to the educators...

...But, at the same time, parents and senators have not always been in the forefront of educational or social sensitivity...

...Although the act is still labeled officially "Family Rights and Privacy," when the legislation was extended to colleges it became not the family's right but the students' right of access to educational records...

...The bill was entered as an amendment to the General Educational bill without any legislative hearings...

...The claim is never verified, the record is never known until by chance the parents discover it...

...An extended summation of the legal situation prior to Buckley prepared for the National Committee for Citizens in Education begins: "Elementary and secondary students in the nation's public schools are in danger of becoming locked in a record's prison...

...and therefore once a child comes under their sway, they think that they have the right to do what they themselves think is best for the child without regard for the values and beliefs and opinions of the parents...

...What would not be useful, I believe, would be the emergence of some of the undertones of this piece of equal opportunity legislation as dominant themes...

...Can education really be left in the hands of educators...

...In an address to the National PTA on March 12, 1975, the Senator began by noting the importance of PTA...

...What about support on the right...

...The Buckley Amendment is designed to prevent corruptions through malice or thoughtlessness of this grading process...

...It is not a great step from the persistent attacks on psychological testing instruments which recur in discussion of the Buckley Amendment to attacking the validity of college students learning about Freud (or Marx or Darwin) as a way of proving their worth to the world without...

...For all its faults, however, education seems a more adequate tool for judgment than the traditional discriminators which, one can be sure, stand ever ready to take up the task...

...What if the Senator were taken seriously by college curriculum committees, would they have to adjust the content and direction of higher education to conform to parent Buckley's views about what is really valuable to learn...

...The parent's right to privacy seemingly clashed with the child-as-student's right to know...

...These methods of decision have the virtue of being clear-cut empirical methods of designation: you either are the first son of the nobility or not...

...On the basis of this casual observation a confidential file is developed which follows the youngster through school...

...Lacking useful recommendations, the tendency for admissions officers or potential employers may well be to retreat to standardized tests or simple grade-point averages to make selections...

...Digressive Practical Comment: higher education has been particularly subject in recent years to "afterthought" legislation...

...Some institutions, for instance, refused to divulge the height of basketball players or even to put numbers on the jerseys for name identification on the program...

...More ominous, however, are some of the arguments posed for the legislation if they ever issue in further action...

...But if one says that the elite positions are "open to talent" then just how does one measure talent...

...The Senator continues, "Some educators seem to feel that they know much more about the welfare and best interests of the child than do the parents...

...The Buckley Amendment is an example of federal legislation of good intent to which there could appear to be no real objection, but it is also a case study in broad-brush legislation which while solving some atrocity cases, creates a number of problems for the ordinary workings of schools...

...The educational system has been pressed into the service of credentialing the elites in the country by grading talents and thus influencing who will enter this or that elite track...

...A thoughtless school counselor jots down in a guidance record that the boy shows homosexual tendencies...

...What is interesting beyond the genuine democratic urge in the Buckley Amendment is the implication of some of the rhetoric used to support the measure...

...But there are still nagging worries...

...Whatever the reasons, the Buckley Amendment was granted a higher education and that raised a minor storm...

...The obvious concern of the placement-admissions officers was that recommendations which were not confidential to the person being recommended would be vacuous or indiscriminately favorable...

...Senator Buckley is, after all, our only Conservative Senator...

...Would that it were so simple...

...A brief survey of the prior agitation for legislative remedy suggests that the extension of the act to higher education is something of a surprise...

...America has not chosen leveling egalitarianism where entry into favored positions is no problem since no positions are more favored...

...No mention of colleges and universities...

...that the family has and must continue to play a vital, dominate (sic) role in education, both for the good of the children and for the good of society as a whole...

...Few organizations in the country are more important than yours...

...The Buckley Amendment changed that situation overnight by threatening denial of federal funds to schools which refused to comply to the provisions of the act...

...How does one combine democratic egali-tarianism with elitist structures...

...I say this as the father of six children who shares your belief that education is too important to be left to the educators...

...But transfer the rhetoric to college and university...

...Were medical or psychiatric records kept in a college infirmary to be open to the patient-student...

...One could argue, of course, that even a single case of substantial damage to an individual would justify legislation if it weren't for the fact that the Buckley amendment in guarding against aberrations has damaged in certain subtle ways the non-aberrant transactions...

...In the floor debate on the Buckley Amendment in August, 1974, all the discussion was about secondary and elementary education even though the bill clearly was written to apply to higher education...

...Only official college records are covered by the act and any referee can circumvent the act by writing a private letter or calling on the phone with some ill-considered opinion...

...There seems to be a definite congressional temptation to give any possible legislation a college education...