Supreme Court lets kids grade each other

The Washington Post And Associated Press

WASHINGTON — If school teachers want students to put an "A" or an "F" on each other’s work in class, the Supreme Court will not stand in the way.

The court ruled unanimously Tuesday that students may grade each other’s work in class without violating federal privacy law, deciding the case of a learning disabled boy from Oklahoma whose classmates ridiculed his scores and called him a "dummy."

"Correcting a classmate’s work can be as much a part of the assignment as taking the test itself," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for himself and seven colleagues. Justice Antonin Scalia filed a separate concurring opinion.

The 9-0 ruling thus came down squarely on the side of national teachers unions, which had argued that the case threatened to bury teachers in paperwork and subject them to federal micromanaging. It rejected the view of some psychologists and conservative privacy-rights activists, who had urged the court to empower parents against a commonplace but, to some children, demeaning classroom ritual in which students exchange papers, correct them and then report the grades to the teacher.

Separately, the court announced Tuesday that it will consider how far states may go in posting registries of sex offenders on the Internet after the offenders have finished their sentences and are released.

The case is a challenge to Alaska’s sexual offender registration law, and could affect similar "Megan’s Laws" that inform the public in all 50 states of the names and addresses of convicted rapists and pedophiles who have served their sentences and rejoined the community.

Under Alaska’s law, convicted sexual offenders must provide police personal information, including their current employment and a description of their car, and update it four times a year. Since 1998, the state has published this information on the Internet.

In other action Tuesday, the court: