To fix FERPA, raise the price of lying

Put yourself in the place of a school or college attorney. Your client, the institution, is trying to decide whether to fulfill or reject a journalist's request for public records.Honoring the request is going to be a nuisance, and the records contain some embarrassing information the school would rather not see on the evening news.The records pretty clearly don't contain any confidential student information -- but the journalist can't easily prove that.