I can still recall how sheepish I felt when in
graduate school, I hit an O-chem exam out of the park (like, 96% raw score, which is insanely good for this class)... and my DH, our future best man, and a couple of our other close friends were all in this class together...
I wanted to sink into the floor when they found out that
I was the one who had earned that 96. The mean was 68 on that exam. I felt AWFUL.
And everyone involved was clearly an adult with little to prove at that point. We were
all "smart like that."
This felt awful to me because
I am not a competitive person, but some of the people who got low scores on that exam
were/are. I made them feel bad, and I didn't even get any satisfaction from doing so since it didn't matter to me-- I'd have been thrilled if the low score had been my 96, truthfully.
Finally, yes, yes, YES-- student grades on assignments
are covered by FERPA. This was still being sorted while I was in the classroom, but most of our legal advice was to
err on the side of caution on that score. My guess is that this runs afoul of the law unless students (and parents) have given explicit permission to have grades shared.
