NIST Headquarters (Click on image)
Should there be federal legislation for education facility security or can individual states provide an acceptable level of security themselves? This question comes to mind as we follow the rapidly expanding constellation of school security standards, covered here in previous posts:
Each incident spawns questions about the ability of the education industry itself to discove and promulgate leading practice.
What we do know is this: whenever the clam that “academia is involved” no one should assume that academia is a pure “user-interest” as identified in ANSI’s Due Process Requirements or American national standards (effectively the “Constitution” of the private standards development system in the United States) Our experience suggests that in many cases, academia — i.e. faculty — is more closely aligned with incumbent interests such as insurance companies, manufacturers and sometimes compliance and enforcement interests. Compliance and enforcement interests are over-weighted in the education industry, in our view. (One only needs to observe technical committee rosters of standards developers).
Furthermore, once federal agencies step in to clear the market in school security, the voice of incumbent stakeholders are strengthened because incumbents have the resources to advocate directly in the federal government. There will be Federal Register postings for public comment, of course; but an entirely different class of advocates will dominate that discussion if state public safety agencies are found to fall short of the public’s demand for education facility security. They will work through one or more of the hundreds of education industry trade associations; another complicating factor.
Today, we simply post the source material for the possibility that the US education industry — particularly the business side of the education industry which is usually charged with school security — can regulate itself through privately developed standards that can be incorporated by reference into state and local public security laws for our children and colleagues. Keep in mind that this legislation (now over 30 years old) is a due process requirement in itself if the education industry (highly localized) cannot accomplish security on its own.
Key Federal Law and Policy Documents: NTTAA & OMB A-119
Posted June 1, 2018
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The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) are co-leading the Lab-to-Market Cross Agency Priority goal, part of the recently released President’s Management Agenda(link is external). To accelerate these efforts, NIST has launched an initiative to improve federal technology transfer.
The education industry – particularly large research universities — are likely stakeholders in this discussion – which NIST will expand outside the policy-making precincts of Washington DC. Standards Michigan collaborates with the American National Standards Institute on issues of this nature.
NIST Seeks Public Input to Help Increase Return on Investment from Federal Research https://t.co/LufjfCyqIY #TechTransfer #UnleashingAmericanInnovation #LabtoMarket pic.twitter.com/Xf1dtIjfUp
— NIST (@usnistgov) May 1, 2018
Comments are due July 30th. Ahead of this deadline a series of meetings will be hosted by NIST — both online and on-site — from May 17 through May 31. See the the first page of the Federal Register Notice [Docket Number: 180220199–819–01] for more information.
All NIST activity is on the standing agenda of our weekly Open Door teleconferences; every Wednesday, 11 AM Eastern time which are open to everyone. Click here to log in.
Issue: [18-122]
Category: US Department of Commerce, Public Policy
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Christine Fischer, Paul Green
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