In its effort to clarify student data privacy rules for researchers and education officials alike, the U.S. Department of Education proposed several changes to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, on Thursday and named its first chief privacy officer. There is a pesky problem standing in the way of sharing student data between states and Federal Agencies: present FERPA standards. If these standards are not altered, the data necessary to supply the workforce cannot be shared.The DOE promises your student's data will be secure. Really? What's happened the last several weeks or years regarding cyber information?
- TJX, the parent company of T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, and other retailers, has not acknowledged how data on more than 45 million credit and debit card users who had shopped at the company's retail locations was stolen and sold to fraudsters. (May 9, 2007)
- A data breach involving online marketer Epsilon, whose clients are a Who’s Who of major banks and retailers, was only the latest in a string of hacking attacks aimed at getting email records for more thefts. Companies that have said they were exposed since then include banks Citigroup Inc and Capital One Financial Corp, and retailers Walgreen Co and Best Buy Co. (April 5, 2011)
According to U.S. investigators, China has stolen terabytes of sensitive data -- from usernames and passwords for State Department computers to designs for multi-billion dollar weapons systems. And Chinese hackers show no signs of letting up. "The attacks coming out of China are not only continuing, they are accelerating," says Alan Paller, director of research at information-security training group SANS Institute in Washington, DC.
Secret U.S. State Department cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to Reuters by a third party, trace systems breaches -- colorfully code-named "Byzantine Hades" by U.S. investigators -- to the Chinese military. An April 2009 cable even pinpoints the attacks to a specific unit of China's People's Liberation Army. (April 14, 2010).
- Base salary or wage
- Blood type
- Height and Weight
- Dwelling Arrangement
- Health Care History
- Health Care Plan
- Identification Results
- Immunization Status
- Insurance Coverage
- Overall Health Status
- Residence Block Number
- Social Security Number
- Voting Status
If you believe this information is secure, you will also believe the following:
According to the No Child Left Behind Act, by 2014 every child is supposed to test on grade level in reading and math.
Not every child can test on grade level in reading and math. It's an admirable goal, but impossible to achieve. That's not going to happen. The goal for data systems is to beef up privacy protections. Like the NCLB goal, it sounds great, but if the government cannot stop foreign countries from hacking into military computers, do you believe the DOE can safeguard student data from hackers?
Read this sentence in the second paragraph again: We need common-sense rules that strengthen privacy protections and allow for meaningful uses of data. The problem with that sentence? Strengthening privacy protections don't safeguard the privacy and the "meaningful uses of data" should raise questions for anyone concerned about the constitutional right to individual privacy that your government is determined to document and share.
You raise important concerns. Fordham Law Center reported that school data is not protected sufficiently. Education chief-of-staff suggests that researchers mining student data from the so-called new generation of assessments will be able to determine which materials and methods are most effective by examining student choices or thought processes. Sources for this info to follow.
ReplyDeleteFordham Law Center report on privacy concerns here:
ReplyDeletehttp://law.fordham.edu/center-on-law-and-information-policy/14769.htm
Secretary of Education Chief-of-Staff Joanne Weiss speech here:
http://blogs.hbr.org/innovations-in-education/2011/03/the-innovation-mismatch-smart.html
A quote from that speech:
"In this new market, it will make sense for teachers in different regions to share curriculum materials and formative assessments. It will make sense for researchers to mine data to learn which materials and teaching strategies are effective for which students - and then feed that information back to students, teachers, and parents."
Sandra, Thanks for that information. And I would add to your last sentence on the second posting:
ReplyDelete"....and then feed that information back to students, teachers, and parents...and Federal agencies responsible for finding workers to supply the workforce."