The Sharing of Student Data Creates Concern in NYC

From nbcnewyork.com and Parents Blast New State Database of Private Student Info:

Parents and privacy experts are blasting a new national database that compiles personal student information for educational companies that contract with public schools.

New York State officials, working with the city, have already uploaded students' names, addresses, test scores, learning disabilities, attendance and disciplinary records into the inBloom database, according to the Daily News.

Read more here and watch the news video.

What is inBloom?  From the Daily News:

InBloom, a 3-month-old database, is funded primarily by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. A division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. built the infrastructure for the new electronic portal.

The state spent $50 million in federal grants to partner with inBloom and finalized its agreement in October to share data with the fledgling company.

The new service will not cost the city any money at first, though inBloom officials said they will probably start to charge fees in 2015.

Names, attendance records, disciplinary histories, addresses, test scores and more are delivered to the state. The state contracts with inBloom, a database that warehouses that information. InBloom then contracts with private companies selling educational products and services that can access the information.

Wouldn't "contracting with private companies selling educational products and services" that access students' personal information be considered selling student information without parental permission or knowledge?  Why is this being funded partially by federal grants so that the state can partner with inBloom and share student information with the company?

RFID Chips in Students and Longitudinal Data Systems...Is this Tracking Really "For the Kids"?

Your child's new school picture?

All is not well for a Texas school's plan to track students via RFID chips...the same chips used to track cattle.  From WND:

A rebellion is developing in Texas against a plan by a school district in San Antonio that would monitor the exact location and activities of all students at all times through RFID chips they are being ordered to wear.

...the developing furor comes only days after a coalition of civil rights and privacy organizations publicly stated their opposition to “spychipping” the students.

 

A “position paper” from groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Big Brother Watch, Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom, Constitutional Alliance, Freedom Force International, Friends of Privacy USA, the Identity Project and Privacy Activism said no students should be subjected to the “chipping” program “unless there is sufficient evidence of its safety and effectiveness.”

“Children should never be used as test subjects for technology, no matter what their socio-economic status. If schools choose to move forward without complete information and are willing to accept the associated liability, they should have provisions in place to adhere to the principles of fair information practices and respect individuals’ rights to opt out based on their conscientious and religious objections,” the statement said.

The San Antonio plan was reported by Spychips, a website run by RFID expert Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre.

“San Antonio’s Northside Independent School District plans to incorporate RFID tags into mandatory student ID cards. One school district in Brazil has incorporated the tracking tags into uniforms. In both cases, the goal is to keep students, teachers and staff under constant surveillance,” the report said.

“RFID is used to track factory inventory and monitor farm animals,” said Albrecht, director of CASPIAN and co-author of “Spychips.” “Schools, of all places, should be teaching children how to participate in a free democratic society, not conditioning them to be tracked like cattle. Districts planning to use RFID should brace themselves for a parent backlash, protests, and lawsuits.”

According to the San Antonio newspaper, all students in the district’s John Jay High School and Anson Jones Middle School would be subject to chipping.

At that point, Supt. Brian Woods said, “We want to harness the power of (the) technology to make schools safer, know where our students are all the time in a school, and increase revenues. … Parents expect that we always know where their children are, and this technology will help us do that.”

WOAI television reported district spokesman Pasqual Gonzalez said the two schools have a high rate of truancy, and the district could gain $2 million in state funding by improving attendance.

Did you read in the district's statements that this technology is being used to improve education and learning?  No, it's for classroom management and for more money to the district.  Longitudinal data is to be used to provide workforce information to employers, not so much to improve education.  This data is for human capital management and monetary gain,  just as the RFID chipping will produce.

Tracking human capital through RFD chips and tracking students via the Longitudinal Data System sets requesting over 300 pieces of data from students and families should raise serious legal and ethical issues.  The RFID student chipping is a school district decision while longitudinal data system information will be gathered due to the Common Core standards being implemented.

Where's the outcry from these privacy groups about this invasive data gathering?  If  “children should never be used as test subjects for technology, no matter what their socio-economic status", neither should their educational and personal data be used for their suitability for specific jobs in the workforce.

Children are not cattle, neither are they capital to be groomed for workforce needs.

Link here for the RFID School Position Paper against chipping students. 

Here's an excerpt about chipping children from Would You Implant Your Child With a Tracking Device?

Implanting a tracking device into our children is merely an invasion of privacy and alienation of human rights. If it's allowed by the parents, where would it stop? School coaches would need to make sure their athletes aren't getting into trouble. Government employees should definitely be kept on a tight leash so they don't divulge secrets. We wouldn't want them to keep unsavory company.

Perhaps we could include a low-volt shock to correct bad behavior. Don't make faces at your sister, Johnny. Finish your homework, Martha. Watch your language. Change your clothes. I don't like your hairstyle. Fix it. Fix it! FIX IT!

Where would it stop? The crazy idea that we can protect our children by belittling them, by lowering their status to the same classifications that we give farm animals and pets is ridiculous, insulting, and demeaning.

Let's put an dog collar on you and place you inside an electric fence for a week. Then you can tell me how great it was that no one snatched you out of your yard. Sure, you wouldn't be able to go out to coffee with your friends, but you'd be safe. You'd have to send people out to run errands for you, but you'd be safe. You might miss out on some great adventures, but, you know, at least you'd be safe.

Will the ACLU File Suit to Stop Privacy Gathering on Citizens' Physical Traits? Now the Government is Tracking Tattoos.

Will tattoo information appear on student data sets?  If a student has the wrong tattoo on his/her body, it may not bode well if FBI information is shared with the Departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services.  From next.gov:

The FBI is consulting local police and vendors about technology currently in use that can spot crooks and terrorists by interpreting the symbolism of their tattoos, according to government documents. The inquiry follows work already underway at the bureau and Homeland Security Department to add iris and facial recognition services to their respective fingerprint databases.

If tattoo data sets are added with other data to be gathered on public school students such as eye color, voting status, blood type and wage earnings, the government will have a plan on where your human capital will fit into the workforce or if he/she can be labelled a possible terrorist.  Where's the ACLU when you need them?

Privacy implications are only briefly addressed, in the context of policies regarding “what special guidelines will be followed when dealing with tattoos in ‘sensitive’ locations?” and other images that perhaps should not be in public records.

The bureau also wants to learn about vetting pictures, sharing access to the database; and ways for multiple agencies to coordinate on data gathering.  (MEW note: this is similar to DOEd plans to share educational information with various federal agencies and private researchers)

The basic concern of reliability isn't considered:

The request does not discuss the reliability of such systems. Researchers at the University of Notre Dame recently found that iris patterns alter with age and the accuracy of sensors used to capture iris images degrades over time, raising doubts about the use of that single physical trait to confirm identities.

If iris patterns alter with age, wouldn't student data entered based on student maturity and interests (as well as flawed assessments) be skewed as well?   The regulation to allow FERPA to gather invasive personal information from public education students and shared with other federal agencies has not been scrutinized for reliability either.  

Is this data the government so desperately wants for citizen tracking worth the price of liberty for the sake of the government's control of human capital?

Maybe the following information will be entered on your human capital's data set if he/she gets a tattoo and whether he/she is government compliant and a good "fit" for the workforce.  From timesofnews.com and the story of Chinese professional tennis player Li Na:

In China she is seen as a rebellious figure because of her tattoo, and for refusing to accept government help as she established her career.

Lean to the Right or Left; Common Core is a Disaster...The Sunday Education Weekly Reader 06.24.12

Common Core is a bipartisan disaster. The Left & Right have sold us out.

Welcome to the Sunday Education Weekly Reader for 06.24.12.  

This week will consist of a reposting of Susan Ohanian's excellent blog entitled School-Standards Pushback: Conservative Groups Oppose National 'Common Core' as an Intrusion on States.

Susan has corresponded with me over the last year or so and while we may have differences in thoughts about how education can/should be reformed, we can find common ground in our concern about common core state standards and longitudinal data systems (LDS) supplying personal data about student/families to various federal agencies.  Politically we may not see eye to eye on all issues, but taking the politics out of common core/LDS and focusing solely on the issues, it is obvious these "reforms" deny the individualism of students, are being directed by special interests (for monetary vs educational reasons) and infringe on student/family privacy. 

No Child Left Behind has been decried by both the left and the right for its unreachable bipartisan goals; so should Common Core be protested for its bipartisan push for privatization of education that is really the shifting of taxpayer money into pre-selected vendors and touting it as reforming education.   These are not standards written by the states.  Ohanian is correct when she writes:

 ...this section of my website is titled Common Core State [sic] Standards. These are the Bill Gates/U. S. Department of Education Standards. Follow the money.

The LDS should be decried by both the left and the right as infringement on civil liberties.  Why is the ACLU silent on this data grab on American citizens?  Folks are upset about credit card information being breached.  Where is the outcry on data being gathered from birth on children that will be shared with federal  agencies and private researchers?

Thanks to Susan for her many years of educational reporting.  I hope a bipartisan movement will emerge against common core standards and privacy grab by the Federal government.  ALL student data should be protected regardless of party affiliation.  ALL students should be able to learn according to their learning style and not be molded to fit into a "one sized fits all" common core assessment model that private companies craft with taxpayer money.

*****************************************************************

From School-Standards Pushback: Conservative Groups Oppose National 'Common Core' as an Intrusion on States:

Ohanian Comment: Conservatives speak out against the Common Core. Liberals are still out to lunch. Godonlyknows what a dither they'll be in if ALEC denounces the Common Core.

The sad fact is this: Liberals sell us down the river on Common Core. Conservatives have fought it from the get-go. Although I do not agree with every point (particularly the curriculum section) they make, Truth in American Education, which is affiliated with a number of conservative groups and individuals, offers a very concise and compelling document in opposition to the Common Core. Their first point is exactly why this section of my website is titled Common Core State [sic] Standards. These are the Bill Gates/U. S. Department of Education Standards. Follow the money.

REASONS FOR CONCERN ABOUT COMMON CORE
Adoption Process

Contrary to proponents’ claims, the Common Core Initiative is not 'state‐led,' but rather the Common Core (CC) standards were created and funded by special interests. States had little to no input.

The federal government has coerced states into accepting the CC standards, by tying
their adoption to Race to the Top funding, No Child Left Behind waivers, etc.

Under the Constitution, the federal government has no role in education policy.
Moreover, three federal statutes prohibit what the federal government has done with
the CC and the attendant assessments.
State/Local Control and Governance

The federal government is funding the creation of the tests that will be aligned with CC and what's on the tests will dictate what's taught in the classroom. The inevitable result
will be a national curriculum controlled by the federal government.

A state must accept the CC standards word for word. It may add 15% content but may
not subtract anything. Anything it adds will not be included on the national tests.

In order to change any strand of the CC, a state must persuade 44 other jurisdictions
(and probably the US Dep't of Education) to agree to the proposed change.

Content Concerns

The English language arts standards in CC de‐emphasize the study of literature and have
been found by a University of Arkansas expert as inadequate to prepare students for
college. She writes: "The wisest move all states could make to ensure that students
learn to read, understand, and use the English language appropriately before they
graduate from high school is first to abandon Common Core’s ‘standards’ . . . ."

The math standards in CC, by moving algebra I from 8th grade to 9th, will ensure that the large majority of students do not reach calculus in high school.

The math standards in CC require that geometry be taught by an experimental method
that has never been used successfully anywhere in the world.

It opens the door for the federal government to push future standards in other subjects.

Cost of Implementation to the States/Localities

The states' costs of implementing CC will be substantial and will include new textbooks,
teacher re‐training, technology, etc. One study estimates $16 billion nationwide in implementation costs alone.

Privacy/Data Sharing

As part of the CC process, the federal government pushed states into creating massive
databases of very personal student and family information, which it can now share with
other federal and state agencies.

My god, how funny is it that The Wall Street Journal becomes the first media that I know of to label the Thomas B. Fordham Institute "right-leaning"? When I looked at 7,000 articles to see how media identified the talking heads they asked for soundbites, here's how Fordham-associated people were identified--over and over and over: policy expert; policy researcher; education reformer. The Institute itself is identified as a "Washington D. C. think tank."
For example, here are some Education Week identifiers for Michael Petrilli:

at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute

a vice-president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

the executive vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington-based research and advocacy group

the executive vice president of the Washington-based Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which favors more flexibility for states

Ask yourself how these identifier inform--or fail to inform--readers about what Petrilli's opinions.

As I noted in an article for Extra! The Magazine of FAIR, the Media Watch Group Race to the Top and the Bill Gates Connection: Who gets to speak about what schools need? on occasion, Education Week uses soundbites from Fordham officials three times in the same issue.

Here's a sample of how The New York Times identifies Petrilli:

, vice president for national programs and policy of the Fordham Institute, a group that supports education reform.

an education analyst and researcher with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute

an education official under President George W. Bush

a vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a research group that studies education policy

a vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington, an educational research and advocacy organization

And on and on and on, always careful to give no indication of what the Thomas B. Fordham Institute is up to. . . which makes Stephanie Banchero's identifier exceptional.

I found three reporters will to discuss the Gates money connections: Daniel Goldman in Bloomberg Businesweek, Matt Murphy in the Lowell Sun, and Clay Holtzman in the Puget Sound Business Journal.

Gates Foundation personnel are rarely quoted in the press. They don’t need to be: Their money talks for them. Both Golden and Murphy pointed to the tidy sum that the Thomas B. Fordham Institute received from Gates to provide analysis of the Common Core standards.

FYI, here's Fordham's Gates money:

Date: July 2003
Purpose: to strenghten [sic] Ohio's charter school program by recruiting, training, and supporting quality sponsors for existing and future charter schools
Amount: $250,000


Date: July 2005
Purpose: to inform public debate and advance academic achievement in Ohio charter schools by convening charter school leaders, producing research, and disseminating information on charter school issues
Amount: $497,639


Date: July 2005
Purpose: to support the Fordham Foundation in its role as a community school sponsor in Ohio to recruit other high school developers and to share best practices across the field
Amount: $1,849,173


Date: August 2006
Purpose: to support creation of a new education policy network promoting equitable education reform
Amount: $100,000


Date: June 2008
Purpose: to support the activities of an emerging network of state level education advocacy organizations in support of a convening around strategic issues
Amount: $155,000


Date: June 2009
Purpose: to support the PIE Network which brings together policy research groups with state-level education advocacy organizations to advance equity, improve student achievement, share best practices and capture lessons learned in state policy implementation
Amount: $398,534


Date: October 2009
Purpose: to review the common core standards and develop supportive materials
Amount: $959,116

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is the secondary point here. The real point is the failure of the press to inform the public. The vaunted New York Times slogan "All the news that's fit to print" deliberately ignores and omits a lot of important information. Similarly, the reader must be aware that Education Week's banner: American Education's newspaper of Record presents a record tainted by omission.





By Stephanie Banchero

The Common Core national math and reading standards, adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia two years ago, are coming under attack from some quarters as a federal intrusion into state education matters.

The voluntary academic standards, which specify what students should know in each grade, were heavily promoted by the Obama administration through its $4.35 billion Race to the Top education-grant competition. States that instituted changes such as common learning goals received bonus points in their applications.

Supporters say the Common Core standards better prepare students for college or the workforce, and are important as the U.S. falls behind other nations in areas such as math proficiency.

A 2010 report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a right-leaning educational-research group, said the Common Core standards "are clearly superior to those currently in use in 39 states in math and 37 states in English. For 33 states, the Common Core is superior in both math and reading."

But conservative lawmakers and governors in at least five states, including Utah and Alabama, recently have been pushing to back out, or slow down implementation, of Common Core. They worry that adoption of the standards has created a de facto national curriculum that could at some point be extended into more controversial areas such as science.

Critics argue that the standards are weak and could, for example, de-emphasize literature in favor of informational texts, such as technical manuals. They also dislike that the standards postpone teaching algebra until ninth grade from the current eighth grade in many schools.

A study released this year by a researcher at the Brookings Institution think tank projected Common Core will have no effect on student achievement. The study said states with high standards improved their national math and reading scores at the same rate as states with low standards from 2003 to 2009.

But mainly, critics of Common Core object to what they see as the federal government's involvement in local-school matters.

"The Common Core takes education out of the hands of South Carolina and parents, so we have no control over what happens in the classroom," said Michael Fair, a Republican state senator who plans to introduce a measure that would bar his state from spending money on activities related to the standards, such as training teachers and purchasing textbooks.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who took office after the state adopted Common Core, wrote in a letter to Mr. Fair that the state should not "relinquish control of education to the federal government, neither should we cede it to the consensus of other states."

Common Core could take another hit Friday when the 23-member board of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of more than 2,000 state lawmakers and business members who back limited government and free markets, among other conservative goals, is set to vote on a resolution to formally oppose the standards. The resolution was passed by the ALEC education task force in December.Model legislation often is drafted from the group's resolutions and taken by ALEC members to their state legislatures.

Common Core evolved from a drive by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to delineate world-class skills students should possess. The standards, created with funding from, among others, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, set detailed goals, such as first graders should understand place values in math and eighth graders should know the Pythagorean Theorem.

"We brought the best minds in the country together to create international benchmarks that, once mastered, would make our students more competitive, globally," said Gene Wilhoit, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers. He said his group has no plans to create national science standards.

As the standards were being developed, the Obama administration launched Race to the Top in July 2009, which awarded points to states that adopted "a common set of K-12 standards" that are "substantially identical across all states in a consortium," according to the grant's policies. The department didn't specifically mention Common Core, but it was the only common set of standards being developed.

As a result, most state's legislatures or state boards of education adopted Common Core.

The standards have yet to show up in many classrooms as states are just beginning to implement them. But in Kentucky, where Common Core rolled out this school year, teachers are altering instruction and searching for new classroom reading materials.

Jahn Owens, a teacher in Owensboro, Ky., said the more rigorous standards require her to teach her fifth-graders how to multiply and divide fractions. Previously, that was taught in sixth grade. First-grade teacher Heidi Dees has added more nonfiction books to her classroom.

"These standards take students much deeper into the subjects and force them to do more critical thinking," Ms. Owens said. "It's been hard work for the teachers because the implementation was so quick, but we are now more purposeful about student learning."

The Obama administration has awarded more than $360 million to two groups to create student assessments aligned to Common Core.

Wireless Generation, an education-technology company owned by News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal, recently purchased Intel-Assess, a company that creates student assessments aligned to Common Core.

Justin Hamilton, a spokesman for the U.S. Department. of Education, called Common Core a "game changer" but said the administration didn't force states to adopt it. "A bipartisan group of governors created these standards and states collectively adopted them," he said.

But Emmett McGroarty, executive director of American Principles in Action, a conservative lobbying group that wrote the ALEC resolution, said states were "herded" into adopting the standards with no time to deliberate on their worth. He called the standards "mediocre" and costly to implement.

Write to Stephanie Banchero at stephanie.banchero@wsj.com

— Stephanie Banchero
Wall Street Journal
May 09, 2012
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303630404577390431072241906.html?mod=wsj_share_tweet

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Why does the ACLU Hate Children?

Once you read this Hot Air piece about the ACLU wanting to take away the rights of Arizona parents to use tax credits for their childrens' education, you will ask why that organization hates children:


On November 3rd, when conservatives across the nation hope to celebrate a massive victory in the midterm elections, parents in Phoenix will instead cast their eyes to the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments that will determine whether Arizona can create a school-choice program where parents can decide on where to educate their children.


The ACLU did not like the fact that the Individual Scholarship Tax Credit many parents used were applied toward schools with a religious affiliation. Hot Air sides with the parents:

...parents should be able to choose the education that best suits their children. The 1st Amendment prohibits the establishment of religion, not prohibiting the use of tax credits to fund a child’s education, especially since there is nothing compulsory about either requesting the tax credit or using it at a religious school of any faith or denomination.


We hope the parents of Arizona are able to choose where their children are educated. If the Supreme Court sides with the ACLU, 27,000 students will be relegated to failing public schools. Why does the ACLU hate children? The ACLU is supposed to protect civil liberties. Whose civil liberties is this organization concerned with? Apparently not the 27,000 students and their families. If education is truly considered a "civil right" as stated by the administration, these students' rights are certainly being compromised by withholding these tax credits to the families for them to decide how to educate their children.

Who is most important in a child's life? The parents or the government? Who has the ultimate responsibility for that child? The parents or the government? Who should be able to decide the appropriate educational placement for a child? The parents or the government?

On reflection, parents shouldn't be "able" to choose. IT SHOULD BE THEIR RIGHT TO CHOOSE.

Learn more about this case at the Institute of Justice.

(ht to a Hot Air reader for the title of this article. Nailed the issue!)

When did Proselytization Become Part of Social Studies Curriculum?

I wrote a previous post about Al Sharpton's "Reclaim the Dream" rally, scheduled as a protest against Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally, and Arne Duncan's involvement with Sharpton:

http://missourieducationwatchdog.blogspot.com/2010/08/somebody-had-to-watch-al-sharptons.html

I find it ironic that Duncan, Department of Education secretary, took churches to task for not opening up churches during the week and helping students. It is my contention then, and it is now, that if you want churches to become an integral factor in children's lives, they should not be eviscerated by this same department. How is religious behavior in schools frowned on by the government? Stories have been published in the last few years of children not being allowed to read the Bible in free reading time:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2009/12/16/new-jersey-teacher-orders-rd-grader-away-bible-quiet-time/
http://www.adherents.com/misc/school_houston.html

Here's a story about a school district backtracking its initial decision banning a student from bringing a Bible to school and reading it in private time:

http://www.adherents.com/misc/school_houston.html

School officials confirmed he was not allowed to read his Bible during reading time, as the church and state must remain separate in the classroom. I am proposing this theory we've heard from school districts doesn't extend to field trips. Apparently, the separation of church and state doesn't extend to "protect" students from proselytizing at field trips.

Link to the excellent coverage of a Massachusetts school trip to a mosque. A watchdog mother interested in how information was to be covered attended as a chaperon and filmed the presentation:

http://www.peaceandtolerance.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=129%3Aschool-trip-to-moderate-mosque-inside-video-captures-kids-bowing-to-allah&catid=7%3Aour-statements&Itemid=39

Nothing in the permission slip included students taking part in the worship service. The mother believed the history presented by the speaker was distorted and the presentation became a proselytizing speech. How would parents feel if their students participated in a Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Mormon, Hindu, Buddhist, worship service? Would parents think this was a valid function of a school curriculum? Are other religions going to be visited on field trips to worship in other religious buildings? When did schools start allowing and condoning religious worship opportunities for students?

School districts espouse the belief in the separation of church and state. When the teachers saw what was occurring in this mosque, that the "history" lesson had become a "worship service", the students should have been escorted to the school buses right then and there. By not stepping in and prohibiting students from joining in the worship service, this district gave its tacit approval for children to participate in a religious ceremony. I wonder if teachers would allow students to participate in Christian, Hindu, and Jewish ceremonies.

If students are being told they cannot read their Bibles during private reading time at school, then why is it permissible to allow proselytizing of students on a field trip?

Is this what Arne Duncan has in mind when he said he wants churches to open their doors to children during the week? Does he want the churches to provide space solely for academic and social purposes or is he comfortable for public school children receiving religious teaching and worship opportunities? Why does he want religious organizations to provide activities for children during the week, and then when they might want to bring their Bibles to school to read in private time, the children are told this practice is not allowed?

I can imagine the outcry from the ACLU if this field trip had happened in a non-Muslim building. This story underlines the necessity for parents to be aware of the curriculum being presented to their children. Parents need to once again take the responsibility of knowing what their children are being taught. Is this field trip educational or indoctrinational?