Data Quality Campaign and AT&T Want Your Personal Information. Why?

 

Do you know where or how your data is being shared via AT&T or Data Quality Campaign?

This post is a follow-up to yesterday's article on the Data Quality Campaign announcing the intent to advocate for inclusive, aligned, and relevant education and workforce data. DQC does not detail what those three adjectives represent in education data and if these are solely assessment data or if it includes personal data on students and families.

Data mining is rampant and includes the gathering of your information by private companies.  Recently I received a letter from AT&T informing me they were going to sell my information to third parties.  Below is the resulting correspondence I had with AT&T and my children.  We owe our children in public schools the same diligence to protect their data from third party vendors and various federal agencies.

Before you read the emails, here is some history about AT&T's educational connection with DQC.:     

 AT&T is a funder for the Data Quality Campaign, an organization that wants to merge educational data with workforce data.

•  AT&T has given millions ($500,000 to DQC) to push data driven methods in schools.
• What information does AT&T want to mine on its customers and where will this information be sent, stored and how will it be used?
• If AT&T customers can opt out of privacy data mining, then why isn't this option mentioned in the original email?
• If AT&T does offer opting out, then shouldn't parents have this option as well for their children in public school education?
• Why do private businesses and public education believe that people want to be tracked?  Why do they believe they have the right to do so?

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

Original Message:


July 11, 2013

Regarding Account Number: xxxxx

Dear Valued Customer,

We know your privacy is important, so we've made it a priority to talk to you about it. We're revising our Privacy Policy to make it easier to understand, and we want to point out two new programs that could help us and other businesses serve you better.

The first program will make reports available to businesses. These reports will contain anonymous information about groups of customers, such as how they collectively use our products and services. The second program will use local geography as a factor in delivering online and mobile ads to the people who might find them most useful.

As always, we follow important principles to keep your trust:

• We are committed to protecting your privacy.
• We provide you with privacy choices.
• We will not sell information that identifies you to anyone, for any purpose. Period.
• We are committed to listening and keeping you informed about how we protect your privacy.

The two new programs are described in this notice, including your privacy choices for each. You can also read the new and old versions of our privacy policy at att.com/privacy.

To provide feedback on the new policy, please write us in the next 30 days at privacyfeedback@att.com or AT&T Privacy Policy, 1120 20th Street NW, 10th Floor, Washington, DC 20036.

Sincerely,

Robert W. Quinn Jr.
AT&T
Senior Vice President - Federal Regulatory; Chief Privacy Officer

P.S.: Please note that if you have multiple accounts, we thank you, and we want to let you know you may receive more than one copy of this notice.

MEW note: There was no option to "opt out" via this email even though a quick Internet search on this privacy change letter shows the opt out information as one letter:

 Here - AT&T

www.att.com/Common/about_us/.../Privacy_Policy_Customer_Letter.pdf‎

privacyfeedback@att.com or AT&T Privacy Policy, 1120 20th Street NW, 10th Floor, Washington,. DC 20036. Sincerely,. Robert W. Quinn Jr. AT&T. Senior Vice ...

 

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

From:  xxxxx
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2013 11:56 AM
To: Privacyfeedback
Subject: Privacy policy comment

Dear ATT:

This is response to your email about your privacy policy.

I protest that ANY information on our account/usage, etc is given out to ANY third party, even if it is aggregate information.  I believe that my data usage and any other information should be private and not provided to any third party vendor. 

I also do not care to have any ads tweaked to my interests based on my location, data or how I use my telephone.  I consider this an invasion of my privacy.  Your two privacy choices are not really choices at all.  Both release information to third parties.  Where is the third choice to opt out of these two "choices"?  With the recent NSA scandal, I would suggest you not release any information to any party.   Just a few data points allow aggregate data to become personally identifiable.

I would like some clarification on you not selling information.  I am making the assumption you are referring to not selling individualized information, correct?  But you are selling aggregate information?  You should be paying your customers for the use of this information.  You are charging us for phone service and then you are making more money from the selling of customer aggregate information to third parties.  Shouldn't the customer realize some financial remuneration for using their data for third party use?

I do not believe you are protecting my privacy.  You are using customer data to make more money and as such, I believe customers should see a reduction in their phone bills to reflect the use of their aggregate data.

Please advise us if your company will indeed offer an opt out choice, a reduction in our data cost, or if we need to begin looking for another phone provider.

Cordially,

xxxxxxx

 

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

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Privacyfeedback & Privacy_Feedback@att.com;
To: Sent: Fri, Jul 12, 2013 3:49 pm
Subject: RE: Privacy policy comment

Thank you for contacting AT&T.  You can choose to have your anonymous information excluded from the External Marketing & Analytics Reports by visiting  http://att.com/cmpchoice,  or calling 1-866-344-9850.  You can opt-out of receiving Relevant Advertising from AT&T AdWorks by going to http://adworks.att.com/adpreferences  on your computer or http://adworks.att.com/mobileoptout on your wireless device. Similar to other advertising choices, you must opt-out from each computer browser or wireless device that you wish to exclude.  We appreciate having you as our customer. 

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

What I sent to my sons:

-----Original Message-----
From: xxx

Sent: Fri, Jul 12, 2013 3:56 pm
Subject: FROM MOM. READ THIS PLEASE. Privacy policy comment

I would ask that each of you read the emails below.

You will need to opt out your cell phones.  Please let me know when you have done so.

Love,

Mom

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

From The Huffington Post on the data mining information to be obtained by AT&T:

Last week, telecom giant AT&T quietly updated its privacy policy with a controversial change: The company would begin selling customers' information to marketers and other businesses.

Selling customer data is nothing new for the likes of Facebook and Google. Those companies make billions of dollars targeting ads based on personal information. However, AT&T's data mining is a potentially troubling development for the company's large group of 105 million subscribers. The “External Marketing and Analytics Reporting” program would allow AT&T to sell information including your location based on WiFi connections, web broswing history and app usage.

Here's a comment similar to mine from a Huffington Post reader:

I rec'd notice by mail with instructions for opting out. It also invites feedback on ATT's new Privacy Policy. The letter is from Robert Quinn, SVP Fed Reg and Chief Privacy Officer. Here's the feedback I sent:

Dear Mr. Quinn,

I am in receipt of your July 1 letter announcing ATT's new privacy policy with instructions for opting out of two ATT profit-generating programs, one of which sells aggregate customer data to other businesses and another which collects personal data from customers to tailor advertising to them, essentially Googlizing paying ATT customers.

Anyone born before 1970 knows the very American principal from which we've drifted:

If you provide a service to customers, the customers pay; if you want something from
customers, you pay them.

I am aware of all the cocktails on K-Street and all the jurisprudence that makes it legal for you to do what you do. I remain opposed.

Also, your opt-out for your "relevant advertising" program demands that one not only opt out for each device, but for each browser. It also demands that browser settings be altered to save a cookie to maintain this opt-out. This method is inadequate and a burden on customers. I would like to charge you rent for making me store this cookie.

Also, by the way, thanks for all your great work with the NSA and its numerous affiliates.
Sincerely, [etc etc]

Maybe AT&T is providing their business template to the DQC for educational data mining?  This is the private plan for providing information to other businesses and firms.  It's coming to your schools next.  Will you have the chance to opt your publicly educated child out of  data mining? 

Data Quality Campaign Ties Education Data into Workforce Data

From Data Quality Campaign and DQC Gets a New Baby Sister: Workforce Data Quality Campaign:

Category:

• P–20/Workforce Pipeline

The Data Quality Campaign has joined with the Association for Career and Technical Education, CLASP, National Association of State Directors of Career and Technical Education Consortium, National Association of State Workforce Agencies, National Skills Coalition, and New America Foundation to advocate for inclusive, aligned, and relevant education and workforce data. This group of national partners believes that in order to achieve economic growth and shared prosperity, we need data-driven education and training policies that prepare all Americans for a skilled workforce that helps US industries compete in a changing 21st century economy. To that end, we created the Workforce Data Quality Campaign (WDQC) in order to ensure that workforce data systems

• include all students and pathways;
• count industry-recognized credentials as well as degrees;
• assess employment outcomes for all participants;
• expand use of labor market information;
• ensure appropriate data access and use.

And now we have a leader to help us accomplish these goals. Rachel Zinn will join the national partners of the WDQC as the organization’s first director this month. Ms. Zinn is an experienced policy analyst with in-depth knowledge of postsecondary programs and data systems. She has spent the past five years at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where she guided initiatives to enhance data access and usage and developed strong working relationships with key federal and state stakeholders. Her experience as an analyst in both the labor and education branches of OMB make her an ideal candidate to not only lead the data discussion in workforce circles, but to work with DQC to link those priorities to the K–12 and postsecondary education data conversations. DQC welcomes Rachel to the WDQC family, and we look forward to working together.

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

I made a comment and asked some questions to Ms. Zinn but my posting hasn't shown up yet.  The gist of the comment:

From the writer:  The Data Quality Campaign has joined with the Association for Career and Technical Education, CLASP, National Association of State Directors of Career and Technical Education Consortium, National Association of State Workforce Agencies, National Skills Coalition, and New America Foundation to advocate for inclusive, aligned, and relevant education and workforce data. 

What constitutes "inclusive, aligned and relevant" education data to this writer?  Is this just assessment data or does it include personal data on children and families?  These adjectives are non-specific and it would be helpful if the DQC would explain and provide to taxpayers and legislators descriptors and actual data sets of "inclusive, aligned and relevant" education data gathered that will be combined with workforce data.

I would also appreciate knowing who is determining what education data will be gathered,  gathered by what entity, where this data will be sent and disseminated, and for what purpose.  I would also appreciate if you could explain how this information can be gathered on minor children without parental permission.

Do you think I will get an answer?   You might want to ask your own questions to DQC.  Maybe your questions/comments will be posted!

Information on Data Quality Campaign funders:

• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Michael & Susan Dell Foundation
• Alliance for Early Success
• AT&T
• Target

The AT&T designation as a funding organization caught my eye.  That might explain why I received a letter from AT&T few weeks ago stating it was tracking my data and making it available to third parties.  More on that tomorrow.

 

Would Dr. Suess Approve of Data Determining "The Places You'll Go"?

Suess was writing about personal journeys, not about data determining those personal journeys

"Oh, the Places You'll Go!"  Remember the Dr. Suess book with that name?  It's a book given to many graduates as they enter the world.  It's a book about choices, change, risk and growth a young boy faces as he explores life.  Excerpts from a summary of "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" from suite101.com:

Oh The Places You'll Go describes up times and down times, waiting times and stressful times. Here's a summary of this popular kids' book by Dr Seuss.

In the beginning, Dr Seuss writes...
Oh! The Places You'll Go starts with a boy (sorry girls, it's one of those times you just have to lump yourselves in with the guys). Anyway, this boy is starting off on his journey to Great Places. He's "off and away!" He's got brains and feet, and can go in any direction he chooses. He's fresh and excited about his latest adventure, and he knows nothing will stop him.

Decisions in Oh! The Places You'll Go
The boy can choose whether or not to go down certain streets. Dr. Seuss stresses how smart and capable the boy is. And we all are, even us girls (but sometimes we ignore our gut feelings). Oh The Places You'll Go is about making good decisions.

Read the summary (or the book) and you will understand the boy's decisions are up to him on how to live his life. He learns to make good decisions.  He learns life is a series of ups and downs and how to enjoy the good times and stay strong through the hard times.   It's a coming of age book and the character learns the direction of his life is up to him.

When I read the article Oh, the Data We’ll See and the Places We’ll Go! from Data Quality Campaign (DQC) I was speechless.  It is written by a Texas principal, Vera Wehring, about her use of data and how it must be monitored and for what purpose.  My first thought was "Dr. Suess must be turning over in his grave".  She borrows Suess' book title about a character determining his own life's path and turns it into an exercise of using data to determine a student's life.  The student's innate abilities, desires and decisions are now funneled into data sets for school success, not the student's personal success.  From the DQC article:

Individual Students
One of the challenges we have faced as a campus is in not meeting some of the rising accountability standards. Each time scores have been below standards, it has been by just a few students, and students from different subpopulations within our school. Thus we learned that we must look at individual student progress and individual student needs, and then individualize student interventions. To do so, we access student testing trends, projections of future success, and suggested interventions based on student profile. This particular data source helps us identify teachers’ value-added performance, identify students in target groups, and drill down to student detail. These data are used alongside traditional classroom assessments, campus and district assessments, and any other information that may be gleaned about individual students so that all students are monitored to ensure they are reaching their potential and achieving at appropriate academic levels. Progress is monitored by students themselves, classroom teachers, the campus leadership team, and the entire faculty.

Over the last several years, we have established processes and procedures to make data collection, analysis, reflection, and action an ongoing and embedded expectation. We do not claim to be perfect, nor do we claim to have found a panacea for all achievement ills. We do continue to refine and adjust our processes as data points change, teacher and leader capacity grows, and student needs alter.

The responsibility in Suess' world depends on the individual to determine his destiny.  DQC and data driven educators believe the responsibility to determine students' destinies rely on their services based on student data.  Read the entire article and you can understand how swamped these educators are with data driven mandates and how to manage the data requirements:

On a daily basis, principals are bombarded with a myriad of data points. It is easy to take a cursory glance at the piles of data, become overwhelmed, and move on to the next item on our to-do lists. It is also tempting to become bogged down in the data and spend hours on end sorting, analyzing, and then failing to act on them. The most effective leaders prioritize data, analyze them, and use them to make data-informed school improvement decisions.

What this data mining accomplishes is for school improvement benchmarks.  Wehring mentions student individualization, but this individualization is based on standards imposed by data sets.  How is "projection of student success" measured?  If a child doesn't show "promise" by a certain age?  If a child is an auditory learner and material is taught visually, is that child not a projected "success"?   What this principal doesn't seem to understand is that "the places you'll go" isn't about DQC or her data.  It's about taking life by the "hoo-has" and living life to its fullest:

My cousin, Todd Parker, however, has definitely lived up to Dr. Seuss’ philosophy of life. He is a 2003 graduate of Petal High School. He was awarded the Presidential Scholarship from the University of Southern Mississippi and was dedicated to his education.

While in school he worked part time at Purple Parrot where he developed the skill and love for cooking. Against his parents’ advice and the advice of many others, he decided to forfeit his scholarship and head for New York City in pursuit of becoming a chef. That decision took a great deal of courage.

My cousin enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in 2006 in New York City, and the art of cooking became his passion. He completed an eighteen week internship in New Orleans and graduated from the Culinary Institute in 2008.

After graduation he returned to New Orleans and worked for approximately two years when he was asked to move to Germany to expand his education under some of the most world-renowned chefs. So, do you think he jumped on the opportunity? You bet your grits he did.

I propose Dr. Suess had this type of life journey in mind for people rather than a school/data company/government program of placing human capital into specific slots in a managed economy.  Students' futures are not up to administrators, data companies or the government.  The following quote was meant for individuals, not corporations/government agencies making decisions for the individuals: 

“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.”
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!  

Link here for more quotes from "Oh, the Places You'll Go!"

If Principal Wehring is going to use this title of a Suess book to support a data driven agenda, she might want to read the book to understand what she advocates is far from what Dr. Suess meant to convey to readers.  Perhaps she took this tongue in cheek book review as fact and data to support her data driven argument.  This actually is the argument of the managed economists, don't you think?

 

The Architect of Your Future - Data Quality Campaign

We all remember the Life of Julia, where the Obama Administration laid out how government programs were going to affect someone's entire life. But in order for those programs and policies to be there to ferry Julia from one life stage to another, some government agency had to design and implement them. Someone had to anticipate future problems and create programs that would address them. In today's world you only do that with data which is collected, crunched, analyzed and finally used to justify policy. That data collection begins at birth and ends at death. A social security number is applied for at birth which creates a permanent record for that individual. A death certificate is registered at the end of that life.  In the middle other data are collected: a student ID, a driver's license, a mortgage account, a credit report, a criminal record, a health record, etc. All this data tells the story of us. Or it would if it were all easily accessible in one place which up until now has not been possible.

Enter the Data Quality Campaign, whose goal is "to ensure that every citizen is prepared for the knowledge economy." In their most recent document Pivotal Role of Policymakers as Leaders of P–20/Workforce Data Governance the DQC wrote, "Achieving this goal requires unprecedented alignment of policies and practices across the early childhood; elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education; and workforce sectors (P–20W). Consequently, many policy questions require data from multiple agencies to answer."

See, they need data from all these agencies in order to answer policy questions about education.  But they have a problem.  Though states have independent databases that track the information policy makers claim they need (we'll get back to that in a minute) they run into "challenges" accessing this information due to: turf, time, technical issues, and trust.

Challenge 1 Turf - Data is power and money. One does not just casually hand that over to another agency just because the other agency has claimed a need for it. Those who currently manage the data "silos" need assurance that they will not lose control or have another entity assigned oversight on what they do. This is a reasonable concern since education data collection which started in the states has had rules and restrictions placed on it by the states that cannot and should not be violated. DQC's response is to "define clear and distinct roles and responsibilities aligned to commonly established goals. This creates and fosters a culture of shared responsibility..."

Challenge 2 Time - Only so many hours in a day and money to pay people to manage all this data. And since all that money comes from taxpayers, regardless of whether it is a government employee or a government contracted company, there needs to be assurances in place that the time/money is well spent on data management.

Challenge 3 Technical Issues -each agency defines its own data standards and protocols and procedures for data use, making sharing data difficult and inefficient. Here is where DQC can really shine because their goal is to make all these databases talk to each other so sharing data across them is - they use the word efficient, but let's call it - easy.  These inefficiencies and mismatching may be the last  thing protecting your privacy and DQC is working like bunnies to strip that away.

Challenge 4 Trust -"Agencies are concerned about how their data might be used once the data are linked, matched, and shared."  How about parents? Mightn't they be concerned about how this data will be used once matched and shared? Throughout this entire document the people who really "own" this data, the children and those who speak for them, their parents, are never mentioned.


Maybe I came too late to the discussion. When was it discussed that the government had a right to collect and use personal data on every single American? That seems to already have been agreed upon by unelected bureaucrats who don't answer to parents. Here are the Board members of DQC.

Tom Luce, Chair Chairman, National Math and Science Initiative
John Bailey Director, Dutko Worldwide
Tammi Chun Policy Analyst, Office of the Governor, State of Hawaii
Kathy Cox CEO, U.S. Education Delivery Institute
Kati Haycock President, The Education Trust
Bruce Hoyt Former Board Member, Denver Public Schools Board of Education
Sharon Robinson President and CEO, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
Bob Swiggum Chief Information Officer, Georgia Department of Education
Gene Wilhoit Executive Director, Council of Chief State School Officers

Their process looks like this:

• Link Systems to allow for efficient matching of data that have been deemed necessary for specified purposes.
• Match Data to create datasets with connected records on the same individuals from two or more databases.
• Share information to provide participating agencies and institutions knowledge that was unavailable prior to the data matching. 

There are circumstances where some data would be useful. How could colleges improve their course offerings if they didn't track how many of their graduates got jobs and in what fields? How would high schools know whether they were truly preparing their graduates for the real world if they didn't track how many went to college and how many got jobs?

The problem is more in the Field of Dreams area.  If you build it, they will come. If you begin to create a completely integrated data stream of personal data (which everyone always refers to as lacking individually identifiable data, right) with guidelines on how to set up new databases that can link to it and job descriptions that include making sure your data is compatible with the integrated system, you begin to create something so powerful that its governance should not be in the hands of any single individual or agency. Try preventing that from happening.

Most people only look at the privacy issues in terms of the individual databases. So what if someone knows my kid's student ID. Who cares if I'm part of the public record as someone who receives unemployment payments. With groups like DQC working to connect all this data and develop policy on it, who knows what kinds of policies could be developed because of someone's interpretation of that data. Maybe a policy needs to be established that requires an automatic visit by Child Protective Services for every child whose parent has become unemployed because past data showed a statistical potential for neglect when a parent loses a job.

The bigger issue is that government agencies will be self directed by data to address problems that the public has not asked to be addressed.  Our elected representatives could, in essence, be replaced by databases.  Whatever efficiencies or solutions might be gained by creating such a system should be weighed heavily against the possibility of such systems being abused by someone you don't agree with. In addition should always be the concern of  such data being compromised, maybe even from entities outside the U.S. One of the key elements in the P-20 system is that it be accessible. That means, by definition, outside entities need to have a way in. There is no such thing as a completely secure system that needs broad access and any honest IT person will confirm that. So how much data do we want to put in such a system?  Has anyone asked us?


 

Look Who Else Is Concerned About Data Collection and Privacy

We have been warning parents about the potential for their child's personal data to be widely shared across government agencies and with private interests who claim some link to education. Now teachers are beginning to realize that they will be part of the data collection process and their entire teaching careers will be tracked, assessed, and possibly publicized.

Anthony Cody at EducationWeek Teacher posted a great piece a couple months ago summing up the concerns with the longitudinal data systems.

What will it mean for every one of the nation's 50 million students to have a unique ID number, and be included in a national database that tracks every test they ever take? And teachers will get ID numbers as well, so the database can track the test performance of our students over our entire careers...

The core of the technocrats' push to reshape education is the all-powerful DATA that they believe ought to be driving all of our decisions...

The Gates Foundation has been funding an organization called the Data Quality Campaign, which operates to pressure states to develop "longitudinal data systems" to track student and teacher test performance in fine detail over time. In much the same way the NCTQ is in the process of rating schools of education across the country, and the Media Bullpen is acting as self-appointed "umpires" to "hold the media accountable," the DQC has developed a system to give "grades" to states for their educational data systems. To get their seal of approval, state data systems must have the following ten features:

1. A unique statewide student identifier that connects student data across key databases across years.
2. Information about each student's demographics and participation in programs like Free and Reduced lunch.
3. The ability to match individual students' test records from year to year to measure academic growth.
4. Information on untested students and the reasons they were not tested
5. Statewide Teacher Identifier with a Teacher-Student Match. This enables the use of VAM systems, and also the comparison of teachers from different teacher preparation programs.
6. Student-level transcript information, including information on courses completed and grades earned.
7. Student-level college readiness test scores
8. Student-level graduation and dropout data
9. The ability to match student records between the P-12 and higher education systems
10. A state data audit system assessing data quality, validity and reliability

As usual, Arne Duncan's Department of Education is in lockstep with these ideas. They have made the expansion of data systems a central feature of Race to the Top and the NCLB waivers. States are being asked to develop systems very much along the lines laid out by the Data Quality Council, and the DQC's recent summit in Washington featured Arne Duncan and Michelle Rhee - that expert on quality data -- as speakers..

It seems as if we will then have, in effect, a nationwide data system with detailed information about every single person enrolled in a public school. (emphasis added)

If the data collected were only used in accordance with its true value, we might not have such a reason for concern. But as we are seeing with the VAM fiasco in New York, where dedicated teachers are being pilloried in the press because of a flawed system.

Mr. Cody correctly points out in his piece that once the collection system itself is put in place, even its designers lose control of the data within. And with DoEd's new broad distribution powers there can be no serious guarantee of the data's protection.

Rupert Murdoch's Wireless Generation received $7.65 million in seed money from The Gates Foundation to support the creation of a special LLC, which will then funnel $44 million to Wireless Generation to create a national student and teacher database.  Why invest so heavily in a system that currently has no access to district data? Because all the requirements of RTTT will force districts into providing this data. Once Wireless Generation has it, they can "crunch" it and sell it back to districts which is a nice revenue stream. Once the national standards and uniform assessments have been forced into every district, it will make manipulation, oops sorry, analysis of this data much much easier.

Cody writes,

This is the trouble with technology. You can create tools, but often the tools themselves wind up only leading you towards solutions that they can provide. If our data consists of test scores, we seek ways to boost them, even if they only represent a fraction of what truly matters.

It would be one thing if this data was the magical tool its adherents claim. They suggest that low performing districts do best when they "become obsessive over using data to drive instruction." But we have collectively obsessed over data for more than a decade now, thanks to NCLB, and we have very little progress to show for it. 

The national obsession with data seems more like a business development model than a bonafide tactic to improve education. Teachers have been evaluating student progress for more than a century.  The good ones, who have the time because they aren't busy collecting the next sector of data, can work with students who seem not to be getting it. Teaching requires time and care. You have to have the time to teach what you want to pass on the students and you have to care about each of them learning and developing. A business is only concerned with efficiency, data and profit. Why are we trying to apply one model to the other field?

To read more on data collection go to:

The National Education Data Model website, which reveals the incredibly detailed data that the technocrats would like to assemble.

The Department of Education rules designed to protect student privacy. It's good because rules are never broken.

The Education Reformer Cabal (Rhee, Duncan, Gates) Gets Called out at a Data Quality Campaign Conference. It was NOT Appreciated.

The Data Quality Campaign group had a meeting in Washington DC yesterday about the data to be extracted and supplied by public school children.  From the DQC website:
 
Over the next three years, the DQC will continue to assist states in developing data systems based on the 10 essential elements and in using the information to improve student performance. To help ensure that states benefit from their infrastructure investments, the DQC will focus on two high-priority needs: building demand for the newly available information and helping state agencies assist all stakeholders in harnessing this powerful source of information.

Students are now seen as possessing powerful sources of information for the state agencies.  They are not kids eager to learn, they are now to be data driven widgets to supply the workforce.  Visit the website and surf around.  You can see the tentacles grabbing the data starting in Pre-K on your human capital, sharing it with other states and federal agencies.  Do you still think the common core standards (enacted and necessary for data to be shared across state lines) are state led when the data is mandated to be shared with the Federal government?


In 2005, the Data Quality Campaign (DQC) identified the 10 Essential Elements of a Statewide Longitudinal Data System to provide a roadmap for state policymakers as they built statewide longitudinal data systems designed to collect, store, and use longitudinal data to improve student achievement and outcomes. In 2007, through the America COMPETES Act (Public Law 110–69), the federal government codified twelve “Required Elements of a P-16 Education Data System.” In 2009, through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), the federal government required states, as a condition of receiving State Fiscal Stabilization Funds, to commit to building a data system which consists of these elements. The subsequent cycle of the federal Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) program, known as the FY 2009 ARRA grants, required that any statewide longitudinal data system supported with the funds must include the 12 COMPETES Act elements. States are required to report annually on their progress in implementing a statewide longitudinal data system that includes the 12 COMPETES elements.

Anyone who still believes the adoption of Common Core Standards was state led must write on the board 100 times (do they still have chalkboards in school?) the definition of "coercion".  In fact, the adoption of common core standards should not be labeled state "led", it is state "coerced":

The intimidation of a victim to compel the individual to do some act against his or her will by the use of psychological pressure, physical force, or threats.

DQC provides the roadmap.  The states didn't come up with the road map.  States are following a script.  That's not leading any reform.  DQC is partially funded by the Bill Gates Foundation.  That's a clever way to make more money, isn't it?  Fund a company which provides services as a result of the mandates from the Federal Government....and the taxpayers have to pay for the mandates.  This is the new definition of entrepreneurship.  Don't use your own money to risk success.  Use taxpayer funding to provide money for mandated programs you helped create that will ultimately provide your company with increased business.

One brave retired math teacher (who should know something about numbers and how research is gathered and interpreted) showed up yesterday at the DQC conference providing information on data quality and information about some of the speakers.  He gave pamphlets to attendees on how data is easily skewed so education reformers such as Michelle Rhee and Arne Duncan can make their claims that data and technology are imperative to ensure education excellence.  The DQC didn't want any other research other than theirs presented.  He was asked to leave by a policeman and he complied.

So much for the critical learning and research skills these same education reformers claim they want to impart to students.  The lesson really is: If you have enough money, lobbyists and politicians in your pocket, your data is what you want it to represent.


From GFBrandenberg's Blog:

So much for freedom of speech…

…  if it goes against the agenda of the ultra-rich and their acolytes, one might somehow suspect.
There I was, in a neatly pressed and clean suit and tie, having registered early on-line. I had still had my registration documents (not much) and was holding some pieces of paper, just like many others there. The problem is that I was giving some of those papers out.

At a conference on data quality.

What is this world coming to?

I was giving out a leaflet discussing — data quality and information about some of the speakers. Not positive towards a couple of the speakers, to be accurate. Someone in the conference administration asked me to give up the leaflets, which I declined to do. Soon I was talking to security officers, who told me that I was not allowed to be in the hotel, at the specific request of the tenant — that is, the “Data Quality Campaign” management.

Guess that someone over there reads my blog pretty carefully? Just wonderful … wish I didn’t have readers like that.

Let me also point out that DCQ is a Gates-funded group. Arne Duncan, and Michelle Rhee are both on the agenda of this conference today as speakers… I have been highly critical of them and have given the press and the public access to a lot of data that I could only find by pretty hard searching myself, and that most likely, most other people wouldn’t have found out on their own. Data which shows that the goals and methods and conclusions of this Gates/Duncan/Rhee group are all mistaken at best or perhaps malign.

Nobody beat me up or anything, but I was only able to give out a dozen or so leaflets while I was standing near the front of the auditorium, just outside the Kinko’s where I had my leaflets copied. (Most expensive Kinko’s I’ve ever been to! DAAG! 20 cents per page, per side!) So these things I was giving away were worth forty cents each, plus tax. Man, I was being generous! (Or that’s what I should have said, but didn’t think of saying at the time.)

I wasn’t interested in getting into a shoving match or being picked up or arrested.

So I walked outside and gave out a few there and went home and then wrote this.

You can read the "subversive" pamphlet here.  Why would DQC be so concerned about a retired math teacher's data?