Look at What the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor Want to Know About Your Public Education Student

We posted previously on the Longitudinal Data Systems (LDS) being implemented as an integral part of the common core standards and Race to the Top, and Kathy Wilmot's presentation on the ramifications of this system.

We noted LDS is a nationwide data system to note and share information between federal agencies and states on student intellectual and personal development. What type of information will be shared? Here's the list of the information gathered on each student from the Education Data Model. Please link on the list so you can see for yourself how many data questions may be required from your student to answer. 351 data attributes are being entered on your student's record to share with other states, educational and research institutions and federal agencies.

What type of attributes do the Department of Education, Department of Labor and Department of Health and Human Services want to know about your student?

These agencies want to know information such as dental prosthetics, family income, gestational age at birth, number of teeth, weight, weight at birth....and on and on. Some of these questions pertain to educational concerns, but is much of this data pertinent for educational reasons?

Much of this information may not be so pertinent for educational experience, but rather important to know in channeling students to certain positions in the workforce or profiling your student for perhaps other reasons. This one is stunning and I can't figure out why the government believes it is necessary to know about your student:

Voting Status

Source: Handbooks
An indication as to whether an individual is registered to vote in public elections.

Code Set:

• Registered - N/A
• Not registered - N/A
• Not eligible to vote - N/A

Is this the type of information you believe should be shared across federal agencies? What is the purpose of such a question? This information is a private decision by a citizen whether he/she is registered to vote...or not. Oh, by the way, this is another set of data shared about your child:

Overall Health Status

Source: Handbooks
The state of a child''s physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Code Set:

• Very good - N/A
• Excellent - N/A
• Fair - N/A
• Poor - N/A
• Good - N/A

If you are a parent of an adolescent or have survived that stage with your child, you might agree with me these can be turbulent years due to hormones. Who decides on the "state of a child's physical, mental, and social well-being?" The parents? The school counselor? Data can be entered on the student's personality traits. Why is that? Does this information being shared with the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services profile a student in his/her future endeavors?

We'll talk tomorrow about a software company providing LDS services for one state in an educational consortium and how it refers to your human capital (student) and what is expected of that human capital. This all ties in with Ms. Wilmot's presentation.

It's important to understand how much information will be gathered on human capital in the quest for educational reform and entry into the workforce. Just what does your child's oral condition, eye color and information on family income (including ALL income streams) have to do with providing education to your child?

Oral Soft Tissue Condition

Source: Handbooks
The condition of the tongue, lips, palate, floor of mouth, and inner cheeks.

Code Set:

• Normal tissue - Tissues appear healthy.
• Mild tissue deviation - Tissues have slight bleeding and/or enlargement.
• Moderate tissue deviation - Tissues exhibit a lesion of small size (e.g., a cold sore or cold blister) which has persisted for fewer than 10 days.
• Severe tissue deviation - Tissues exhibit an obvious lesion (e.g., an ulcer or new growth) which has persisted for more than 10 days.

Eye Color

Source: Handbooks
The color that best describes an individual's eyes.

Code Set:

• Black - N/A
• Brown - N/A
• Red - N/A
• Blue - N/A
• Green - N/A
• + 3 More Codes...

Family Income Range

Source: Handbooks
The category which best represents the total combined income during the past 12 months of all members of the family who share financial responsibility in a household. This includes money from jobs, net income from business, farm or rent, pensions, dividends, interest, social security payments and any other money income received by members of the family.

Code Set:

• $0-2,999 - N/A
• $3,000 to 5,999 - N/A
• $6,000 to 8,999 - N/A
• $9,000 to 11,999 - N/A
• $12,000 to 14,999 - N/A
• + 10 More Codes...

Why haven't we heard from legislators and civil rights agencies protesting the invasion of privacy? Why is the government obtaining this information on our children from birth for "educational purposes"?

Human Capital Being Groomed for the Workforce. Is this the Function of Education?

We begin our synopsis of Kathy Wilmot's presentation at the Constitution Coalition meeting about the implementation of the Longitudinal Data System (LDS) in the states through either Race to the Top mandates or as a requirement when signing on to common core standards.

Ms. Wilmot attended a US Department of Education conference in September 2009 entitled "Leveraging ARRA (American Reinvestment and Recovery Act) and Other Federal Funding Sources for P-20/Workforce LDS (Longitudinal Data System)". The webcast of the conference may be accessed here. It is two hours long, so we will condense what is in the webcast and Ms. Wilmot's presentation of the webcast over the next several days.


The conference was moderated by Aimee Rogstad Guidera, Executive Director, Data Quality Campaign. She gave a brief introduction of the history of LDS in terms of function and funding. The funding came from stimulus funds. She indicated that systems now are close to being operational, and this would mean the government would know when children are ready for school and the workforce. (Note this conference was held in September 2009, before Race to the Top or common core standards had been introduced to the states for their review or adoption).

Pay attention to the theme of this conference as we talk about it over the next few days. There is much emphasis on tracking children from birth to age 20 and into the workforce...this is what the "P-20/Workforce" designation means in the title of the conference. This is the function of a longitudinal data system; to track students and their information. What information they are using to track your child is not only name, address and phone number, but also personality traits, family situations (social and wage information), ancestry information, and baptism information. These are just a few of the tracking "cookies" attached to your student. We will be referring to the student as "human capital", the preferred name to describe students in Race to the Top and LDS language.

The human capital tag is important in this discussion. After hearing Ms. Wilmot and listening to the webcast, it is apparent your child is a commodity being prepared for the workforce. That's the premise behind Race to the Top, common core standards, and the use of LDS. It is imperative to track children to determine their strengths and weaknesses so they may be placed in the correct job according to their temperament and educational standing.

Here is a document from the US Government detailing a National Broadband Plan and its mission is as follows:

The United States has some of the best schools and research universities in the world and produces top professionals in every industry. The public education system has effectively developed a workforce for the industrial age, and its graduates have helped the United States become the most prosperous nation in the world.

However, the demands of the new information-based economy require substantial changes to the existing system. American businesses have pointed to a widening gap between the skills of graduates and modern workforce demands.¹ The U.S. Department of Labor predicts “occupations that usually require a postsecondary degree or award are expected to account for nearly half of all new jobs from 2008 to 2018.”² The 21st century workplace requires both a better-educated and a differently educated work force.

Keep your eyes open when you see quotes about the "work force". As Ms. Wilmot stated in her speech about the government's role in this reform movement: "you know where you want the people to go, you know where you want your end result to be, so you begin backward planning" to obtain that result. This is what common core standards and the LDS can achieve: a differently educated work force for the 21st century workplace. Human capital must supply the workforce and the human capital will be assessed at how well it can be used in that workforce.

We'll talk tomorrow about why Ms. Wilmot's and the government's own documentation suggests this has less to do with education and more to do with supplying human capital into pre-determined slots. The line "it's all for the children" might not hold true in this newest educational experiment.