Even More School Data Sharing Requested by the Office of Civil Rights. Send in Your Comments on this Proposal by August 20, 2013.

Will this data become individualized and shared? This is an important question to ask the Office of Civil Rights in your comments on its proposal for increased educational data.

The US Department's Office of Civil Rights has proposed in the Federal Register that it wants to gather more data on social behaviors to determine if students' civil rights are being violated in educational settings. According to EdWeek, this proposal states that the questions will be aggregate in nature:

The 2009-10 version zeroed in on school discipline issues, including asking districts how students were disciplined, including whether by suspension, expulsion, or by corporal punishment. Schools had to report how the punishment was meted out and break those figures down by students' race, gender, and disability. All of the information became public last year.

But some civil rights and education groups wanted more details about those data points. They could get it, if these proposed changes to the so-called civil rights data collection are adopted. Some of the new questions the department wants to ask—generally disaggregated by race, sex, disability status, and English-proficiency status:  (include discipline, athletics, early childhood education, college and career readiness, personnel)

Could some civil rights and education groups want more detail on individual student data? Do you think this information will not be noted in individual data sets?  The proposal does not state that the information will not include the mining of individual student information. The P20 Longitudinal Data Systems have been set up to capture individual student data, academic and personal.  Arne Duncan rewrote FERPA to allow individual data to be gathered and shared with various federal agencies and private firms, so color me skeptical that this information will be kept in aggregate form in some data sets.

If the Office of Civil Rights is granted access to this information from schools, the proposal should include that student information will never be data mined nor available to any federal agency, school, district or private research firm from an individual data set.  If no individual information is to be gathered, then there wouldn't be any reason for FERPA to be changed.  It doesn't make sense that this information would indeed stay in aggregate form.

Comments are asked for in the Federal Register and are due on or before August 20, 2013. Send your comments on individual data mining (or other comments on increased data gathering on social issues) to the Department of Civil Rights on or before August 20, 2013.  Comments may sent to:

http://www.regulations.gov by selecting Docket ID Number ED-2013-ICCD-0079 

or read the Federal Register (below) for alternative ways to send your comments.

From EdWeek and Next Massive Federal Data Drive Could Dig Further Into Discipline:

The next federal collection of data about every U.S. school district could probe districts further on how students are disciplined, how many pre-K kids are spanked, and whether bullies harassed classmates because of their religion or because they thought their peer was lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

The U.S. Department's office for civil rights last week asked for public comment on these and other questions it hopes to ask of every district in the country during the 2013-14 and 2015-16 school years. (MEW note: The above link is the link to the Federal Register)

About every two years since 1968, the civil rights office has collected data from a selection of districts to monitor and enforce civil rights laws. (Check out some of the EdWeek reporting on the data.) The 2009-10 version captured information about 85 percent of public school students in the country and the 2011-12 iteration, which just wrapped up, took on all districts and schools nationwide. (A quarter of those districts have just one school, a federal education department spokesman said.)

The 2009-10 version zeroed in on school discipline issues, including asking districts how students were disciplined, including whether by suspension, expulsion, or by corporal punishment. Schools had to report how the punishment was meted out and break those figures down by students' race, gender, and disability. All of the information became public last year.

But some civil rights and education groups wanted more details about those data points. They could get it, if these proposed changes to the so-called civil rights data collection are adopted. Some of the new questions the department wants to ask—generally disaggregated by race, sex, disability status, and English-proficiency status:
Discipline

• How many allegations of harassment or bullying of K-12 students were on the basis of perceptions about sexual orientation or religion? (The department spokesman told me that this doesn't give schools the right to ask about a victim's LGBT status or their religion. "This is focusing on the likely motive of the alleged harasser not the actual status of victim," he said.)


• How many students without disabilities, and how many with 504 plans, were removed from school for disciplinary reasons and sent to another school or an alternative school?


• How many students ages 3-5 in preschool received corporal punishment?


• How many times were students in preschool through 12th grade corporally punished? (So this goes beyond collecting information about how many students were spanked and captures students who were repeatedly disciplined this way.)


• How many school days did students miss, collectively, because they were suspended out of school?


• How many of the following incidents would trigger disciplinary action, including referrals to law enforcement and arrests: robbery with a weapon, with a firearm or explosive device, or without a weapon; physical attack or fight with a weapon, without a weapon, or with a firearm or explosive; rape or attempted rape; incidents of sexual battery other than rape; possession of a firearm or explosive; whether students, faculty, or staff died as a result of a murder at school; whether there was an incident at the school that involved a shooting.

Athletics

• Did any students participate in single-sex athletics?

Early Childhood Education

• Does the district offer full- or part-day kindergarten because of state law and is there any cost for parents?

College and Career Readiness

• Are students taking distance-education courses, and if so how many do?


• Are students taking dual-enrollment or dual-credit courses, and if so, how many do?


• Do any students participate in credit recovery programs?


• How many students were absent 15 or more days?


• How many students took an AP exam of any kind, including in a foreign language?


• How many 7th grade students took Algebra 1? How many passed?

Personnel

• How many school psychologists, social workers, security guards, school resource officers, and sworn law enforcement officers are on staff?

Some of the 2009-10 data weren't very accurate. But an Education Department spokesman said the 2011-12 collection built in additional steps to ensure better quality data, including giving districts time to adjust information provided after a federal review, and those efforts would be enhanced in the 2013-14 and 2015-16 collections.

Many districts found the entire process to be a pain in the neck, and they are likely to weigh in with those concerns considering the proposed data collections would be even bigger.

The 2015-16 version could also be done as a representative sample of the country instead, the department spokesman said.

The proposed changes have to get through a 60-day public comment period, revisions, another 30-day comment period, and the Office of Management & Budget before becoming final.

Follow Rules for Engagement on Twitter @Rulz4Engagement and Education Week Staff Writer Nirvi Shah on Twitter @NirviShah.

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This  paragraph from the article contains ambiguous language from the Department of Education and needs to be clarified by the USDOEd:

Some of the 2009-10 data weren't very accurate. But an Education Department spokesman said the 2011-12 collection built in additional steps to ensure better quality data, including giving districts time to adjust information provided after a federal review, and those efforts would be enhanced in the 2013-14 and 2015-16 collections.

Questions:

• What are the additional steps?
• What is better quality data? (Is it that it is individualized for better tracking?)
• What does "adjust information" mean?  Provide more individualized information to ensure additional information?

The details need to be provided on exactly what efforts are "enhanced" in the 2013-14 and 2015-16 collections.

Last question:

• Is it a civil right to not be identified in a massive data sweep in educational settings?

A Search Engine that Doesn't Capture Your Personal Data

Reclaim your power to keep your personal information.  That's our mantra for parents and taxpayers.  If you reclaim your power from Google and Facebook by not using those sites,  we should have the right to send our kids to public schools that don't individually track them and send their data to various federal agencies and private companies.  

Can we put DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg in charge of the Department of Education instead of Arne Duncan?  Weinberg understands aggregate data can be helpful but has no interest in personal data retrieval.  We need a Secretary of Education who agrees with that belief.

From cnbc.com and DuckDuckGo Search Engine Gets Boost After PRISM Scandal:

The 'anonymous' search engine DuckDuckGo is getting a boost off the PRISM scandal that is putting big tech companies like Google and Apple to shame.

(Read More: How Prism Might Work, and Why That Matters to Congress and You )

DuckDuckGo, a search engine that claims it gives its users complete anonymity, has seen a 33 percent increase in users since the NSA news broke over a week ago, said founder and CEO Gabriel Weinberg on CNBC's Closing Bell Tuesday.

"We always knew people didn't want to be tracked, but what hadn't happened was reporting on the private alternatives and so it's no surprise that people are making a choice to switch to things that that will give them great results and also have real privacy," Weinberg said.

Basically, most tech companies store user information—like searches, email account data, searches on social platforms—in data warehouses, so that it can be accessed again. But DuckDuckGo opts to throw any of that information away and not to save it, Weinberg said.

While the default settings on the search engine are set to not track users' searches or any personal information, if a user changes these settings, information about the user could still leak out, according to the company's privacy policy.


(Read More: Leaker's Employer Became Wealthy Through Government Secrets )

The policy states:
"We also save searches, but again, not in a personally identifiable way, as we do not store IP addresses or unique User agent strings. We use aggregate, non-personal search data to improve things like misspellings...If you turn redirects off in the settings and you don't either turn POST on or use our encrypted site, then your search could leak to sites you click on. Yet as explained above, this does not happen by default."
 
Big tech companies—like Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple—all were subject to thousands of government inquiries about user information. DuckDuckGo, though, didn't have the government knocking on their door. 

"We had zero inquiries and the reason for that is because we don't store any data," Weinberg said. "So if they come to us—which they know because it's in our privacy policy—we have nothing to hand over, it's all anonymous data."


But that doesn't mean the government can't come after any information that the user has chosen to share by changing their default settings.

The privacy policy clearly states that "... like anyone else, we will comply with court ordered legal requests. However, in our case, we don't expect any because there is nothing useful to give them since we don't collect any personal information.
 
_ By CNBC's Cadie Thompson. Follow her on Twitter

@CadieThompson

Watch an interview with Weinberg here.  Now if only people would be as proactive in demanding no personal information being shared on their children.....

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DESE Commissioner Doesn't Like Citizen's Question on Data Gathering

Dottie Bailey covered the hearing on SB210 House Education Committee yesterday.  She caught up with Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro after her testimony, wanting to ask her about the state's move from collecting aggregate student data collection to a student level data collection system.  A question that has not been satisfactorily answered in any of the May 2 DESE hearings is if individual student data is being gathered by DESE and if so, where that individual data is being sent.  Dottie attempted to ask the commissioner that question and this is what happened:

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From Notes and phone slapped down by Chris Nicastro…for asking a question:
 

On Monday May 13th, 2013 I made my way down to Missouri’s Capitol, Jefferson City.  I wanted to attend the SB210 House Education Hearing Committee meeting regarding Common Core.  SB210 is not massive legislation, it is just asking for DESE (Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) to have meetings in each of the 8 Congressional Districts in Missouri.

Just doing my duty as a citizen journalist, I got a statement from the bill’s sponsor Representative Kurt Bahr and a few other Representatives on the committee.

Not shocked but disappointed there was not one other journalist in the entire Capitol from what I could tell. I thought the place would and should be covered with them regarding this major news story and the general public’s interest.  But who was I kidding, crickets made louder noises.  

Additionally, this Friday, May 17th is the end of this legislative session.  I peeked in on the gallery floor from the second floor and it looked like little ants with laptops running amock.  The only one with any poise or maybe it was the gavel, but the Speaker seemed to have everything under control and was directing traffic with ease.

Another reason I went to Jefferson City that Monday is that I wanted to try and get a statement, you know since I’m in the neighborhood.  A statement from someone in DESE regarding the recent audit that showed an unaccounted for amount of $130 million dollars.  Easy enough or so I thought, silly citizen journalist…

During earlier discussions of SB210, it was found that DESE has not followed the foundation formula used to distribute the $130 million dollars to the districts. One of the amendments was to have an interim committee look into this situation. (See my previous blog) However before the hearing on Monday I found out that amendment had been taken out.  O.K., no problem, I can still ask the question that no one is asking.

Many people in Missouri and around the country are concerned about Common Core and it’s data collection aspirations.  This is one of the items the people want more clarification on from DESE.  They want to ask their own questions, just not be spoken to like third graders. Up to this point DESE delivers their talking points and says how great the Common Core Standards are going to be……enter the love music..ugh.

I had in my possession, a screen shot from DESE’s own website regarding the sharing of information to the Federal government.  You can go to their website and see it for yourself here.  The whole overview but particularly the last paragraph states that instead of data being collected as aggregate now will transition into being collected on an individual level.

Half way through the hearing, the Commissioner of Education, Chris Nicastro was speaking.  She went on and on about the wonders of Common Core.  One of the Representatives asked about the cost of broadband needed for the assessments to take place.  Commissioner Nicastro said, “I believe that broadband should be a Civil Right.” No I am not kidding.  The room erupted in laughter trying to hide their disgust.  Hey John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, you guys forgot something in the Constitution…Life, Liberty and unlimited access to 24/7 Broadband.  Truly the Founders did a couple back flips in their graves.

Near the end of her time given to speak she was asked about the sharing of individual student’s data being shared with the government.  She assured everyone that only aggregate information would be shared.  The little hairs stood up on the back of my neck as I had the screen shot from DESE’s website laying in hands.  She started to get up, I grabbed my phone and the stranger next to me and said “let’s go”.  I turned on the camera on the phone and we followed her.  I asked her very kindly if I could ask her some questions.  She barked at me and said she didn’t have time.  Again I very kindly said, no problem I would walk her out.  She asked who I was and who I’m with….she rolled her eyes.  I persisted and asked her to explain her comments before and the contradictory screen shot I was holding in my hand.  She mumbled something and then slapped the paper out of my hand.  Then turned to the girl holding my camera phone and slapped the phone too.  But the camera girl caught the phone before it hit the ground.  She walked quickly away and I said “Thank you”…didn’t really know what to say…..

I was shocked and a little startled that she retaliated in that way.  I really thought with her position and caliber of being a professional educator she would conduct herself in a manner of integrity and grace.  Boy, was I wrong….it was Slapfest–Hissyfit 2013 in the basement of the Capitol building.  But what should I expect from someone telling untruths and then being confronted on them.  If she was telling the truth wouldn’t she have just told me I was incorrect and to check again.

They bummer part is my battery on my phone died and we only got half of the quick walk to the garage.  My camera girl and I are the witnesses to the slap fit Ms. Nicastro had but it reminds me that people trying to hide something usually act out like children.

Needless to say I didn’t get a statement regarding the unaccounted for $130 million dollars.  But I will be following up on that story.

So what are your thoughts?  Do you think it was a reasonable or ridiculous behavior by an appointed government official?