On Data Driven Pronouncements: "They Were Wrong, it was Possible".

Data is King...or is it?

Watch the video below about a physically challenged Vietnam vet and his quest to remake his life despite doctors' findings based on his medical data.  Frame the video in terms of educational data driven sets determining a student's place in society.  Imagine a student struggling educationally in the place of the vet as you watch what he goes through to improve his situation.  The doctors told him he would never walk again without braces.  Expand the scenario.  A teacher looks at a data set and determines this student is not really doing well in class: 

• Maybe this student has a different learning style than how the teacher must teach.  
• Maybe this student needs more time to complete assignments.  
• Maybe this student needs checking for understanding the facts (not the process) before he/she can master a math problem.  

Haven't we all known students (or been one of these students) who don't "fit the common mold" of educational expectations?  Why will Common Core standards help these students and do you believe amassing voluminous amount of data on children will improve their education?  When will the teachers have time to teach if they are continually sifting through data?

According to the education reformers global plan to create a managed workforce based on data, "data is king" and will predict your student's placement into society.  This vet's future was determined by his physical data.  But something interesting happens to the vet.  He decided his life was not data driven.

Listen to Arthur's statement at 3:12.

From the youtube description:

His story is proof, that we cannot place limits on what we are capable of doing, because we often do not know our own potential. Neither Arthur, nor Dallas knew what he would go on to accomplish, but this video speaks for itself. In less than a year, Arthur completely transformed his life. If only he had known what he was capable of, 15 years earlier.

Do not waste any time thinking you are stuck - you can take control over your life, and change it faster than you might think.

Hopefully this story can inspire you to follow your dreams - whatever they may be.

One last thought: Not only do we often do not know our own potential, neither can data sets designed to track students cradle to grave predict human potential.

FERPA Explained to Parents. A Crystal Ball Moment?

Will my child be successful in school?  Look to the data....or maybe not?

The Federal Government believes data is king and wants to track school children from birth through their lives for workforce development.  It's shrouded as education reform, but it is really for the establishment of state longitudinal data systems to connect with various federal agencies and approved private firms to collect data on your child to establish a managed workforce.

Data will set your child's educational/career path and the Federal government believes this data will dictate your child's future.  Don't worry yourself that you/your child will be faced with choices, responsibilities, teenage angst, etc.  By setting up these data systems, the future will be clear and the Federal government will direct your child.

To accomplish this data gathering, FERPA regulations have been relaxed so more entities have access to your student's information.  Worried about data being shared on your child with agencies/companies without your knowledge?  Never fear, taxpayer.  FERPA is soothing your fears and explaining how this data sharing is advantageous and necessary for educational success.  The government has created a document for parents to assure them this data will equip the government to ensure students receive a quality education:

 
It is important to ensure that all students have access to a quality education. Parents should be able to take an active role in their child’s education and know answers to some basic questions about their child’s likely future success.


We take exception to the last sentence when it states "parents should be able to take an active role in their child's education".  It should read "parents have the primary and ultimate responsibility in directing their child's education".  This is the difference between government taking responsibility for your child's learning via data gathering vs parents/children holding themselves responsible for their educational progress or lack of progress.  Since when did it become the prevailing thought that parents "should be able" to take an active role in their child's education?  When did parents need permission to have the primary responsiblity for their child's educational direction?

The document contains questions parents might theoretically ask about their child's future success.  The answers (according to the government) ostensibly can be obtained by computing the data gathered on children from birth.  MEW's editors (Gretchen in red; Anngie in blue) have answered these questions from a  parental/student directed view of education, not a data driven pronouncement of failure or success:



• When my son leaves his early childhood program, will he be prepared for kindergarten? We guess that depends on how willing he is and how able he is to learn.  A more important question is why is he in early childhood in the first place?  Do you want your child tracked from birth for the government's/workforce's interests? Do you even know what being prepared for kindergarten means? Your own past, where begin prepared meant you had on matching shoes  and knew not to eat paste, is not a good starting place. If you want to go on blind faith that some government sponsored program is giving him all he needs you can, but if he turns out to be unprepared, do you think you might have had a role in his unpreparedness?

 
• Does my daughter’s school have large achievement gaps between subgroups of students? Are the gaps closing?  That's a good question.  We (the Federal government) are solely concerned about achievement gaps between subgroups.  If your daughter is in a lower subgroup, we will have standards/assessments that will help her perform better.   

In fact, if your daughter is in Florida and is in a lower performing subgroup, she will not have to attain a high percentage of achievement. 

If your daughter is Asian or Caucasian, we really don't care about her.  Those achievement scores are high enough, we want to spend our resources on the lower groups.  And dear reader, notice we don't really care about individual achievement.  We are only concerned about tracking students as subgroups.  That's imperative for the data.  Forget about individualism.  It's all about the "community" and subgroups now.

 
• What are my daughter’s chances of graduating from high school?  As long as she keeps her grades up, doesn't get pregnant or become a drug/alcohol addict, she'll have a good chance.  And oh, by the way, strong parenting and sense of responsibility might just be a factor in her chances of graduating. Didn't we address this back in kindergarten? Whether she graduates or not depends on how high YOUR motivation for her to graduate is. Seeing as you haven't figured this out in 12 years we must say we have our doubts about your daughter's chances. Still expecting a government bureaucracy to guarantee this for you tells us she is fighting an uphill battle.

• What percentage of children at my son’s high school take the ACT/SAT and what’s the average score? This is important as well.  Don't worry about this.  Many schools are now paying for students to take the ACT/SAT even if the student doesn't want to go to college or is not intellectually equipped for college. Still concerned about average performance? Your children really do have a challenge don't they?

• What courses should my son take if he wants to be prepared for college?  If he wants to be an engineer, math/science.  If he wants to be a writer, literature/English courses.  Why ask such a question? Along with the usual English, math, and science, we would also recommend that he take a course in economics and one in personal finance. If he is going to go to college, he will need to understand the horrific debt he will start his adult life out with thanks to outrageous increases in college tuition over the last two decades. A basic economic course will show how the ready government supply of tuition loans has enabled universities to continuously increase their tuition, by much as a 400% in some cases.  If your son's high school or local community college offers a course in contract law, that would also be helpful so he can understand the terms in the contract he will be asked to sign for these loans which states they will never be forgiven thanks to sections of the 2010 Health Care Act.

• Is my son likely to need to take remedial courses in college to catch-up or will he be prepared?  We guess it depends on him and the school district.  You know, it's really about responsibility here.

 
• When my daughter graduates from college, will she be able to find a job and how much will she earn?  Well, as companies are depleting their workforce due to Obamacare, it is doubtful she will be able to find a job and if she does, it will probably be part time.  We remain optimistic as the current administration has attempted to turn our public school system into a mammoth jobs training program. However, they have also scaled down a full work week to 30 hours and consider any employment a success. As such her ability to earn will be limited. Our entire economy may be filled like Hollywood restaurants with waiters, waitresses and barristas with liberal arts degrees waiting for their chance at the career they really want.

The government still insists it has the ingredient necessary for educational success (I can't refer to it as "educational excellence"):

States have been working to establish longitudinal data systems to help answer these questions, and to determine what works and what doesn’t when it comes to our children’s education.

Leave it to data sets and data systems to determine what works in your child's education.  Take away personal choice, responsibility, inherent ability, family situations, unplanned pregnancy, drug use, recessions/depressions, lack of jobs, etc.  It's all about the data and this data will provide the answers to the questions above.  Don't worry your head (turn in your parent card) about your responsibilities and certainly don't demand responsibility from your student.  Personal responsibility isn't relevant on a data set.  

Abandoned by Her Parents and once Labeled a High School Dropout, Girl Receives Scholarship from Harvard

'If there is anybody at all who has a dream,' Ms Loggins told WBTV, 'then they can definitely make it happen. There are no excuses. It depends on you and no one else.'

'And I just made a decision that I was not going to end up like my parents. I wasn't going to end up having to decide should I buy food this month or should I pay my rent.'

Two questions:

• Is this successful young woman the "anti-Julia"?
• Can the human spirit be measured by governmental data sets?

h/t Ann Althouse

**Updated: 

Here is more information on Dawn Loggins' journey from shelbystar.com.

Listen to an interview from the reporter who broke the story here.  

Here is a comment on the shelbystar.com site from Dawn's sister via Facebook:

Alexis Sweazy

Also, to add to this story, Dad knows, I wrote him a letter right after she called me and told me. But, I agree with my big sister. My mom didn't contribute to any of this, she was the one that went to Tennessee with Dad and didn't come back until my birthday party, without telling anyone she was staying. It turns out, they were living in a tent in Tennessee, I talked to her maybe once. I've always lived with my dad's parents, so I've had a steady home, but my sister, she's never had that. I kept track of all the times they have moved since I was six years old. 12 times in six years, most of the time I didn't see them once a month even, maybe once every 2 or 3, if I was lucky. As I got older, their homes got worse and worse living conditions. When they were living in one of their houses, Dawn slept in the basement. Christmas eve, the basement started to flood, and Ash had to move all of her things that might get damaged. I said all this to say this. As you can tell from Dawn's story, you can do anything you put your mind to, Dawn has been trying to get that point across to me and Kiley for a while now. When you think you've got it bad, think that other people have it worse. Also think that if Dawn can do this, you can face your everyday life and overcome it. And think of all the blessings you have been given that other people might not have been given.

Stories of Grace and the Sunday Education Weekly Reader 04.22.12

As noted in a previous article, stories abound with the terrible treatment of children and adults by governmental agencies and private citizens.  

It was a delight to read in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch stories of grace and compassion present in two women's lives and actions.  Where did these women learn about grace and compassion and why do they want to help people who are not related to them?  After reading the articles, do you think gracious people are those who have discovered there are obstacles in life and life is not always fair?  Do physical and emotional hardships (in their own lives or experiencing it with others) impart knowledge and emotional depth to those who have experienced grief that no data set can measure?

One is a story of listening.  That's about all an elderly woman can offer her own caregiver.  What a gift to give to someone in need.  From "Caregiving Doesn't Have to be One-Way":  

"She's changed my life," Donna told me.  

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The second is a story of providing acknowledgement of women's special gifts, even when these gifts may not fit into a prescribed data set to ensure "success" in life.  From "Miss Amazing Pageant Celebrates Women and Girls with Disabilities":

"Everyone in the audience was either smiling the whole night or either crying or laughing," she said. "I think every girl should get an opportunity to feel beautiful and important."

This second link includes a video about the experience headed by a young college student who wants to give girls the opportunities she has had that they don't.  How has she developed this interest?

A love of pageants and working with people with disabilities came together recently for Lindenwood University junior Ellie Lorenzen.

She organized Missouri's first Miss Amazing Pageant, an event for girls and women with disabilities held April 14 at Lindenwood.

Lorenzen, 21, has been competing in pageants for five years. Her oldest brother, Jordan, 27, is severely mentally disabled. She describes him as a prankster and full of life, but he will never be able to live on his own.

"He has really shaped my family," she said. "My brother and sister and I really live our life to the fullest knowing how much of a blessing he is."

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

Thanks to the Post-Dispatch for these stories of grace from a dying elderly woman and a young woman in college.  Both have touched lives in countless ways.  These articles are educational lessons in compassion, grace and love.  Maybe these are ultimately the most important lessons we all need to learn and practice.  How will they be measured on a data set? 

Sex Surveys and Other Invasive Information Compiled on Students

Open Missouri is a project of the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia that aims to make state and local government data more available to citizens and journalists. Its goal is to:

• Inform Missourians about public data held by government agencies
• Inspire journalists, citizens, web developers, entrepreneurs, businesses and non-profits to access and use public data in ways that enhance their civic, professional and personal lives.
• Serve as a platform that connects people who are using data from state and local government agencies.
• Educate Missourians about how they can access and use public data.

The openmissouri.org website has information about the educational data sets in Missouri and their functions. Two sets that may concern students and families are the the workforce investment act:

Category: Education, Human services and social programs, Jobs, employment and occupations
The Employment Training Section uses this database to track students and schools that participate in the workforce development training funded by the U.S. Department of Labor under the federal Workforce Investment Act. Data includes information about students' eligibility, tuition assistance and schools attended.

and the Education Data Exchange Network (EDEN):

Category: Education

Data in system is collected under federal law and is shared with the U.S. Department of Education. Data goes down to the school level and includes demographics, program participation, implementation, and outcomes. The data is used at all levels for planning and programs.

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You can track the different areas of information being requested in the name of education and supplying the workforce. Even teachers will be tracked extensively through data systems under the Educational Surrogate data set:

Category: Education, Human services and social programs
Database in development. When finished, it will contain detailed information about educational surrogates and the students whom they serve. Student data to include name, birthday, school attending and residence. Educational Surrogate data to include name, contact information, special experience, training, approval date, performance evaluations, status, special skills related to knowledge of students with disabilities.

The data set labeled Highly Qualified Educators relates to teachers as well, signifying a hallmark goal in Race to the Top:

Category: Education, Laws and regulations Database in development.
Lists details about teachers who are deemed to be highly qualified teacher under state guidelines. Highly qualified teachers must have full state teaching certification, at least a bachelor's degree and demonstrated subject-matter competency in each of the teacher's academic subjects.

What DESE doesn't list is the specificity of the information the government wants to be able to get from your child in the name of "education" and share with other agencies:

• 1. Political affiliations or beliefs of the student or parent;

• 2. Mental and psychological problems of the student or the student’s family;

• 3. Sex behavior or attitudes;

• 4. Illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating, and demeaning behavior;

• 5. Critical appraisals of other individuals with whom respondents have close family relationships;

• 6. Legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians, and ministers;

• 7. Religious practices, affiliations, or beliefs of the student or the student’s parent; or

• 8. Income (other than that required by law to determine eligibility for participation in a program or for receiving financial assistance under such program).

This information is to be guarded by privacy laws and no identifying information is to be stored. I am certain this makes parents feel better about this invasive information in the interest of education, right? The invasive information request is not just for collecting data set information, as the vast majority of states participate in surveys for the Center for Disease Control (see above map).

Massachusetts received national attention after being called out by a parent for giving students a Youth Behavior Survey:

It includes questions about tobacco use, alcohol and other drug use, sexual behaviors that might lead to unintended pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease, dietary behaviors, physical activity, and behaviors associated with intentional or unintentional injuries.

Principal Fran Thomas told Fox News Radio that students were indeed given the survey – and admits it was graphic. But Thomas said the school has nothing to do with the content and they were required to administer the survey to fulfill a grant requirement.

“I can take no responsibility for what’s on that survey,” Thomas said. “It’s not generated by the school system.”

Thomas said the survey was funded by a federal grant and administered by LUK Inc., a local social services agency -- in coordination with the Centers for Disease Control.

A spokesperson for the CDC denied any involvement in the Fitchburg sex survey. The CDC said only seven states and six urban districts include sexual identity questions on their YRBS surveys – and the questions are optional.

But Principal Thomas disputed that notion.

“It was not optional,” he said. “It’s part of a grant that they applied for and the district said you have to administer this survey.”

(You can find a sample questionnaire here from 2011 given to high schoolers; the sexual activity questions are included in this sample which is labeled a "standard sample". Other questions asked include use of violence, thoughts of suicide, bullying, and eating habits.)

Is the compiling of this information furthering the education of your child? Will it equip them with the skills necessary to be "STEM" (Science, Technology, Education, Math) ready? Will it vault them into the global competitive system?

Should DESE and other state educational systems be required to inform parents and taxpayers what questions are asked of their children and for what purpose? Is it time for states to say "no" to federal grants that demand invasive personal information?

DATA is a Four Letter Word if You Value Your Privacy.

You may have been reading about the ability of Apple and Google to track their users' location and information:

Apple Inc.'s iPhones and Google Inc.'s Android smartphones regularly transmit their locations back to Apple and Google, respectively, according to data and documents analyzed by The Wall Street Journal—intensifying concerns over privacy and the widening trade in personal data.

Here is an idea of some of the information that can be tracked:

For almost two years, Alex Pentland at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has tracked 60 families living in campus quarters via sensors and software on their smartphones—recording their movements, relationships, moods, health, calling habits and spending. In this wealth of intimate detail, he is finding patterns of human behavior that could reveal how millions of people interact at home, work and play.

It doesn't stop at Google and Apple, however, your use of Facebook also compromises your privacy. This 2010 article on the founder is quite enlightening on the vanishing idea of individual privacy:

Zuckerberg imagines Facebook as, eventually, a layer underneath almost every electronic device. You’ll turn on your TV, and you’ll see that fourteen of your Facebook friends are watching “Entourage,” and that your parents taped “60 Minutes” for you. You’ll buy a brand-new phone, and you’ll just enter your credentials. All your friends—and perhaps directions to all the places you and they have visited recently—will be right there.

For this plan to work optimally, people have to be willing to give up more and more personal information to Facebook and its partners. Perhaps to accelerate the process, in December, 2009, Facebook made changes to its privacy policies. Unless you wrestled with a set of complicated settings, vastly more of your information—possibly including your name, your gender, your photograph, your list of friends—would be made public by default. The following month, Zuckerberg declared that privacy was an evolving “social norm.”

The backlash came swiftly. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Privacy Information Center cried foul. Users revolted, claiming that Facebook had violated the social compact upon which the company is based. What followed was a tug-of-war about what it means to be a private person with a public identity. In the spring, Zuckerberg announced a simplified version of the privacy settings.(emphasis added)

Here is one of the latest articles about Facebook's use of data mining information:

...privacy watchdogs say Facebook's unique ability to mine data and sell advertising based on what its members voluntarily share amounts to electronic eavesdropping on personal updates, posts and messages that many users intended to share only with friends.

"Facebook has perfected a stealth digital surveillance apparatus that tracks, analyzes and then acts on your information, including what you tell your friends," said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "Facebook users should be cautious about whether the social networking giant ultimately has their best interests at heart."

You can deduce from these various scenarios with Apple, Google and Facebook, the idea of privacy is becoming quite antiquated. It seems as if the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) push by this administration is for naught: money is not made by creating and producing products; CEOs will become millionaires by selling other people's information. And let's package it by declaring privacy is an "evolving social norm". It's the ultimate nudge to give away our individuality for some company's or government's usage.

We'll be writing this week about this push for your data and your student's data while in public school and quite possibly, private and home school settings as well. Data mining is rampant in private businesses, so I suppose the government decided it might as well get what it could to drive the workforce and manipulate education services based on data.

It's been done in Europe for quite some time and we'll be writing about England's experience with tracking its citizens and what they do with this data. Since we're now copying their health system, the Federal Government probably thought it might as well utilize their data experiences too. It's all connected: health data leads into education data leads into workforce data. Stay tuned.

Pajamas Media Talks to Missouri Education Watchdog about Educational Data Warehousing on Human Capital

Patrick Richardson of Pajamas Media talked to us recently about common core standards and the Longitudinal Data System. He has done a fine job detailing exactly how your child and family will be profiled via the educational data base and other federal agencies.

You may find his article on the plan for the Longitudinal Data System here.

And just what educational purpose does it serve to reveal your child's eye color? Or gestational age at birth? We were at the St. Louis Zoo today and saw the photo you see in the heading of this posting:

A Plan for Survival

With the support of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), zoos from across North America work together to mange Species Survival Plans (SSP). These plans ensure the survival of these unique animal species well into the future.

Knowing the genetic background of each individual, SSP managers decide which animals should be paired to breed for the benefit of the entire species. This promotes responsible population management in captive breeding programs.

What do you think? Is human capital heading for "responsible management" in the global workforce as well ?