Could eScholar Data Mining on "Bobby" be Considered Stalking?

Should stalking awareness include the information gathered on your child and disseminated without parental knowledge and/or consent?

Common Core and the revision of FERPA by the US Department of Education allows intensive data mining and sharing of student information to various federal agencies and private firms selected the the USDOEd.  The company eScholar is one education reform company eager and ready to data mine information on students.  From wsj.com and Education Data Companies Chosen, 08.13.2012:

New York state education officials Monday said they selected four companies to build a broad education database that will host students' test scores, curriculum materials and education apps, paid for by up to $50 million in federal Race to the Top funds.

The state Education Department said that by fall 2013, school districts will be able to use one of the data systems created by either ConnectEDU, eScholar or Pearson PLC and its subsidiary Schoolnet.

The systems are supposed to store student test scores, student demographic information, curriculum materials, lesson plans and other items that teachers or parents can access. Companies will get paid, in part, based on how many school districts select their data system.

It's financially lucrative for data mining companies to compile student data and advantageous for them to have start up funding provided by taxpayer money. eScholar has produced a video about "Bobby", a hypothetical student the company is tracking.  From the eScholar website:

"Have you met Bobby yet?"

Meet Bobby, the newest member of the eScholar myTrack team. We think that educators have a lot of students like Bobby, students who have things that they want to do, but aren’t always sure how to get there. Check out the video to see how Bobby and his team of supporters use myTrack to help him reach his goals. What do you think? Do you have any students like Bobby?  

eScholar is a company that received federal stimulus dollars to track your child without your knowledge or permission.  Could such behavior and practice be considered not just data mining but stalking?

From the Judicial Education Center's definition of stalking:

"Stalking" is the term commonly used to refer to a pattern of behavior directed towards an individual by another that results in the person to whom the behavior is directed fearing for themselves and/or others. The behaviors can involve overtly criminal behavior or seemingly non-criminal, innocent behavior or both. Stalking can escalate and ultimately result in actual physical harm to its intended subject.

In contrast to many other criminal offenses, stalking involves repeated victimization of the targeted individual. Stalking, therefore, is a series of acts or a course of conduct and never a single incident. Another contrast between other criminal offenses and stalking is the attention placed on the impact of the actions on the victim in stalking situations.

Here are two examples of stalking from the article:

...The series of events or acts that comprise stalking can involve a mix of criminal acts and acts which, when viewed in isolation, could be seen as perhaps being innocent or non-threatening. Generally, stalking can include:

• Monitoring the victim's internet history and/or computer usage  
• Disseminating personal information about the victim to others 

Should the tracking of student academic and non-academic information and sharing it with federal agencies and private organizations without parental/student knowledge/permission be allowed?  How is the difference in the dissemination of personal information about "Bobby" to others and monitoring "Bobby's" computer usage via the relaxation of FERPA any different than the definition of how stalkers operate?

Here's an example of what eScholar will gather on "Bobby" and why:

Enabling P-20 Data Warehousing

Today, a consensus has emerged amongst educators at all levels that there is a need to create an LDS that provides a comprehensive view of education from early childhood through postsecondary and beyond (P-20). This capability is essential to maximizing the effectiveness of our efforts to encourage every student to achieve his or her greatest potential. A key element of this LDS is a comprehensive data warehouse that supports the data requirements of the P-20 world. With the introduction of CDW-PS, which integrates with our eScholar Uniq-ID® products supporting unique identification and ID management of individuals from early childhood through postsecondary, eScholar now has a complete solution for a P-20 data warehouse. The data model for the CDW-PS product is specifically designed to integrate with the eScholar Complete Data Warehouse® for PK-12 product to create a comprehensive LDS of over 3,000 data elements encompassing student and teacher academic history from pre-K through higher education. This powerful combination enables SEAs to answer key P-20 questions through one software product solution. 

The goal of data mining children from eScholar sure sounds noble, innocent and non-threatening.   The video celebrates the collaboration of teachers, principals and supporters helping "Bobby" to set his goals.  It's sold to districts and parents to ensure the student responds well to structured assessments and behaviors determined to be acceptable to the government's rubrics.

eScholar is a company funded by government money to gather over 3000 data points on your child and teachers so your child doesn't get "off track".  Since when did the government start tracking human behavior and making the determination of what is "off track" and what is a child's "greatest potential"?  Isn't that up to the child and his/her parents?

Can anyone answer this question?  How can eScholar offer a "personalized track" for "Bobby" when "Bobby" is stuck in a "common" educational system?

Watch the CEO's speech at the White House on his view of data and why he believes it is important to track individual data on each student.  Again, it sounds noble, innocent and non-threatening.  A student's future is dependent on the data.  At 9:25 he mentions how  Common Core ties this all together.  A student must determine if his/her goals are  successfully tied into a common skill set.  

What do you think would happen and what could go wrong if "Bobby's" strongest skills and talents did not align with the Common Core skill set prescribed by SBAC or PARCC?

The NEA Doesn't Think a $10,000,000,000 Infusion in Education is Sufficient

Here's the NEA's position on Federal proposals regarding the budget:

The House of Representative is expected to pass very shortly a budget proposal for fiscal year 2012 (which begins October 1) that will result in more joblessness for the middle class and more tax breaks for the wealthiest in our country. The middle class continues to struggle to find work, pay more for health care, and worry about their children’s education and future. Seniors continue to worry about their retirement security. Yet, the House budget provides rhetoric rather than solutions.

and....

NEA on Education Funding: Restore/Increase Funding to Help Ensure Great Public Schools for Every Child

NEA believes that, particularly in these troubling economic times, investing in education makes both good fiscal sense and good public policy. Funding targeted to quality public schools will see the greatest return on taxpayer money and will strengthen the entire economy.

The NEA is supposedly concerned about public education. What has the Public Education Sector received this past year? States received a portion of the stimulus funding of $10,000,000,000 from the Education Jobs Fund, a fund to support education jobs in the 2010-11 school year. This money was distributed to states by a formula based on population figures, and states can distribute their funding to school districts based on their own primary funding formula or districts' relative share of federal Title I funds.

How many jobs were created or saved with $10,000,000,000 from the Federal Government? You can see the jobs saved from this document from the NEA. This particular graph breaks the money given and jobs saved by Congressional District.

This graph breaks the information down by state and district receiving funds.

According to the congressional, state and district maps it doesn't appear as if many jobs were created; the money apparently went to save education jobs...or did it? The graph doesn't indicate how many education jobs have been lost because of the downturn and in fact, some states used the money to plug up shortfalls in other areas of their budget.

What do you think is going to happen next year when there will be no federal money to shore up education jobs and the bill for implementing common core standards and assessments will be presented to the taxpayers? Will we have fancy graphs next year showing a zero contribution for federal money received and millions of dollars expected from the states to fulfill mandates and pay for education positions they can't possibly fund?

The NEA's position paper on the budget proposal states: the House budget provides rhetoric rather than solutions.

Our question: what do you think this stimulus money provided for Education in the long term? It "saved jobs" (perhaps) but doesn't seem to have been a solution for the worsening state budgets for 2012. The American people were told stimulus monies would help the economy and education. Was that rhetoric or a solution?