If you can help with answers to the questions below, please chime in. How do parents “opt out” of sharing personal information about their children that is collected by the state and shared for purposes of marketing?
Diane, I am not sure where to post this but this is a request for you. This impacts almost every public school parent, student and child in the country and your forum would reach out to many. Would you post this in a prominent place to make parents and teachers aware?
The new price of public education means that parents will give up the ability to protect their children’s privacy and data which may lead to possible abuse and misuse of information through potential security breaches or inappropriate use. Teachers lose a degree of privacy as well because their data will be included in this database. As a result of new FERPA rules, circumstances can exist in which personal data on our children can be shared WITHOUT parental consent.
In the name of Education Reform and accountability, every state is creating a longitudinal database.
“To receive government funds, a state must provide an assurance that it will establish a longitudinal data system that includes the 12 elements described in the America COMPETES Act, and any data system developed with Statewide longitudinal data system funds must include at least these 12 elements.”
The elements are:
1)An unique identifier for every student that does not permit a student to be individually identified (except as permitted by federal and state law);
2)The school enrollment history, demographic characteristics, and program participation record of every student;
3)Information on when a student enrolls, transfers, drops out, or graduates from a school;
4) Students scores on tests required by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act;
5)Information on students who are not tested, by grade and subject;
6)Students scores on tests measuring whether they’re ready for college;
7)A way to identify teachers and to match teachers to their students;
8)Information from students’ transcripts, specifically courses taken and grades earned;
9)Data on students’ success in college, including whether they enrolled in remedial courses;
10) Data on whether K-12 students are prepared to succeed in college;
11)A system of auditing data for quality, validity, and reliability; and
12)The ability to share data from preschool through postsecondary education data systems.
KEY THINGS TO NOTE:
In #1 students will not be individually identified EXCEPT as permitted by federal and state law. Well, guess what? The federal law that protects privacy of student information (FERPA) was quietly changed effective Jan. 2012 and this data can be released to 3rd party “educational” organizations WITHOUT parental consent.
#2 demographic characteristics will include personal and family information.
#7 brings in teacher matching data.
#10 In my district, web-based surveys, learning and personality tests with extensive questions are being given starting in 6th grade to prepare students to be “college and career ready.” Might this data be included? Who wants to be held to something they wrote at 11 years old? Where does this data live?
The major problem here is that this data is PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE. Besides the obvious fraud and identity theft this can lead to if data is not secured properly, what impact might this have on our children once a historical database by name is compiled on them from pre-kindergarten? This data (through the new FERPA rules) can be shared with 3rd party organizations (i.e. similar to the Shared Learning Collaborative case in NY State in which the State contracted with an organization to create “personalized learning” for children.)
Parents really need to talk to their PTA’s and with their teachers. Ask that the school provide information on what the new FERPA rules mean – in plain language – about our childrens’ personal information, what is contained in their “educational record,” exactly what leaves the district in the form of data, who receives it, and how do we know it is secure and anonymous. Do we have assurances that our data is safe and secure? How do we opt-out of sharing our children’s personal data?
Thank you Diane!
“Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization” [UCLA Law Review, Vol. 57, p. 1701, 2010; U of Colorado Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 9-12] by Paul Ohm of the University of Colorado Law School is worth reading in relation to the issues addressed in this and an earlier post.
Here is the abstract
“Computer scientists have recently undermined our faith in the privacy-protecting power of anonymization, the name for techniques for protecting the privacy of individuals in large databases by deleting information like names and social security numbers. These scientists have demonstrated they can often ‘reidentify’ or ‘deanonymize’ individuals hidden in anonymized data with astonishing ease. By understanding this research, we will realize we have made a mistake, labored beneath a fundamental misunderstanding, which has assured us much less privacy than we have assumed. This mistake pervades nearly every information privacy law, regulation, and debate, yet regulators and legal scholars have paid it scant attention. We must respond to the surprising failure of anonymization, and this Article provides the tools to do so.”
The full paper can be accessed from the Social Science Research Network: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1450006
Unfortunately, it seems like a lawsuit arguing for FERPA might be the only answer, based upon how the reformers work: Plow forward with legally questionable acts, then tie up the courts to buy time and exhaust district fiscal (and time, and staff) resources.
There is an organization fighting this: http://epic.org/apa/ferpa/default.html
In the meantime, questioning Administrators and teachers will bring this to light. I firmly believe that local schools and Admins may not even be aware of these changes.
Show up and make your voice heard at your local school board meetings, and write and lobby your state and Congressional reps. Challenge Arne’s FERPA waiver. I thought that only Congress could legislate and write laws. It appears Arne has done that and no one on the state or Federal level has checked him on it- yet! There is a possible lawsuit pending that was filed in October 2012 in NYC.
Check out Twitter and use the hashtag #FERPA and @datadiva and @leoniehaimson. They’ve had a great exchange on Jan 21-23, 2012. You can also check Leonie Hamison’s blog
This is an article from the Huff Post from 12-19-2011:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson/confidential-student-and-_b_1156701.html
From her blog today:
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/
Regarding a pending lawsuit:
http://www.classsizematters.org/attorney-and-parents-send-letter-to-nys-attorney-general-education-officials-question-legality-of-providing-confidential-student-data-to-limited-corporation-and-demand-parental-right-to-consent/
Show up and make your voice heard at your local school board meetings, and write and lobby your state and Congressional reps. Challenge Arne’s FERPA waiver. I thought that only Congress could legislate and write laws. It appears Arne has done that and no one on the state or Federal level has checked him on it- yet! There is a possible lawsuit pending that was filed in October 2012 in NYC.
Check out Twitter and use the hashtag #FERPA and @datadiva and @leoniehaimson. They’ve had a great exchange on Jan 21-23, 2012. You can also check Leonie Hamison’s blog
This is an article from the Huff Post from 12-19-2011:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson/confidential-student-and-_b_1156701.html
From her blog today:
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/
Regarding a pending lawsuit:
http://www.classsizematters.org/attorney-and-parents-send-letter-to-nys-attorney-general-education-officials-question-legality-of-providing-confidential-student-data-to-limited-corporation-and-demand-parental-right-to-consent/
I am reposting this from a previous post I made. Just in case any readers from Wisconsin read this…the new PALS assessment administered to all kindergarten kids as mandated by the state is under contract with the Southern Virginia Higher Education Center (SVHEC). In the contract SVHEC is defined as a “school official” which gives them complete access to students’ records in accordance with FERPA and autorizes them to share the info with other agencies they deem necessary. I’ve been told there is nothing we can do about this. PALS is supposed to be phased in to prek, 1st, 2nd, 3rd grade.
I think awareness is our best defense right now. Even the FTC cautions about “identity theft” when it comes to children and their advice is that parents should talk to the school:
http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0040-child-identity-theft
I think our steps are:
1) Find out what your district reports via “Directory Information”
2) Opt-out of Directory Information
3) Determine if the assessment is for INFORMING INSTRUCTION or REPORTING.
4) Refuse to participate in adding to the data – i.e. opt-out of standardized testing at every level.
If the test does not directly inform the classroom teacher about his/her student needs, it is for reporting. Parents are beginning to opt-out: http://www.fairtest.org/get-involved/opting-out
The only way take back education and do what is best for students is to BEGIN the conversation. Parents are being strong-armed into surrendering data on our children and we have to stop it.
Consumer protection also released this document on protecting school records:
Click to access alt056.pdf
Spitzer (when AG) sued an education company for sale of student data protected under PPRA (overseen by US ED). It was flipped to the FTC & settled:
Click to access 30040354320021SCIV%20ny.pdf
Many of the problems with FERPA are consumer protection related, basically students are marketed as consumers but not protected because directory information is an exclusion from any protection unless you opt-out.
FERPA is also information policy because of parental notification. It’s not education policy. It’s an education law about disclosure.
This was written by EPIC’s Marc Rotenberg & Khaliah Barnes (EPIC v US ED)
Amassing Student Data and Dissipating Privacy Rights
http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/amassing-student-data-and-dissipating-privacy-rights
Thank you for that posting.
You’re welcome. Glad the Education Data Initiative was explained & I got to see how it was tied to technology.
To get in-front of massive use, misuse & abuse of children/family/teacher data schools need to make sure whatever student data lives in the cloud is secure. I don’t believe the cloud can be secure.
If I had children in school (mine went thru public) I would send them to a school that refused to trade dollars 4 kiddie data.
My children’s info has already been sold. I’m spammed all the time by colleges. I resent this invasion of my children’s privacy. I have put a credit freeze on their credit reports to protect their identity and credit rating.
There’s a silver lining.
http://www2.ed.gov/programs/slds/factsheet.html
Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems Fact Sheet”
“To receive State Fiscal Stabilization Funds, a state must provide an assurance that it will establish a longitudinal data system that includes the 12 elements described in the America COMPETES Act…”
What is the “State Fiscal Stabilization Fund”?
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/factsheet/stabilization-fund.html
“a new one-time appropriation of $53.6 billion under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).”
In other words, they have already been spent!
Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter, Rob Manning, just reported on Oregon’s SLDS.
EDUCATION | NEWS | OREGON
Planned Oregon Education Database Raises Thorny Questions
OPB | Jan. 24, 2013 5:02 p.m. | Updated: Jan. 25, 2013 12:17 p.m.
http://www.opb.org/news/article/planned-oregon-education-database-raises-thorny-questions/
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Kris Alman, a Beaverton-area mom, obtained her son’s electronic record and found it identified him as having essentially dropped out of school, as early as the fourth grade. Now, he’s in high school.
Alman: “I looked at this and I’m thinking, ‘Wait a minute, there’s no way!'”
Alman said officials she’s met with share her view that inaccuracies are part of the system. She said that’s a bad sign for the planned longitudinal database.
But state officials say knitting together a longitudinal system to track kids is a high priority. It’s called for in Oregon’s waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind law. The state won a $10 million federal grant to build it. And it’s one of six deliverables the state’s new chief education officer, Rudy Crew, has to pursue…
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When I emailed this story to Oregon Department of Education officials, I was told:
“The data you are looking at is out of the SLDS system, which is not the system of record—it isn’t used for state or federal accountability.”
So, to summarize:
1. While states’ waiver may specify the implementation of the SLDS, it is unclear what funds (if any) can be withheld for non-compliance by either the federal or state government.
2. The SLDS are not used by Oregon for state or federal accountability. (I don’t know if that is true in other states.)
3. Presumably another database is used for accountability.
4. Waiver states replaced “the one-size-fits-all federal ESEA, system of measuring school quality with a home-grown system based on individual student growth and other measures.”
5. In Oregon, this so-called “flexibility” seems to allow states to allocate Federal fund dollars differently toward “focus” and “priority” schools.
6. Why do we have SLDS? No doubt to appease knowledge brokers of the Internet who want to monetize on their lobbying investments of the 2009 ARRA Stimulus legislation.
7. I am awaiting a response from the Oregon Department of Education after I requested they expunge our son’s SLDS records.
8. We wait as more motions are filed in EPIC v USED. Perhaps, mid-January, the Judge can begin the process to make a ruling.
9. Oregon Save Our Schools has drafted a bill that is in legislative counsel which creates a Chief Privacy Officer responsible for ensuring that information contained in student education records is adequately protected to minimize disclosure. Parents will receive informed consent on what personal data is collected; who will use the data and why. They will be able to opt out of data collections that are not mandated by state and federal government.
10. We face an uphill battle with this bill despite (or perhaps because?) our state is very blue.
http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/tu_olmstead_doc_15.html
Olmstead v. United States: The Constitutional Challenges of Prohibition Enforcement
In Justice Louis Brandeis’ dissenting opinion on this case, he attempted to define a general right of privacy based on the Fourth and Fifth Amendments…
“Protection against such invasion of ‘the sanctities of a man’s home and the privacies of life’ was provided in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments by specific language. . . . But ‘time works changes, brings into existence new conditions and purposes.’ Subtler and more far-reaching means of invading privacy have become available to the Government. Discovery and invention have made it possible for the Government, by means far more effective than stretching upon the rack, to obtain disclosure in court of what is whispered in the closet.
Moreover, ‘in the application of a constitution, our contemplation cannot be only of what has been but of what may be.’ The progress of science in furnishing the Government with means of espionage is not likely to stop with wire-tapping. Ways may someday be developed by which the Government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. . . Can it be that the Constitution affords no protection against such invasions of individual security? . . . “