Mercedes Schneider tries to figure out what John White did or did not do in relation to Louisiana’s agreement to share confidential student data with the Gates-Murdoch inBloom project. It appears that the state board of education never knew about this arrangement and that it was a secret deal made by John White.
Is there some kind of secret government-corporate group that makes these deals about students without bothering to inform democratically elected officials?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s insane that elected board of education members must find out about their state’s and district’s participation in inBloom from outraged parents and education activists. How do state and district superintendents operate with such impunity?
The MOU between the state of Louisiana and inBloom (formerly the Shared Learning Collaborative or SLC) is likely similar to those of other participating pilot states/districts. The following link is the MOU between the state of Colorado and the SLC (pp. 27-62), as well as the Service Agreement between JeffCo Public Schools and the SLC (pp. 1-26)
https://sites.google.com/site/schoolbelongstothechildren/resource-center/%28JeffCo%20Contract%29%20SLC_SaaS_Jeffco_Final.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1
One item of interest is p. 25, Attachment E, where the “Illinois State Board of Education” is scratched out and replaced with a handwritten note that reads “Colorado State Department of Education.”
I find it interesting that Gates/inBloom tells parents to trust them with our children’s confidential data because their organization employs only the “best and brightest” and yet they can’t accurately amend a boiler plate contract.
Trust?
LikeLike
Is there some kind of secret government-corporate group that makes these deals about students withou bothering to norm democratically elected officials?
Unequivocally, Yes. Neither NY Commissioner of Education John King nor members of Board of Regents was elected in NY State, yet they signed on. Arne Duncan, head of the US Dept of Education wasn’t elected, yet his administration saw fit to redefine student information, including directory information in a way not intended by Congress (which is democratically elected) when it passed FERPA. Unequivocally, Yes.
LikeLike