Four districts have announced their intention to withdraw from Race to the Top, hoping to protect confidential student data. More are thinking of joining them.
They are upset that the state demands they hand over 400 points of student data that can be transferred to inBloom, the Gates-funded project for data mining.
The State Education Department is totally unsympathetic to their concerns. Its spokesman said that the state already has the information and plans to turn it over to third parties no matter what the districts do or how much parents resist.
The state: Your child’s information belongs to us, not to the parents or the school. We can do whatever we want. You can’t stop us.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Awesome. Student data is not ANYONE’S to sell. Until children reach the age of 18, use of that data must be at the discretion of parents or guardians, and after that time, at the discretion of the student. We need legislation to make this very, very clear.
NO PUBLIC OFFICIAL WHO IS SO LACKING IN RESPONSIBILITY AND RESPECT FOR INDIVIDUAL LIBERTIES AS TO COUNTENANCE THE BUYING AND SELLING OF PRIVATE STUDENT DATA SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO REMAIN IN OFFICE. We need legislation that makes very, very clear that trading in a student’s private data IS A VERY SERIOUS CRIME.
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IF the NEA and AFT had not become the Propaganda Ministry for Achieve and the CCSSO, then they would be joining with the American Civil Liberties Union to bring suit against Secretary Duncan for deciding, on his own authority, to give away student’s private data to corporations. Said suit should name, as well, all state officials who have done this. It’s a violation of basic liberties.
Kudos to the district leaders–to the superintendents and principals and school board members–who are raking this stand for freedom. And shame, utter shame on those who would buy and sell our children.
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taking, of course
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Robert,
The NEA and AFT are completely in on this. They cooperate knowing full well the abuses that lie ahead, and then when injustices occur, they run around preaching the “social justice” mantra and the “This is not the way at all we enivisioned our partnership with the reformers” mantra.
The corruption of our major unions is one of the key catalyzing and enabling components in all of this reform movement.
In that sense, the unions are more pernicious than people like Michelle Rhee in that their main function is to protect children, families and teachers, and they have turned against their own. With Rhee, you know pretty much what you are getting. There is an honesty and purity in all of her malevolence. The AFT and NEA pose as one thing and do otherwise, and I’m afraid even their top executives are in serious denial or really don’t understand the difference between advocacy and partnering. The lines have become all too blurred, all too gelatinous.
But there is hope as union infighting is very slowly stoking the embers of union reinvention, a critical element that is to evolve and eventually, besides the parents’ movement, help push back the pendulum.
Not everyone is willing to allow themselves to be corrupted . . . .
Robert, please know that so many of us appreciate your insights and articulation!
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The best thing I took away from Diane’s talk last week at Harvard was a flyer for an MTA progressive caucus meeting. A higher ed colleague had brought iit with him.
Educators for a Democratic Union is getting together Saturday Nov. 16 at 10:00 AM at UMASS Boston, on the 4th floor of the Wheatley Building. Follow the Signs.
Yes, our union is a democratic organization under the authority of its membership. There are elections for the Board and Committee seats, and we can elect our own president, to fill the office currently held by Paul Toner (the Aspen Institute fellow who negotiated a secret capitulation to Stand for Children, and put the union’s stamp on the imposition of VAM).
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This is what these parents are
up against… told in a parody
of John King talking to his advisors:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvKVkitKOgk
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Jack, if you need to post this on every conversation, you can always put it as an independent comment rather than a reply. It’s breaking up the threads on other comments and that makes communication difficult.
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It is so important to stop this data-mining avalanche in its tracks! It is hard to believe that the rights of citizens are being violated and in such a seriously invasive manner! Does anyone have a list of states other than NY which are subscribing to this insidious practice?
Also.. important, Susan O’Hanian has published a state by state list of organizations protesting all the testing! Here is the link:
http://susanohanian.org/core.php?id=591
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One of the criteria for earning points in the Race to the Top contest was that states had to agree to data mining of student responses to tests items. This way inBloom could sell customized test prep packages to be used on computers.
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If people don’t think this has gone too far, they never will. Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 18:21:58 +0000 To: nancyturnbo@hotmail.com
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It’s time for some serious civil disobedience on this issue. Principals and superintendents need to stand up, to show that they actually have the interests of parents and students at heart. And parents need to hold these people personally responsible for divulging their kids’ private data to outsiders.
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The proper place for people who would share confidential student data with third parties without parental permission is NOT in the principal’s office, the superintendent’s office, or the commissioner’s office. The proper place for such people is prison.
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Well said!
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Thank you, Rita!
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How is student data being store and used now in NY? Data could already be in a cloud and vendors may have access to it. To get to the root cause, maybe the fight should be for less data to be collected in the first place (reduce the assessments and testing).
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concernedmom, the makers of the national database envision not only student test scores and other confidential central office data being entered into their system but also extremely granular, real-time data from online curricula–every response that a student makes. The Department of Education has taken this even further. It recently issued a report envisioning a time when we have devices like wristbands and retinal scanners that can monitor, in real time, students’ affective responses and enter those into the database, too. TOTAL SURVEILLANCE. That’s the vision. This is all very, very Orwellian. See the Department of Education Report here:
Click to access OET-Draft-Grit-Report-2-17-13.pdf
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And remember, FERPA changed strategically at the beginning of 2012 to specifically allow for the sharing of this personally identifiable data, without parental consent, to private entities. That was NEVER the case before. This conduit has opened up all sorts of business opportunities – government/corporate collaborative to profit off our children. That data should be used to inform the school and teachers to help the students who generated it, not to create one-to-one personalized products for the benefit of companies. This is a sad day to realize our children are being peddled for profit – and the government is paving the way.
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Correction, I think. “FERPA [was] changed strategically at the beginning of 2012. . .”
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So, here’s a question: what is the purpose of inuring students to total surveillance–to having no privacy whatsoever, to being continually monitored, to having everything go into their permanent record, available to anyone with the money to pay for it?
What a great way to prepare people to be free citizens of a democratic state!
All this is about obedience training for the proles. The kids of the oligarchs will go to private schools where this sort of thing is not done.
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It really is tied in to one big Top Secret America Surveillance State, isn’t it? Beginning early in life since Colorado teachers are now reporting out on the online database uploads involved with Diane Trister Dodge’s “Teaching Strategies GOLD” birth – Kindergarten!
OptOut website is now featuring the Parent Refusal letter for this atrocity. “Do NOT Go For The Gold!”
http://www.pegwithpen.com/2013/09/do-not-go-for-gold-teaching-strategies.html
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disgusting
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Look at the districts listed in the article. What is their financial situation? Poor districts don’t have the option of turning down funding. So once again proof that education, like everything else, is not equal. Impoverished people do not have the same chance.
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Exactly. I doubt if my district, with 20 out of 30 elementary schools receiving Title 1 funds, can afford to drop out of RttT.
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Actually, the poor districts are being bled as cash cows by RttT. We could save a bundle if we refused it.
The grant awarded doesn’t cover the cost of the “reform” demanded for it, and our Title I money, supply budgets, tech and infrastructure funds are all being gobbled up by crony corporate fronts.
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Agree.
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100%
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Chemtchr,
You bring up a valid point. When I looked up my state’s RttT “report” in many instances the $ was being used to train for the CC.
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When I was in school they talked about your Permanent Record. It was a threat – If you don’t behave it will go on your Permanent Record Card. At that time this card went nowhere. It didn’t keep you from going to college or getting a job. It was kept in a file ((who knows, maybe it was discarded).
Now your Permament Record will be more like a Police Record. Out there for all to access, your youthful indiscretions able to haunt you for life. This is way more pressure than the tests.
I wouldn’t want people to judge me today based on what I did in elementary or high school. Heaven help me if they see my Middle School records.
This is a fine mess. Just because we participate in Public Education does not mean we want our lives to be Public Knowledge.
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Ellen,
Bravo!
Public trusts, such as education, are not the equivalent of public knowledge in this context.
This is fascism, plain and pure.
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It shouldn’t mean that, Ellen, but now it does. The ONLY way I see to fight it is to destroy federal public anything(except national defense and sound money)—health care, the income tax (repeal the amendment), popular election of Senators (repeal the amendment), and, unfortunately, public education as well, which has forgotten institutionally that it was meant to be the instrument of freedom not of democracy, which now means mob and mass and bureaucracy and union rule.
Woodrow Wilson began the socialist conquest of the country and Obama is coming close to achieving that 100 year program of European state socialism/Marxism. It’s a European import. It is not the true America.
Now the older, real America has to be recovered via the 5th amendment state conventions to propose amendments (or their repeal). In addition to elimination of the income tax, and direct election of Senators, I propose Congressional term limits. Sounds far out, eh? However, it’s the only way. Pity though.
Meanwhile, enjoy your local NYC creep, deBlasio.
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HU.
“. . . it was meant to be the instrument of freedom not of democracy, which now means mob and mass and bureaucracy and union rule.”
Leaving aside the insanity in thinking that there is “union rule” (when only something like 11% of workers belong to a union) and what ever you mean by “mob and mass and bureaucracy”, please explain why public education was “meant to be the instrument of freedom not of democracy”. What is the difference at which you hint?
Duane
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HU,
What is “the true America”? Where and/or when can I find this “true America”?
Duane
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HU,
So many question you have awakened in my head with so little time before I step into the shower.
What does “national defense” mean/include for you?
How does one pay for that “national defense” if the income tax is eliminated (since supposed national defense, or what I call the dept of war and its affiliated “security” regimes account for over half the discretionary budget of the US)?
How would we pay for the many services (NOAA, FDA, EPA, NIH, etc. . . ) that are funded through that tax?
Why eliminate the direct election of senators?
Duane
P.S. I’m hip to term limits, direct election of the presidents.
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What’s the problem with the direct election of Senators?
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The Colorado teachers now forced to participate in the online database uploads for Trister-Dodge’s Teaching Strategies GOLD, report distinct uneasiness with what is being entered into the digital “Permanent Record”. Subjective teacher judgments on whether a very young child is too chatty, too often off-task, not up-to-par in the restroom self-care category and so forth. For this age child, these traits change, mature over time and are often mis-read as significant when developmentally they are not. This info is appropriate for sharing with parents but absolutely not the business of Big Brother and the Corporation.
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How can we find out what other states are participating in inBloom or in other data systems that will share or sell student data with third parties?
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Bookworm, that’s an excellent question,
Somebody on our side needs to start a specific site to track and expose the data mining industry’s crony contracts.
For instance, here’s a story was written by Suzan Kinaci, a bureaucrat from the Massachusetts DOE. It boasts how cleverly the state DOE evaded Massachusetts’ stricter contract procurement laws by outsourcing the “data dashboard” procurement process to Ohio. It’s posted on a site for a data industry lobbying organization:
http://www.dataqualitycampaign.org/blog/2013/05/go-far-go-together/
“I should point out that letting another state take the lead does not come naturally to Massachusetts—we’re used to being out front. But as Ohio’s process afforded more flexibility we decided to let Ohio lead the procurement process.”
– Suzan Kinaci, M. Ed. Adm., a program manager at the Executive Office of Education in Massachusetts
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This is “Thinkgate”, the private Georgia company, operating out of Ohio, and in other states, which appeared on my screen at my district training for the Massachusetts EDWIN system.
http://thinkgate.net/
We were given the log-on information at the meeting, and I was surprised it wasn’t a state DOE url. My student rosters were already loaded into their proprietary site. They want an ongoing, live link to student assessments and other data, administered in every classroom by every teacher. That’s what a “dashboard” is.
I’ve asked Edushyster to try to investigate it and write it up. My alarm clock is going to go off in 19 minutes, and I have to get ready to go teach.
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That rite thur ain’t funny. (apologies to the cable guy).
Appears they have you “locked in” to where you can’t get around not putting the information in. I think I’d have to tell my administrator that he/she could do that themselves but that I would have no part in breaking FERPA.
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That’s exactly what I thought, Duane. So I said so, out loud, right there at the training.
“How can parents opt their kids out of this contract? They can’t? I can’t upload student scores work without parent permission I’m afraid.”
I waited on tenterhooks for days, but no kickback. It’s been almost four weeks. All they told us to do is upload four assessment data points per student, to test the system. I think the administrators have initiative fatigue, too.
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chemtchr,
Thanks for asking about opting out – in this environment I am sure even asking such a question is taking a chance.
I think the option should be to opt-in and the default should be opt-out. Is that the case for you district/
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that should be your district.
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COMMON-CORE-GATE
Let’s call what it is – A NATIONAL SCANDAL
Must be a future Bernstein and Woodward that would make a name by blowing the lid off this scandal
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Someone with a better memory than mine
bu t
The man who was once the head of the NY school system started this I believe and then left to work with Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox “news”. His name escapes me now but I am pretty sure that the above is accurate. The Nation magazine covered this at the time.
Whether Arne Duncan has anything to do with this, giving out children’s info is unknown to me. I wonder if even A. D. would do such a debasing thing.
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Joel Klein of inBloom/Amplify/Wireless Generation is one of Rupert Murdoch’s poodles.
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Poodles ought to be neutered . . . .
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State: All your data are belong to us…
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LOL. For those who missed Cynewulf’s reference:
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With matters related to privacy violations, Charlotte Danielson commercialized her “intellectual property” and now receives royalties (kickbacks) from Teachscape Inc. without disclosing financial conflicts of interest. All teachers who are forced to participate in the Danielson “framework” with related data evaluations as a result of federal or state grants must file open records requests and find attorneys who are experts in violations of personal privacy.
Are Montessori teachers or teachers at Sidwell held hostage to Danielson and Teachscape?
http://susanohanian.org/data.php?id=524
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Reblogged this on CNY Teacher.
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Every time I read that districts are not participating in race to the top it demonstrates districts realize it is not in the best interests of students and I applaud them.
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Just heard this evening that my children’s school district, the Pearl River School district, also voted to take themselves out of the RTTT stuff. I teach in NYC so get to see the “best” of both worlds…
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http://www.newschools.org/ventures
Here’s more on the new undersecretary of education. Scroll down the list of projects backed by his non-profit, and count the charter schools and charter school lobby shops and charter school management companies.
Public schools don’t stand a chance at the US Department of Education, which means 90% of kids don’t have a single advocate in the political appointee ranks in the Obama DOE.
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And here’s the new undersecretary of education’s “news page”
You won’t find a single article on a US public school, but you will find a carefully placed plug for KIPP and a political endorsement for more charter schools in Boston.
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US Department of Education is the corporate playground for the reformers. They use the federal grants via Duncan and his followers to bully teachers, schools and districts. That’s why the department must be abolished.
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I am on the Comsewogue Board of Education. Last night we voted to return the Race to the Top money to try to protect our children’s privacy. I was told that this data would be going to a 3rd party company, it would have included the child’s discipline records, No one could possibly ensure with 100% certainly that this information would not potentially harm a child down the road. Let him who is without sin (from K-12 in school) caste the first stone. In my school days, I pulled a prank or two on my friends. While I never got written up for it, would that have prevented me from earning my School District Administrator’s license? As a matter of fact, this very post could come back to haunt me in my professional life. At least as an adult, I get to make that decision.
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Yeah Comsewogue! I hope the rest of Long Island finds the same courage. Thank you for protecting and standing up for kids!
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I’ve contacted my federal reps to find out what their thoughts are on Arne rewriting/working FERPA. Still awaiting their response.
Parents and students own their data, not some company. Parents need to become involved and enlightened. We can help, but they too need to step up and become involved and active.
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Does any one know the ramifications for districts that return the money and drop out of RTTT? Do they fall back to NCLB regs? Do they really lose federal aid?
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