More than 20 school districts in the Lower Hudson Valley region have announced that they are dropping out of New York state’s Race to the Top, due to concerns about student privacy.
“Officials say there is no way to know how the data, which identifies students and includes disciplinary and health records, will be used in the future. They say they are concerned about colleges and employers seeking childhood records, the involvement of private interests like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in inBloom, and a state document that outlined plans for various agencies to share information for an individual’s “lifetime.”
“This is a watershed moment,” Pleasantville Superintendent Mary Fox-Alter said. “We are seeing distrust breed among parents.”
The state Education Department has started sending general information to inBloom and is scheduled to begin uploading student information this winter.
More than 20 districts in the Lower Hudson Valley have pulled out of New York’s participation in the federal Race to the Top initiative, hoping that doing so will allow them to withhold certain data. Since the state has said that this strategy will not work, districts are now writing to inBloom directly and requesting that their student records be deleted.
The superintendents drafted a model letter to inBloom asking to withdraw their student data. Their spokesman said that if inBloom refused, they would consider other strategies.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’ve been shouting this for the past week – please please share this blog to wake up parents – to wake up our BOE’s and administrators. The data has been leaked on Long Island’s Sachem School district – i saw data with my own eyes- and the link is still active!
Please read: http://nodatany.wordpress.com/ i share what I saw.
All for show as the data still has to be sent to the state and the state will send it to inBloom anyway. The districts look like they are being proactive but it is up to Dr. King, the Commissioner and he show no inclination to listen to anyone anout anything. Their only hope is the Board of Regrnts.
“. . . if inBloom refused, they would consider other strategies.”
Gonna be a lot of busy lawyers, eh FLERP!
All parents and educators must follow the UK criminal trials of Murdoch’s top lieutenants related to violations of personal privacy and medical records for nefarious purposes.
In the US, Duncan allowed FERPA changes so Murdoch’s inBloom and others have easy access to personal information, test scores, discipline records, and medical records.
It’s time for parents and teachers to contact their attorneys since King, Duncan, Murdoch and Gates are working together to profit off student, teacher, and family data without consent.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/gordon-browns-shock-that-his-family-medical-records-were-hacked-2312095.html
Okay, but what does this mean for teachers in the districts, seeing that I am one? Also, where’s the full list of districts?
I’d just like to share that if these data were collected by a researcher and handled this way the plan would not pass approval for human subjects research. The data are not anonymized, they involve a vulnerable population, the confidentiality controls are weak and there is a possibility that release of the data could affect employment. In other words Diane at NYU could not collect these data and treat them this way. Therefore, why should we allow the federal government to do so and to hand it over to entities that have less oversight than a university research department? Even where the data are housed must be secured in a particular way and I am certain that InBloom is not being held to this standard.
Parents need to know their rights regarding their childrens’ data. I can imagine a very compelling opposition argument made by starting with human subjects research ethics.
I’m curious if Murdoch is handing over his children’s and grandchildren’s personal, testing and medical data for storage in his for-profit inBloom database. Also, will Gates, Duncan, Rhee, Klein, King, Bloomberg, etc. hand over their children’s and/or grandchildren’s personal information, discipline records, and health records for storage in Murdoch’s cloud/database? Clearly, the scheme was cooked up by the faux reformers so the 1% can once again profit on the 99%.
We need an investigative reporter to ask Arne if his kids are inBloom subjects.
Well obviously children in private schools are able to keep their data private. I suppose that could be the new definition of “private school” in years to come. My guess is that these people really don’t understand the negative power of big data and why it is absolutely essential to view such a massive data collection effort as human subjects research and proceed accordingly.
Is InBloom exempted from the same kinds of regulations that, say, Mathematica would be in terms of how they work with student data? This is also a question for Congress because it involves government contracts. I doubt, for example, that every person with access to the data at InBloom has completed human subjects research ethics training as would be required at another government contractor hired to analyze student data. This is a serious issue.
Plunderbund is an Ohio political blog that has this out of Cleveland on TFA:
“But that’s not all that shows up in this contract that should be of concern, especially to the Republicans (and Tea Party members) who opened the door for TFA, Inc. to do business in Ohio and who have been cutting funding to public schools and consistently preach for greater fiscal responsibility.
The Cleveland contract with TFA, Inc. expressly provides the company access to all student records, even giving TFA, Inc. the authority to share those records with third parties. In fact, the contract specifies that the school district will give Teach For America, Inc., rights to student records information on the same level as a “school official”.
‘School District shall include, in its annual notification of rights under FERPA, criteria that qualify Teach For America, in its capacity as a provider of professional development and data storage services, as a school official with a legitimate educational interest.’
I don’t know what this contract term with TFA means, how broad it is, but Ohio politicians who entered into this contract should have to explain why TFA are now defined as “a school official” in this state and what that means for parents and students.
http://www.plunderbund.com/2013/11/09/cleveland-schools-enter-contract-with-teach-for-america-inc-with-costly-finders-fee/
Wow, how could those in charge of Cleveland and Cincinnati schools be so suckered by TFA?
That is some amazing wording in those contracts. Let’s let the kids loose in a candy shop.
these school districts have MOXY!!!
NYC teachers have mulgrew 😦
I would “LIKE” this post 100 times if I could. Take back our schools from the profiteers and technology terrorists.
“. . . technology terrorists. . .”
Speaking of “LIKE”!
How can we find out if our state is sharing this information with inBloom? I have asked individuals at the state level and they state they share this info with other organizations but don’t mention inBloom. Unfortunately I don’t know who or what to believe.
Yes, they are dropping out. . .. the whiter and wealthier, the more of those who opt out . . . . .
Now, now, now, Robert, telling it like it is, are we????
Said in that exasperated teachers tone!
Since when did civility ever solve anything . . . . . . ?
🙂
It cost these district very little $$ to drop out. The districts that got a lot of money can’t afford to drop out. They need the $$.
I just wrote to Mayor-elect De Blasio asking if he would consider having the New York City Department of Education pull out of InBloom. If the city pulls out, it would be a watershed that could possibly collapse this misguided plan.
According to NYSED district CAN’T drop out of RTTT.
Based on an email reply from NYSED last week.
Our district voted NO to becoming a part of RttT. Our superintendent went on record in a newspaper in the NE part of the state (we are in the SW) saying that our teachers voted NO because they don’t want to be evaluated on test scores, etc. Our union reps were kind of forced to cave in due to public scorn. Now look what we have! We had to enter a bunch of data into Battelle’s program in order to track our student score so that eventually they could point fingers at teachers to “blame” for student performance. We were just told to do it. No questions. No explanation. Just complete this today. Mine was very complicated because of 6 boys who registered, withdrew, or both, and another boy who finally qualified for more testing time by the end of the year. It was ridiculous. Another reason I retired.
It is not enough that adults have every particle of their lives intruded upon by big business [big brother} and then passed along to NSA and government we now must include our children also? This is to sustain a democratic life? Our guaranteed Constitutional liberties of freedom?
The problem, of course, is that the districts that drop out of the Race, and forfit federal dollars, are those whose communities can afford to lose the money.
The poorer districts, where students are already underserved, can’t afford to follow the high road. Their students might not get lunch.
The only suggestion I have is my utopian one: organize a million-teacher march on Washington. Take over Congress. Send them back to teach our classes, and we’ll run the government.