Archives for the year of: 2014
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What’s Worse than Common Core? Legislators Writing State Standards

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2014 //
54

Over the years, I have had the pleasure of advising several states as they were revising their academic standards. The process was always carried out by the state commissioner, who selected teachers and scholars from across the state and sometimes from out of state. My own most exhilarating experience was in California, where I helped a committee of educators write the history-social science standards. No legislators were involved.

Now, many states are pulling out of the Common Core, which was imposed on them in a fast deal between the U.S. Department of Education, the Gates Foundation, and several D.C. Insider organizations. Lyndsey Layton of the Washington Post reports that legislators in a dozen states are stepping in to take control of academic standards.

This is a terrible idea. Legislators have no academic competence to write academic standards. This is a sure way to politicize Americann education. Politicians should do their work and let educators do their work. Educators are the experts on what students should know and be able to do.

Let’s hope that states have the good sense to rely on their best teachers and scholars to protect the interests of the state and the children.

Categories Common Core

K12 Hopes to Open Virtual School in North Carolina, Despite Record of Failure Elswhere

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2014 //
51

Lindsay Wagner of NC Policy Watch reports that the virtual charter corporation K12 is hoping to open an online school in North Carolina.

 

K12 was founded by Michael and Lloyd Milken and  has turned out to be a highly profitable corporation that is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

 

It academic results are unimpressive, to say the least. Its students have a high dropout rate, low graduation rates, and low test scores. A study by the Walton-funded group at Stanford found that virtual charter schools in Pennsylvania, including K12, get worse results than either public schools or brick-and-mortar charter schools. A study by the National Education Policy Center criticized K12’s poor academic results and high administration costs; students at K12 actually fall behind real public schools. Stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post showed K12 to be one of the worst of all possible choices.

 

K12 makes a lot of money for investors. The schools it creates are not good schools, as judged by results.

 

Why would North Carolina want to siphon money away from its community public schools to pay off investors in a for-profit corporation?

 

Must be campaign contributions.  Or ideology. Or stupidity.

Categories Education Reform, North Carolina, Virtual Charter Schools

How to Bludgeon Higher Education to Accept Common Core

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2014 //
49

“Wag the Dog” notes that advocates for Common Core are growing desperate. With more and more states dropping out, the CCSS pressure is now turned to higher education to demand that incoming students show their worth by Common Core standards.

He writes:

“As data-driven and evidence-based challenges to the efficacy of the untested Common Core State Standards grow stronger and louder, it appears CCSS supporters are growing desperate and resorting to Maxwell Smart’s catchphrase and tactic of backpedaling from unconvincing and unsubstantiated claims.

This “Would you believe…” survival strategy is apparent in a new report from the New America Foundation.

“America’s primary and secondary schools may be busy preparing for the onset of the Common Core standards, meant to better prepare students for college, but one key partner isn’t even close to ready: colleges and universities themselves.”

That’s the conclusion of a new report from the New America Foundation, which finds that “there is little evidence to suggest colleges are meaningfully aligning college instruction and teacher preparation programs with the Common Core standards.”

The report adds:

“The findings follow earlier alarms that the people who run higher education have, for the most part, gotten involved only late in the Common Core process…

“One reason, it said, is that it’s hard to come up with a single definition of what makes a student ready for college. Another is the huge variety of colleges and universities…

“The report recommends that colleges add the results of Common Core assessment tests to the measures by which they gauge students’ eligibility for admission and financial aid..”

So, no need to test the validity of Common Core. Just require everyone to use it. If SAT and demand it, if higher education values it, why bother with evidence?

Categories Common Core, Higher Education

Why Campbell Brown Is Hiding the Names of Her Donors

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2014 //
47

When Stephen Colbert interviewed Campbell Brown, he asked her who was funding her activities against unions and teacher tenure. She said she couldn’t reveal their names because she had to protect them, presumably against the few dozen moms protesting outside Colbert’s studio with hand-lettered signs.

Mother Crusader found through her diligent research skills that Campbell Brown is aligned with some “vulture” capitalists, and it might be better for her cause to keep their identities secret.

Darcie Cimarusti (Mother Crusader) writes this:

“I’ve already taken a look at the Board of Directors of Brown’s new outfit, Partners for Educational Justice, which brings together reformy heavyweights from groups like StudentsFirstNY, DFER and NYCAN, and all the money, power, and influence behind those groups.

“But I’m embarrassed to say, I missed a HUGE piece of the puzzle.

“In my last post I described Brown’s husband, Dan Senor, as a board member for StudentsFirstNY and a former advisor for Mitt Romney. But I missed two gigantic parts of his backstory.

“Senor first came to prominence as a spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, gaining a reputation as “the spinmeister responsible for selling the early years of the occupation … as a rosy time—even as bombs exploded daily and sectarian violence ripped apart the country.”[1]

“After leaving the Bush administration, Senor—who is the spouse of former CNN anchorwoman Campbell Brown—became a guest commentator on foreign policy issues for Fox News and a private equity executive. He co-founded the investment firm Rosemont Capital LLC[2] before joining Elliott Management, the hedge fund firm owned by Paul Singer, a billionaire Wall Street investor who has given millions to Republican political campaigns and neoconservative advocacy groups.[3] (emphasis mine)

“So Brown’s husband is a wartime spinmeister, education reformer, AND a Wall Street hedge fund guy? How did I miss that?!?

“And who is Paul SInger, the guy who was able to lure Senor away from the investment firm he co-founded?”

And Mother Crusader continues:

“Singer is the big power broker in the Republican financial world,” says one operative who knows him. “He’s involved with almost everything.” Fortune described him as “a passionate defender of the 1%.” In practical terms, notes one conservative donor, “if you write checks as big as Singer’s, you can be close to anyone.” (emphasis mine)

“Check out how Singer makes his money.

“Mr. Singer is perhaps best known for the fight he put up — and the money he made — in his battle over Peruvian debt. In 1996, he paid $11.4 million for $20 million worth of discounted, government-backed Peruvian bank debt. Then, rather than joining with 180 other Peruvian creditors who agreed to a plan using bonds to forgive some of the impoverished country’s debt, Mr. Singer held out for bigger payments.

“He battled in the courts. At one point he hired an Albany lobbying firm and got New York State to change an obscure law to strengthen his position. When the dust had settled, Mr. Singer ended up getting $58 million for his Peruvian investment.
Groups advocating debt relief — and higher-profile people like Bono — criticize such transactions, maintaining that they force poor countries to divert money from social and economic programs in order to pay back investors. The International Monetary Fund, where a top official once labeled Mr. Singer’s firm a “vulture company,” issued a report recently saying that such funds present a “major challenge” to the success of debt-relief programs in poor countries. (emphasis mine)
Excuse me, but HOLY S%&*!!

“Reading about Singer’s practices in poor, distressed countries around the world is horrific. This is from truthout and Democracy Now!.

“You know, right now what’s happening in this particular case is now these vulture funds have been equipped with an instrument that’s going to force poor countries, like the Ivory Coast and Zambia, into submission. So it’s a very powerful precedent that will be impacting the one-out-of-five people that live in extreme poverty around the world.

……
“AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk, Eric LeCompte, very quickly, in 30 seconds, about Paul Singer, who is the head of the parent company of NML?

“ERIC LECOMPTE: So, essentially, he’s the person that’s developed this predatory behavior, that goes after assets in poor countries that essentially belong to vulnerable communities. He’s the person that leads several firms that are these predatory hedge funds which engage in this exploitative, extreme behavior. And he’s popularized, essentially, this kind of investor action around the world. And right now the World Bank notes that there are about a hundred companies that follow, essentially, the leadership that Paul Singer has laid out in terms of this behavior.

“AMY GOODMAN: And his significance in national politics? Five seconds.

“ERIC LECOMPTE: Yeah, he’s the number one donor to the GOP. (emphasis mine)
Senor and Singer are some seriously scary dudes.”

There is simply no way they are going to be intimidated by a small clutch of protesters milling around outside Colbert’s studio, but that was one hell of an act Brown put on! Singer, and presumably Brown’s husband, take on entire countries for heaven’s sake!”

Categories International

Network for PublicEducation Endorses Sherry Dagnogo in Michigan

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2014 //
4

The Network for Public Education endorses Sherry Gay-Dagnogo

The Network for Public Education is proud to endorse Sherry Gay-Dagnogo
for Michigan State Representative in House Distrtct 8.

Sherry Gay-Dagnogo was a middle school science teacher for 7 years. She has worked in city government and as a community organizer.

Here’s what Gay-Dagnogo has to say on testing:

“Our children are over tested in America. We are not allowing our children to learn through exploration and discovery. Rigid test requirements limits authentic learning and causes competition, cheating, and other compromising behavior by adults.”

Sherry Gay-Dagnogo is opposed to using merit pay tied to student test scores.

Merit pay “unjustly penalizes teachers within districts with student’s that have high rates of absence, transient population, and students with learning challenges that have not been properly supported and addressed by their individualized academic plans.”

Gay-Dagnogo wants Congress to hold Hearings on Testing

“I wholeheartedly support Congressional Hearings on the adverse impact of testing, the irreparable harm to children and the culture of cheating it fosters.”

Sherry is a first generation high school and college graduate. As a teacher, she advocated for increased parent involvement. Her son is a graduate of DPS. Endorsements include Mayor Mike Dugan and the Michigan Education Association. She says, “”Providing all children a great education has become increasingly difficult with a national agenda which seeks to privatize education for profit. Education has become very politicized and decisions are made by people who lack the insight needed to truly advance academic achievement which really places students first.”

Sherry understands that Michigan schools need to improve. Her proposals to protect and improve public education are based on proven strategies–

Make greater investments in early childhood;

Empower and properly train and support great teachers;

Increase parent engagement;

Class size reduction.

Two things you can do to support Sherry Gay-Dagnogo:

Today, donate “$8 for HD8” at dagnogo4detroit.com

Tuesday, Vote for Sherry Gay-Dagnogo

The Network for Public Education joins parents and teachers and community leaders throughout LD 8 who know Sherry Gay-Dagnogo is the best candidate for the job. Please support Sherry on Tuesday!

http://networkforpubliceducation.org

The Network For Public Education | P.O. Box 44200 | Tucson | AZ | 85733

Categories Michigan, Network for Public Education

Peter Greene on Pundits Who Know Everything About Education

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2014 //
28

Peter Greene read a column by Joe Klein of TIME magazine about what’s wrong with education, and Greene had a hard time controlling his indignation.

Klein did not like the contract that Mayor de Blasio negotiated with the teachers’ union. What really bothers Klein, he says, is that teachers have something to say about their working conditions. His bottom-line beef, says Greene, is unions.

Greene writes:

“There are lots of things Joe Klein doesn’t get, and many of them are related to education. In the process of railing last week about a de Blasio “giveback” of 150 minutes of special student tutoring time in New York schools, Klein managed to trot out a whole raft of misconceptions and complaints. Here he gets himself all lathered up.

“I’m not going to take Klein to task for slamming assembly-line workers as if they are a bad thing. I know what he means– teachers should act like salaried workers instead of workers paid by the hour. Of course, if he tried to get his doctor or his lawyer to put in extra unbilled hours and be “paid in professional satisfaction,” I think he’d have another complaint to make. So I’m not sure exactly which profession he wants us to act like. Hell, even the oldest profession (I mean, of course, plumbing) charges by the hour…..

“It bothers Klein that the union negotiates things down to the half-minute, but he seems to forget that for every teacher union not saying, “We’ll work long extra hours just out of professional pride,” there’s a school board not saying, “You know what? We’ll just pay you what the work is worth and trust you to give us the hours needed.” Teachers could easily put in every single hour of the week doing the work, and many districts would let them do it, for free. “Wow, you’re working so hard and long we’re going to pay you more. really, we insist,” said no school district ever. Nor do they say, “We’ll trust you to do what’s right and never clock you in and out so we’re sure we get every hour you owe us.” A line has to be drawn somewhere; professionals also do not regularly give away their work for free. I agree that the half-minute is a little silly, but the line still has to be drawn.

“Klein also throws into the pot his assertion that real professionals don’t resist evaluation. This is partly almost true. Real professionals do not resist evaluation by qualified, knowledgeable fellow professionals who are using a fair and accurate measuring instrument. But if Klein’s editor announced “the guys in the mailroom have decided that you will be evaluated on how thick your hair grows in and how much garbage is in your wastebasket,” I don’t think Klein’s reply would be, “I’m a professional. That’s fine.”

“Teachers and our unions are not opposed to evaluation. We are opposed to bad evaluations conducted unfairly using invalid methods developed by amateurs who don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.

“Klein also asserts a bedrock principle for systems that are not working in schools– you don’t scrap them, but you fix them. I was going to hunt down a column in which Klein uses this same argument to vehemently oppose things like, say, letting Eva Moskowitz shove aside public schools to make room for charters. Because, if a public school is struggling, Joe Klein will apparently be there to argue fiercely that you don’t close public schools– you fix them. But my googler seems to be broken. Can somebody help me with that? Kthanks.

“But Klein saves the worst for last. You see, there’s a struggle going on in this country and it’s time to pick sides– either the unions or the students.

“That’s an interesting choice, particularly since these days many teachers are wishing that teacher unions would choose the side of teachers. But really– is that it? The biggest obstacle standing in the path of educating students is teachers’ unions? Teachers unions are out there saying, “We’ve got to smack down those damn students and get them out of our way”?

“I think not. I think in many districts, particularly big messy urban districts, the only adults around to stand up for the interests of the students are the teachers (whose working conditions are the very same as the students’ learning conditions), and the only hope the teachers have of being heard at all is to band together into a group, a union. Consequently, much of what good has happened for students is there not because of some school board largesse but because a teachers’ union (or a group of parents, or both) stood up and demanded it.

“It’s ironic I’m writing this, because I have plenty of beefs with the union. But to assert that making the unions shut up and go away would usher in an era of student greatness and success is just silly.

“Of course, I could be wrong. I would do a search for states that hamstrung or abolished teacher unions and which now lead the nation in school and student excellence. Perhaps there are such places. Unfortunately, my googler is busted.”

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Unions

EduShyster Interviews Stephanie Rivera

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2014 //
5

This is a great—actually an inspiring—interview with Stephanie Rivera, who is probably the most prominent student leader on behalf of properly prepare teachers and supporting public education. Stephanie started a student movement while studying to be a teacher at Rutgers University. She has also been a critic of Teach for America because she intends to make a career of teaching, not a two-year experience.

As you will read, she is deeply committed to teaching in urban schools, and she believes that students need to have teachers who look like them.

Here is a small sample:

“ES: You wrote a terrific post called Advocacy in the Age of Color Blindness where you challenged the idea that it makes no different what color a teacher is as long as s/he’s great. I’m amazed that it’s even necessary to argue about this, but the *best and brightest* first mentality seems to be gaining traction.

SR: The whole argument that if students are succeeding and all of their teachers are white then it’s OK to have all white teachers really misses the point. First of all, how are we measuring student success? Is it all test scores? Because raising test scores isn’t the only role of a teacher and it shouldn’t be. What do students learn from having teachers who look like them? I really believe that when students of color see teachers who look like them in these great professions it sends a powerful message that *hey, I can do something like that too.* It’s also about the ability of teachers to understand where their student are coming from.

ES: As a soon-to-be teacher I wonder what you think about the brewing battle over tenure.

SR: I strongly believe in teacher tenure because it protects teachers who have a more political understanding of what teaching is about. I really think that we need to be having some serious discussions in our teacher education programs about what tenure is. Future teachers don’t understand what it is, what it does and where it came from. Tenure does more than just provide job security. It allows you to speak out against things you think are wrong. It allows you to have a progressive curriculum. People who are going into teaching need a bigger, broader understanding of tenure.”

Categories Students, Supporting public schools, Teach for America, Teachers and Teaching

Why We Should Not Copy Education in South Korea

By dianeravitch
August 3, 2014 //
33

Secretary Arne Duncan has frequently pointed to the high test scores of students in South Korea as a model for American students to copy. We have heard again and again that we are losing “the global competition” to nations like South Korea where students and parents take tests very seriously. Our students, the Secretary never tires of telling us, are slackers. Their parents want them to be well-rounded when they should all be enrolled in Advanced Placement courses, burning the midnight oil, or attending after-school programs in ever-longer school days.

On Sunday, the New York Times published an article that refuted the myth of South Korea as the acme of educational excellence. The South Korean system, the author writes, is “an assault upon our children.” If all you care about is test scores, South Korean schools look great. But if you want students who are thoughtful, creative, and engaged in their learning, look elsewhere, writes Se-Woong Koo, whose family moved from Seoul to Vancouver to avoid the stress of South Korean schooling. Most parents pressure students to excel in their studies and to do whatever it takes to get high scores.

“Thirteen years later, in 2008,” the author writes, “I taught advanced English grammar to 11-year-olds at an expensive cram school in the wealthy Seoul neighborhood of Gangnam. The students were serious about studying but their eyes appeared dead.”

“The world may look to South Korea as a model for education — its students rank among the best on international education tests — but the system’s dark side casts a long shadow. Dominated by Tiger Moms, cram schools and highly authoritarian teachers, South Korean education produces ranks of overachieving students who pay a stiff price in health and happiness. The entire program amounts to child abuse. It should be reformed and restructured without delay…..

“Cram schools like the one I taught in — known as hagwons in Korean — are a mainstay of the South Korean education system and a symbol of parental yearning to see their children succeed at all costs. Hagwons are soulless facilities, with room after room divided by thin walls, lit by long fluorescent bulbs, and stuffed with students memorizing English vocabulary, Korean grammar rules and math formulas. Students typically stay after regular school hours until 10 p.m. or later.”

“This “investment” in education is what has been used to explain South Koreans’ spectacular scores on the Program for International Student Assessment, increasingly the standard by which students from all over the world are compared to one another.

“But a system driven by overzealous parents and a leviathan private industry is unsustainable over the long run, especially given the physical and psychological costs that students are forced to bear.

“Many young South Koreans suffer physical symptoms of academic stress, like my brother did. In a typical case, one friend reported losing clumps of hair as she focused on her studies in high school; her hair regrew only when she entered college.”

The South Korean system is institutionalized child abuse. Children exist either to glorify the family or to build the national economy. What has been sacrificed? The happiness of the children; the right to live a normal life in which they are not cogs in a national economic machine.

Are you listening, Secretary Duncan? Are you listening, “New York Times” columnists and editorial board? Are you listening, television pundits?

Categories International, Students, Testing

Jon Lender: Terrence Carter is (or Was) the Paradigm of the School “Reform” Movement

By dianeravitch
August 2, 2014 //
33

Jon Lender of the Hartford Courant describes in detail how the embattled candidate for New London superintendent, Terrence Carter, was the very model of a modern school reformer. He graduated from New Leaders for New Schools, founded by Obama and Clinton advisor Jonathan Schnur.

Terrence Carter had deep roots in the world of “reform.”

“To fully understand the Carter episode, it helps to look at him in the context of a national battle over non-traditional school-reform efforts. The high praise that he received from influential voices in recent years sounds almost ironic now – as New London’s school board has its law firm conducting an investigation that could send him packing.

“Terrence Carter represents a new breed of principals who entered the profession from business through an excellent principal training program called New Leaders for New Schools. The program, which operates in Chicago and five other cities and is about to add two more, imposes higher expectations on principals,” the Chicago Tribune said in an editorial Feb. 4, 2007.

“Carter then was principal of Clara Barton Elementary School, in a poor Chicago neighborhood, after receiving training at New Leaders, a national non-profit school-reform group co-founded by Jonathan Schnur, a former Clinton White House staffer and Obama campaign adviser.”

With his credentials, Carter advanced rapidly in Arne Duncan’s Chicago:

“The Obama administration has been receptive to school-reform efforts by groups like New Leaders. Obama appointed his fellow Illinois native, Arne Duncan, as secretary of education after Duncan ran the Chicago schools, cooperating with school reformers and engineering oft-controversial school “turnaround” projects where “new breed” principals were inserted.

“Chicago was an early battleground in what’s become a national controversy between traditional educators and teacher unions, on one side, and, reform activists such as New Leaders and charter school operators on the other. That fight is playing out in Connecticut, where Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy has appointed a charter school co-founder, Stefan Pryor, as a state education commissioner who supports turnaround efforts in low-performing schools.

“Skeptics about such efforts in Connecticut see more in the Carter controversy than just one candidate whose credentials and character have been questioned.

“This is how the pro-privatization, big-philanthropy-funded networks and organizations tend to work. They pass their own people along and up, greasing rails and plumping resumes as they go. And the main criteria for ‘success’ often seems not to be real leadership characteristics, so much as willingness to be a good soldier when it comes to pushing forward a particular reform agenda,” said Lauren Anderson, an assistant professor of education at Connecticut College in New London.”

Carter’s standing in the school-reform movement was such that in 2009 he accompanied Schnur to a presentation at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. The topic was New Leaders’ partnership with Chicago in the “turnaround” of several low-performing inner-city schools.

“New leaders like Terry” have made “dramatic gains” in student performance, Schnur said in a presentation that helped win an “Innovations in American Government” award from the Kennedy School’s Ash Center for the New Leaders-Chicago schools initiative.

“Terry for example — he didn’t spend 15 years as an assistant principal, but he was a chief learning officer at a Fortune 500 company working with and managing adults, and a former teacher, and brought that blend of skills to bear,” Schnur said in remarks still watchable on YouTube at http://youtu.be/sHjWtePruMU.”

Carter had the strong support of Connecticut State Commissioner Stefan Pryor.

“Anderson spoke against Carter’s hiring at a July 24 meeting in New London when the school board put off a scheduled vote to approve a contract for Carter — and instead instructed its legal counsel, Shipman & Goodwin in Hartford, to look into newspaper disclosures including the fact that Carter had used the titles Dr. and Ph.D. for years without holding a degree from an accredited university.

“Other newspaper revelations: he filed for bankruptcy twice; his application essay included long passages identical with other educators’ writings on the Internet; a national research organization released a copy of a bio that it says Carter submitted in 2011 with the claim that he had a Ph.D. from Stanford University, which Stanford says he does not; and he got a Ph.D. in 1996 from “Lexington University” — which doesn’t have a campus and had a website offering degrees for several hundred dollars with the motto “Order Now, Graduate Today!”

“Carter met in closed session with the school board on July 24, and said afterward that he did nothing wrong, never misrepresented his credentials to anyone now or in the past, and still wanted the job.”

“Carter had been selected by the school board in June, with Pryor’s endorsement, to begin running the troubled New London school system starting Aug. 1. At the time, he was the toast of New London and, in comments quoted by the Day newspaper, he invoked the name of Duncan, Obama’s national education secretary.

“The story noted that the Chicago-based Academy for Urban School Leadership — the education-reform group he’d been working for since leaving his principal’s job in 2010 — had been praised by Duncan and Rahm Emanuel, the former Obama chief of staff who now is mayor of Chicago. Carter said in the story that back in Chicago a decade ago, Duncan, then running the Chicago schools, had handpicked him from the New Leaders training program for school administrators.

“He saw my presentation and said, ‘I need this guy in Chicago,'” Carter said in the Day article.

“Duncan’s deputy press secretary declined a Courant request Thursday an interview with the national school chief or a statement about Carter.”

The Carter story is not about one man, but about the bipartisan movement to disregard credentials, to close schools, to hire ill-prepared TFA, and to favor privately managed schools over community public schools. To favor democratically elected school boards over management by hedge fund millionaires.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform

Parent Coalition Blasts Weak Student Privacy Bill

By dianeravitch
August 2, 2014 //
21

Apparently Congress doesn’t care about the privacy of student data and doesn’t think that parents need to know which vendors are getting their children’s confidential records.

The Parent Coalition for Student Privacy issued this statement:

OUR RESPONSE TO THE MARKEY/HATCH STUDENT PRIVACY BILL INTRODUCED 7.30.2014
JULY 30, 2014 ADMIN

For immediate release: July 30, 2012

Rachael Stickland, 303-204-1272; info@studentprivacymatters.org
Leonie Haimson: 917-435-9329; leonie@classsizematters.org

On the Markey/Hatch student privacy bill

Rachael Stickland, co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, said: “Though we appreciate the effort that Senators Markey and Hatch have undertaken on behalf of better privacy protections for students, their proposed legislative fix falls short of what’s needed; it sets no specific security standards for the storage or transmission of children’s personal information, allows unlimited disclosures and redisclosures to for-profit vendors and other third parties without parental consent as long as the data isn’t used for marketing purposes, and doesn’t even require that schools and districts inform parents as to what personal information is being shared with which particular vendors. Thus the clause that requires that parents be able to amend the information held by the vendor is nonsensical as its unclear how they would even know who to contact.”

Said Leonie Haimson, the other co-chair of the Parent Coalition, “Nothing in this bill would have stopped the outrageous data-grab of inBloom, or any of the other companies set to take its place. We need a far stronger bill to do the job that parents are demanding: protecting their children’s privacy and safety from breaches and unwarranted data-mining.”

###

Our response to the Markey/Hatch student privacy bill introduced 7.30.2014

Categories Parent Groups, Privacy and Privacy Rights, Students
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