Here is another reason to opt your children out of state testing. The state plans to collect data on every student throughout their lives, on the nutty belief that someone somewhere will figure out from this Big Data “what works.”
This massive collection of data reflects the NSA’s conviction that the best way to stop terrorism is to listen to every phone call and read every email of everyone in the U.S. and abroad.
Maybe these will be the jobs of the future: reading “private” emails, listening to “private” phone calls, reviewing the confidential information of students.
Sounds like East Germany’s Stasi, not America.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Data collected not to tell ‘what works’ but what work will you be trained to do.
The funny (not ha-ha) thing about the NSA collecting more data is that we had the data we needed to prevent September 11, we just didn’t connect the dots. Insisting that we need more data is like saying the best way to find the needle in the haystack is to add more hay.
I’m guessing it works the same way with student data. I’m sure we have plenty of data to know “what works”. And to the extent we do need more, carefully controlled studies are the best way to get it, not just sucking up all “data” and trying to find some pattern in it.
I recently observed this data monster in action. While I’m sure the medical profession appreciates the true advances in the collection of medical data, it really can get in the way. There is only so much information that can be disaggregated in a useful manner. They are mandated to collect all sorts of information; sometimes the volume gets in the way of tracking toward any benefit. The data is useless if users are overwhelmed with “noise.” It really pointed out to me the importance of the human factor. There is no inherent “goodness” in data; the human ability to interpret is critical to create relevance.
I statatician would say more data increases power of the study; however, that is mute: we know why students do well or not–and the datamining is probably going to be used as it is for faccebook: to be sold to vendors and prospective employers.
I would go out on a limb and say it depends on the structure of the data. Depending on how the data is organized and stored, it can be tricky to query for useful results. Just dumping data into a database accomplishes nothing. With the NSA, that’s the impression I get that, that they have enormous no sql databases of nothing which are, for all practical purposes, impossible to query and they spend huge amounts of money storing the data and spend even more digging through it mindlessly. Just my impression based on their zero results.
It could easily be the same with tracking student data, but probably not because it’s a much smaller amount of data. While it could be far more invasive than the NSA, it might also be useful. Or completely pointless, as the article points out.
The rationale for this seems to be that the data already collected is 90% there already, so going that extra ten percent is a relatively small cost for potentially great gain.
It really depends on how its used. Just because it resembles big brother doesn’t mean that is where our society is headed.
Absolutely true. From my experience, states and districts are already swimming it data. Lacking are the brainpower to analyze it and draw conclusions from it correctly and — at the highest levels — any interest in knowing the truth (as opposed to confirmation of beliefs).
See, but some of that “swimming in data” might be that they have, literally, the wrong data. Or, rather, the wrong organization of that data. Just speculating here.
It’s like the VA and DOD databases where, incomprehensibly, at least according to the daily show, unable to export or import data. Thats a level of vendor lock-in Gates and Jobs never approached.
Maybe the states are similarly locked into some weird database which makes the whole thing useless. I just get the impression that somewhere there is a vendor who sold them some DBMS a long time ago which was intentionally crippled, and they have the missing component sitting on a shelf, but it has a price tag of biiiilions of dollars, or something.
Love it – “the best way to find the needle in the haystack is to add more hay”
Imagine being haunted by something you did as a child. Think about someone trying to get a job, let us say in the CIA, and may have made a mistake in high school. They had a serious suspension, but then turned their life around. I know many students like this. However, some unforgiving bureaucrat will look at the data and pass over such a person. If my kids were still kids, you would be sure, I would have opted out.
This is an excellent point not recognized by others. What you say already happens, albeit on a much smaller scale. For instance, students on ADHD, anti-depressants are routinely denied defense related federal jobs and, if a more pressing medical need, health insurance. Data mining will extend and increase this to all employers. It will be as easy as an FBI background check to access.
It’s this sort of thing, precisely, that justifies Dr. Ravitch’s comparison of this plan to the surveillance conducted by the notorious East German Stasi.
The Stasi would be soooo jealous!
And their time eventually ran out!!
Time always runs out, eventually, for those who seek centralized, totalitarian “solutions.” Big, distant, totalitarian organizations are dinosaurs, and they are stupid, and their bad decisions always catch up to them.
It’s now 2014. Remember NCLB? All we had to do was create state standards and state tests, and by 2014, all students would be proficient in Reading and in Math. No child would be left behind.
We’ve now moved on to the sequel, Son of NCLB, NCLB II: The Nightmare is Nationalized. And this will have the same predictable results–dumbing down of curricula, teaching to the test, defection of good teachers, and this idiocy will, as well, run its course.
The problem is that a lot of damage will be done in the meantime.
I’m curious how the NSA engaged in collecting phone data is connected to collecting data on students? Don’t we already collect data on students? Haven’t we collected data on students since forever? I remember hearing about things showing up on my permanent record in the 1970’s when I was in school. Isn’t this just an example of someone being afraid of change and engaging in fear mongering?
As I understand the “common core” is setting a standard for education across these United States. Isn’t it important that a 5th grader in Montana learns the same things as a 5th grader in New York or California?
I doubt the new system is perfect, but the old system wasn’t that good either. Maybe if we stopped the fear mongering, and looked at it with a clear head we may find we like it. We would also be able to see what isn’t working (by collecting data), and correct issues as they come up.
That’s just my opinion.
“Level-headed Adult,”
Schools have always collected data on students, but we never before had the technology to collect 400 data points, put it in a computing “cloud,” and keep it as a lifelong record, which might be hacked into by strangers or even sold to vendors. Have you ever read the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
So we agree that schools have always collected data on students. I gather from your response you are afraid of the data being used/stored incorrectly, and falling into the wrong hands. That is a valid concern, one we should all have in this modern world. Data security has been a concern since we started collecting data. Kids used to steal tests and change grades. In the Movie Ferris Bueller Ferris hacked into the school’s computer and changed his sick days. That was in 1986! Don’t schools now use computers, the “cloud”, and third parties to manage and store data? While there is no guarantee that any of our data will never be stolen/misused, it doesn’t mean we should stop collecting it, it just means we should be on guard. That being said I still fail to see the 4th Amendment issue. The 4th Amendment (yes I have read it) protects us from unreasonable search. We have consented to data collection at school.
It is irresponsible for anyone to compare the collection of data in our schools to what the NSA is/was doing. These are 2 vastly different things, and the comparison is really only designed to enrage people. Wouldn’t we all be better served by opening a calm informed discussion about what we are afraid of.
Isn’t the education of our youth important enough to merit a rational discussion rather than rhetoric.
I am not sure that the database is something that can be “Opted Out” of right now. Schools are taking the childs records and inputting it into their electronic database. This is happening with or without consent. You can refuse tests all you want, and a test you do not take cannot be uploaded obviously, but if a child is registered with the school, they are in it. Their name, their address, their grades, your name, your contact information, and I don’t even know what else. Someone else jump in if I am wrong but I do not think you can go to your school and ask for them to completely remove your child from their electronic records.
I have several comments on this.
Good longitudinal data is worth its weight in gold. Collecting more data on students is not an inherently bad thing and it doesn’t necessarily have to conjure up images of Big Brother.
That being said, I have (at least) two concerns. The first is that cradle-to-college data on every student doesn’t need to be collected in order to answer the questions we’d like to answer about education in America. That is why statistical sampling was invented. It used to be that data collection, storage and analysis were very expensive. Now, these things are faster and cheaper. The new challenge then is how to maintain people’s rights to privacy now that individuals have less control over how their personal information can be used. Moreover, we cannot forget that we are talking about children here. They cannot consent to personally identifying information being collected about them. Even their legal guardians are not provided with an opportunity for informed consent. This right is apparently transferred to the school district when enrolling a child in public school. It’s a bit like extortion, no? The whole scenario is quite ridiculous when one considers how FERPA applies to a college student’s transcript.
My second concern is related to this consent issue. If the data are being collected for legitimate research, the people collecting it must follow requirements for human subjects research – full stop. If its not really being collected for a research project, then what is the purpose of collecting it? Governments collect data in the course of administering programs and providing public services. The fact that they have data is a side effect of that primary role. Whatever is to be done with these data should be vetted through democratic channels if we would like to maintain ourselves as a democratic nation.
At minimum data concerning minors should only be accessible through a regional data center according to the rules currently in place for IRS data and other sensitive datasets. A researcher can only get access to restricted data if they have a legitimate research question, IRB approval, and a plan for how the data will be analyzed. You can’t just poke around. This is the specific policy that teachers and parents should demand of their legislators. InBloom has many problems and there don’t seem to be protections against data mining. In fact, that is exactly what they want to use the data for. In contrast, there is no way to data mine IRS data (unless perhaps you have special access as part of your job in the IRS) because the data are highly protected. We should demand no less for our children.
Thanks for that information and thoughts, Emmy!
It is so difficult to understand the plan and scope for all of this in the news coverage. It seems to be the case that not only is there a plan to increase the amount of data, and to link the data to a personal identifier, but to open up access far beyond the groups who are viewing restricted data today.
Although I do not claim to have a handle on this, I would like to do what I can to help teachers and parents avoid being pegged as folks in tinfoil hats when they demand their rights. There is a need for better data. But that doesn’t mean this plan is a good one. In fact, it looks very bad and does not even conform to current protections and protocols. InBloom-y proponents are counting on the fact that most people don’t know this. Who wouldn’t want easier access to a more comprehensive dataset? It makes analysis much, much faster and easier. However, there are good reasons to slow things down and to not have the foxes in charge of the chicken coop.
Who are you, oh masked woman, who speaks sense from her lips?
Thank you, Emmy. I think you do a good job of addressing the concerns that legitimize the concerns of many of us.
“If the data are being collected for legitimate research, the people collecting it must follow requirements for human subjects research – full stop. ”
Yes!
Having been required to gain IRB pre approval for several research projects over my career, I have wondered about this with regard to these massive data collection schemes . How can they claim this is a legit research project?
I like this plan and may I suggest to monetize the results at one thousand federal dollars a point, to be paid to, or owed by, a combination of the teacher, school, and district.
At twenty years from graduation:
If a student is an orthodontist, two points.
If a student is a WalMart employee, one point.
If a student is shiftless, negative one point.
If a student is a school reformer, negative two points.
We are running the risk of swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction. Emmy’s comments represent a valid middle ground where the role of data is balanced and weighted against other propositions.
Data isn’t the enemy and it has never been the enemy. The corporate interest and its flawed usage driven by people who actually understand little about the data they are collecting does not mean there is an inherent evil to data. Longitudinal datasets of this magnitude would allow educators to better understand mechanisms of achievement, where gaps develop as student progress, etc.., etc…
Of course there need to be policies and mechanisms to ensure student and parent rights to confidentiality and privacy are met. Of course there needs to be a democratic discussions of what data we should collect, why we should collect it, and at what cost. But we shouldn’t just dismiss it because a regime chose to use it in deeply flawed ways.
But a sensationalist statement comparing the collection of data to East Germany’s Stasi is just a fear-evoking hook with no intellectual merits. It’s a narrow, anti-scientific view usually practiced by the narrow-minded. I’m surprised to hear it come out of Dr. Ravitch.
John G., I support the U.S. Constitution. The 4th amendment protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizure. I am outraged that the government wants cradle-to-grave I formation about me or my family, as well as asserting the power to listen to my phone calls and read my emails. Not in America!
Absolutely!!! Sense from Dr. Ravitch!!!
I am not sure if it is possible to put enough protections on data of this nature. I am still learning. But I do think that treating it similarly to IRS restricted data and applying human subjects research protocols to its collection and analysis is a very clear and actionable policy demand for teachers and parents who are concerned about this. But it may be that much more is needed.
Emmy, see my note, below. Thanks. And thanks for your comments.
Much more is definitely needed. This needs to be stopped. Protecting the data from outside access (that is, from access by persons other than inBloom and its licensees) is the LEAST of our problems. Again, see my note.
Yes, Robert. That is what was behind tinfoil hat comment. When people learn about this their natural reaction is to fear that the wrong person will get their hands on their personal data. So then the InBloom-y people will reiterate stuff about the security of the cloud to reassure people. Ah, the little people right? Despite being a risk, a technological breach isn’t the worst thing to fear.
The flip side of the requirement to “keep it safe” is the power to deny and limit access for legitimate users. What if a professor at Harvard wants the data? What does he or she have to do to get access to it? What will be proprietary? Because this will become the best dataset out there for studying student achievement. Moreover, we’re already seeing what devastating educational policy can be developed when people ignore the data. But how do you challenge a future status quo if you don’t have access to the data that will make your argument? Some states are saying that the data doesn’t actually go anywhere but is it possible that only InBloom will have ready access to the national-level data?
We can always loosen up with experience, but your suggestions are probably closer to what is necessary. Just watch these people slaver over the billions that can be extracted from the education market.
well thought through, as usual, Emmy!
I’ve been following political analysis over the last couple of months as the Snowden leaks/ NSA system exposures are being digested. The technical experts I’ve heard all comment: the problem is, the technology is years ahead of the legal system.
There will always be market forces jumping in to make the most of the latest tech advance before regulations catch up. We shouldn’t be resigning ourselves to indiscriminate data collection, we should be pressuring legislators to rein it in.
I am wondering: If a child goes to private school (can afford to go to private school), then they are not subject to all of the ELA and Math Assessment tests, therefore that data is not collected.
So, if you have wealth, you can avoid (some of) the data collection related to your minor children. The children of the middle and lower classes will be the ones who are tracked. I don’t think this sounds right at all.
Any thoughts?
It looks that way to me. Private schools require a copy of a child’s birth certificate and vaccination forms to enroll. This kind of basic information gets passed on to the state. So, a unique identifier could be created that way even for private school students. Private school students also take standardized tests so that data could be added along the way. But, to your point, the data fields would be more or less empty for students enrolled in private schools because laws would need to enacted to compel more information from the private schools. It seems their plan is for it to be a matter of course for public school students.
Be the change http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-call-to-action.html
Thanks Emmy, very well stated!
“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face–forever.” George Orwell, 1984
The Common Core was paid for as part of a strategic plan. Here’s how the plan was supposed to work:
Educational materials are going to go online. That’s inevitable because pixels are FAR cheaper than paper is.
Whoever controls that will make billions over time.
Now, imagine that there is a single national database of student test scores and responses. If those educational materials are aligned with those responses and scores, then particular lessons can be served up to particular students.
Now, the beauty of this, from a business point of view, is that the national database of responses is a natural monopoly. If all the responses are going to be in one place, there can only be one such database–one central repository.
If a private entity owns that database, then it controls the gateway through which the computer-adaptive curricula of the future will pass.
In other words, the database of student responses and scores is in the educational materials industry what the operating system is in the personal computer industry–the piece that everyone has to use and to pay for. It’s the piece that ensures monopoly control.
And just think of the revenue streams!!! First, there’s the per-student charge for collecting and storing the data. Second, there are the fees to be charged to publishers for connecting their products to the database. Third, there are the proprietary educational programs to be connected to that database. To hasten development of the latter, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation last year issued an RFP for developers of computer-adaptive educational software products.
Billions and billions to be made. But for this to work, first you have to have a single set of national standards.
So, why did Bill pay to develop the Common Core?
This was part of a business plan for Gates’ company, inBloom. And his buddy Rupert Murdoch, who is developing the engine for inBloom, will also profit handsomely.
Well, you see, in Bill’s mind, it’s a win-win. He thinks that a top-down, totalitarian bullet list of standards is good for education AND that having one will make him billions more.
Little problem: People see this as the Orwellian nightmare that it is.
You see, the Common Core–a single national bullet list of skills–was necessary in order for there to be a single national database of student responses that also serves as a single gateway through which the curricula of the future will pass.
This doesn’t seem to have dawned on our educrats and politicians, many of whom are very slow learners.
If you like the idea of the reduction of U.S. education to mastery of the bullet list–to the delivery of worksheets on a screen keyed to a bullet list of standards, you will LOVE the Common Core and inBloom. That’s the vision, folks.
The Powerpointing of U.S. education.
Learning is mastery of the bullet list.
Teaching is punishment and reward, and you don’t need people to do it. There’s an app for that.
The Common Core and the national database/curriculum gateway represents the triumph of technocratic philistinism over traditions of humane scholarship, research, teaching, and learning. It’s also breathtakingly Orwellian.
Man I think that video is what caused my gout attack last week!
It is going to happen whether we like it or not. Each generation accepts a little bit more of control and watching. Step back and look at history in a meta way. The young people of today see nothing wrong in their phones tracking you. They look forward to the sales that pop up on their phones when they walk into a store or mall. How often do you just give your phone number in a store and they pull up all your info. Bit by bit it happens and suddenly we are in 1984 and don’t know how we got there. I read an article how some scientists are letting a super computer go and make decisions to see when it will do it on its own. That’s scary.
He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake.
Even as a small child, I thought that incredibly creepy.
“He knows if you’ve been good or bad, so be good, for goodness sake!”
It’s never going to have the same meaning.
I guess ol Santa Claus “knowing” wasn’t such a stretch for this Catholic raised boy. God was considered the “expert” surveillor and you better not try to cross that guy up!!
We are not defenseless. We can draw a line around certain kinds of individual level data. We have always been a nation that has valued the right to privacy. That shouldn’t change just because we have computers. Our awareness, our laws and our sense of ethical behavior just need to catch up to our technology.
The universal declaration of human rights has an explicit right to privacy. Unfortunately, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t. That makes it easy to push the boundaries a little, then a little more. And, of course, we have the Roberts court, with its majority that doesn’t think that a right to privacy exists.
And what about the issue of the monopoly power that ownership of the centralized database confers, Emmy? I’m sure that you understand how very sinister that is.
You are right, Bill, that there is a boiled frog phenomenon occurring with this surveillance technology. Prior to the Republic Convention here in Tampa, many millions of dollars’ worth of cameras with face recognition technology were installed here in Tampa. Of course, they didn’t come down afterward. Every one of us now carries around a cell phone. By presidential order, manufacturers selling cell phones in the U.S. have to include a GPS system on them that enables the owner to be located via his or her phone number. Few are aware of this.
It’s very, very easy to add another little layer to the Big Brother technology, mostly because people usually don’t even know that it’s happening. And by increments, they get used to it. People spill all the details of their lives into their Facebook statuses, and those are datamined. I saw a little blurb in my local paper, a year or so ago, about the head of the Department of Homeland Security going out to spend a week with Zuckerberg. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall.
cx: Republican Convention
Oh, and here in St. Petersburg, FL, the local police department just ordered a million-dollar armored tank with sophisticated eavesdropping facilities–ultra sensitive microphones and infrared, heat-seeking cameras. I read an article recently in Wired magazine about how 32,000 U.S. police departments have applied for permits to operate crones.
Orwell’s Thought Police had to make do with clunky old helicopters.
cx: to operate drones
but perhaps crones would be more effective. LOL. That system–surveillance via crone–has worked very well for the People’s Republic of China for quite a long time now.
You are so right. I was just in England. The TV in my room turned on automatically with a message from the desk. Driving the rental car the radio turned on automatically with a traffic update. Very creepy. Haven’t figured out if these “technologies’ can be turned off yet. If so, don’t think it will be for long.
How prescient were Orwell’s telescreens–Winston attempting to squeeze into a corner out of their line of sight!
Will Billy’s alma mater, the elite Lakeside Academy, have THEIR students tossed into this Murdoch-run database, or not?
Puget Sound Parent: when it comes to the leading charterites/privatizers and their favored enablers and edubully underlings, no, THEIR OWN CHILDREN will be spared the scrutiny.
It’s just for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN.
And it is only the latter that will be in danger from hackers [a la Target and others].
Makes ₵ent$.
Rheeally!
But not really…
😎
Gates has been talking about computer-adaptive curricula for years. Now he has backed off from Microsoft and has time to devote to this little project of his–the Microsofting of K-12 education.
Again, the national standards were needed in order for there to be a single set of standards to adapt that computer-adaptive curricula to. Politicians and many educrats DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS. So, they don’t understand what is happening and why.
Fascism can come about because of violent revolution.
Or it can come about because no one is paying attention, because they are too busy watching Breaking Bad while their country is breaking bad.
Welcome to the Panopticon, boys and girls.
This message brought to you by the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and inBloom, Inc. Offer to enter the Panopticon void in freedom-loving nation states until we get around to giving them no choice but to follow our example.
All your base belong to us.
There’s a difference, of course, between the Panopticon that’s being created and the one that Jeremy Bentham imagined. In Bentham’s version, everyone could see everyone else. In the Gates version, he can see you, and anyone who pays him for the privilege can, but that’s where it stops.
The new version of Windows 8 comes with an automatic feature for saving your files on “the cloud.” Well, what is “the cloud?” It’s a bank of servers that someone owns and has complete access to.
Obama asked Holder for a finding, which Holder dutifully produced, saying that it was OK for your government to collect and store, permanently, your telephone records, emails, and other electronic communications. The finding said that it’s not surveillance until they look at the data. Read all about this in the Wired magazine cover story on the 72-billion-dollar data collocation center that the NSA is building in Utah for storing your data.
I wish I were making this stuff up.
The news keeps pouring in. Technologies are being implemented, as we speak, that Orwell’s MiniTrue and MiniLuv could only have dreamed of.
inBloom is another of these.
“Obama asked Holder for a finding, which Holder dutifully produced, saying that it was OK for your government to collect and store, permanently, your telephone records, emails, and other electronic communications. The finding said that it’s not surveillance until they look at the data.”
It’s kind of like saying they can come in and walk around your house any time they want just as long as they don’t touch anything. If at some future date, a legitimate reason for scrutiny arises, then they have mountains of “pre-collected” data to access.
That’s exactly the case. What such a policy produces is the ability to take care of anyone who becomes a problem, for as Shakespeare said in Hamlet, “Use every man after his desert, and who shall scape whipping?” Have something on everyone. It worked for Hoover. It will work for the totalitarian regimes running the United States in the future.
The Panopticon is Good.
The Panopticon is there to protect me from the Bad People.
I love the Panopticon.
Excellent, Comrade Michael. Would you like to say a word or two at the next Hate?
You understand, of course, that that is not a question.
Robert D. Shepard, R, Robert D. Shepard:
All your bases become our base!
All your bases become our base!
All your bases become our base!
I hope that readers of this blog understand why the Common Core State Standards were necessary in order for there to be a national database of student responses that serves as a portal–a gateway–for computer-adaptive curricula–curricula keyed BOTH to those responses and to the standards. There’s a reason why Gates paid to have a single set of national standards developed.
As Arne Duncan’s Chief of Staff put it, the new national standards are all about creating “national markets for products that can be brought to scale.”
Products like computer-adaptive curricula delivered through a single national portal/gateway controlled by a monopolist who stands to make many, many billions from this.
We are seeing pushback, for now. But how long will that last. When George Bush, Sr., first floated the idea of national standards, he was almost universally shouted down by folks right, left, and center. So, those who wanted that sort of totalitarian centralization took other tacks. They’ve now accomplished what they set out to accomplish. Next phase.
Oh, and BTW, Arne Duncan recently said that the plutocrats have “no seat at the [education policy-making] table.” So, it’s just a COINCIDENCE that his technology blueprint, issued at the beginning of his tenure, called for all of this–the national standards, the national tests given on computer, computer-adaptive curricula, the national database of student responses. And it’s just a COINCIDENCE that he revised the FERPA rules so that districts and states could turn over ALL of students’ private data to a private corporation without parental consent.
Such serendipity!!! Such synchronicity!!!
Now, I happen to be a HUGE fan of computer-based learning, despite all the crap computer-based curricula out there right now. But we can have this, and it can even be computer-adaptive curricula, without having the Orwellian database. But without that database, there will be no cradle-to-grave tracking of the proles, and there will be no monopolist gatekeeper for the curricula stream. That would be a problem for Mr. Gates, who didn’t become the richest man in the world by being stupid. He has a very carefully thought-out plan, and the beauty of it is that almost no one has put the pieces together. Almost no one understands how the national standards, for example, are related to the national database and to control of the curriculum stream of the future.
Is no one concerned about this being a plan to create an adaptive-curriculum monopoly? Do you understand what that means?
It means a private, corporate gatekeeper for IDEAS–a “decider” regarding who gets access and who will not, what will be taught and what will not.
This is beyond creepy. But the plan to establish just such a monopoly is very, very real. Billions are at stake, and those billions justify the investment that his been made in creating national standards and national tests.
And a lot of people are being duped, are being played, are pawns in this game without even knowing it. And many of those people are well-respected educrats and education consultants. However, they have very little experience in business and so do not recognize a strategic plan when they see one.
I HAVE seen all this the same way you see it, Robert, AND I have taken it further, seeing this on a GLOBAL scale, which is what’s happening….
most other areas of societal control have been locked down – ‘elections’, legislative and justice systems, access to money, credit, housing, health care, quality food, police forces, raiding government coffers (austerity and privatisation), tying countries’ decision-making to the IMF/World Bank, reducing/cutting out the social safety net in countries that still have them, trans-national raping of the resources of the planet…
any public education left on the planet is the last element standing in the way of total control and that’s what this ‘reform’ agenda is aiming to eliminate…
Great film that gets at the point that Diane Ravitch makes in her post. If you haven’t seen it, it’s well worth your time.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/
Next they will come for the books. They’ve already tried to convince people that everything worth reading has already been converted to electronic copies. Once there are no more print versions available at local libraries, it would be very easy to begin altering or deleting books that are deemed to be undesirable. At the very least, everything everyone ever reads will be recorded along with the other gigabytes of personal data.
Fahrenheit 451?
There’s nothing Alex Jones-y about this. It’s a business plan, pure and simple.
But the consequences of such a concentration of power and authority are not acceptable.
The creation of monopolistic control over the gateway through which online curricula will flow is UNACCEPTABLE.
The people of a democratic state will NOT allow this to occur.
Or maybe they will. Maybe they just won’t notice. Maybe the fact that it is occurring will just whiz right by them while they are busy reading that fascinating story about whatever Miley Cyrus happens to be licking today.
That state officials would think this Orwellian database acceptable leads me to wonder, if they think this is OK, what WOULD they object to? Just how totalitarian does a policy have to get before it troubles their sleep?
Miley Cyrus licks????
Who/what is Miley Cyrus??
I wondered what she might be licking. Thank you for asking, Duane. Perhaps Robert will enlighten us.
Restricting the critique to the proposed use of the P-20 system, among the many, many reasons NOT to do this tracking is that people will use it to draw conclusions that can’t legitimately draw. They will say, for example, that mastery of standards y and z by Grade 5 predicts success in, say, Algebra II, when the correlation is due to third factors, when mastery of skills c and e, not taught, would have had more success, etc. The system will spawn a lot of scientism and precious little science.
“The system will spawn a lot of scientism and precious little science.”
Scientism hypnotizes better than science.