Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed a panel to study the state’s botched implementation of the Common Core standards and tests.
In its report, the panel recommended that the state halt its relationship with inBloom, the data collection project created by the Gates Foundation and Carnegie Cotporation at a cost of $100 million. It would have collected confidential and personally identifiable data about every child and stored it on an electronic cloud created by Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation and managed by amazon.com, with no certainty that hacking would not happen.
The US Department of Education loosened regulations governing student privacy in 2011 in the FERPA law to make inBloom and other data mining projects possible.
Parents have loudly opposed such invasion of their children’s privacy.
The committee concluded that the issue distracted from the important task of implementing CCSS.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yeah and, if you notice, the panel is completely dismissive of a parent’s right to opt out (and forget about opting in).
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This blatant shadiness and exploitation of the children in NY should be enough to cut all ties with Gates, Pearson and the like including Common Core. This should also be the undoing of Cuomo.
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Well, this recommendation should certainly satisfy everyone who believes that the problem with this longitudinal data project is Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, and amazon.com.
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Not even close.
IMO, this is about asking for 100% when what you really want is 50%. inBloom would be icing on the cake or is something that will be revisited down the road. The CCSS is the driving force for Gates, Murdoch, etc at the moment. Maintaining it’s existence is the essential.
Ditch the CCSS. And inBloom.
(btw: just because the panel recommended it doesn’t mean that Cuomo will give the ok on it)
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Wow, one small blog and we were able to trash two highly regarded foundations in Gates and Carnegie, a company owned by the Wall Street Journal and was contracted by the Federal Government and Amazon who is probably the largest data storage company in the world already storing information on every teacher in the world. But then again, if one doesn’t drink the Kool Aid they must be minimized. http://www.GippersBlog.com
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“The committee concluded that the issue distracted from the important task of implementing CCSS.”
Love this closing.
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There is an important takeaway there:
The Common [sic] Core [sic] State [sic] Standards [sic] are the engine that runs the Education Deform juggernaut. The deformers understand that their bullet list of “standards” is the sine qua non of Ed Deform.
Or, to switch metaphors, Kill the “standards,” and you kill Ed Deform. Keep them alive, and Ed Deform remains, an undead, resurrected NCLB.
Time to put a stake in it and end the imposition of mandated, top-down, invariant, untested, innovation-strangling, amateurish, PROPRIETARY, and PRIVATELY HELD “standards” on the country.
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Bravo. Also props on the fine list of adjectives.
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An excellent recommendation based on a hilarious conclusion.
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Bill, Rupert and Joel seek to exploit family, student, and teacher data in NY and beyond from birth to death for $5.00 per year. A continuous source of income for the profiteers with no value for the targets and their families or the teachers.
Click to access engageny-portal-data-dictionary.pdf
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Todd Hathaway appears to be a very strong candidate for Dr. Ravitch’s Honor Roll:
http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2014/03/11/teacher-on-cuomos-common-core-panel-criticizes-report/
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Teacher on Cuomo’s common core panel dissents. The lone voice in the darkness. http://www.nysut.org/news/2014/march/teacher-on-common-core-panel-dissents-calls-report-incomplete
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If any one person deserves credit for the progress in fighting against InBloom, it’s the indefatigable Leonie Haimson. She deserves a shout out and our gratitude.
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I agree. Support Class Size Matters. Thanks Leonie.
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Yes, Leonie is amazing. Watch her appearance on the Ed show last night.
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2014/03/my-appearance-on-co-locations-and-brian.html
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Yes, thanks, Leonie!
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The reporting still deals only with the privacy issue. Another extremely significant issue is that such a system would be linked to adaptive curricula and so would constitute a de facto gateway or portal through which only certain vendors could operate. In other words, this private vendor would become the curriculum Thought Police.
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Exactly. Check this out from No More Fake News:
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=8d29b235-4bc7-4e59-9057-edc89170eb8b&c=90cc5150-92fc-11e3-84cc-d4ae52a2cb52&ch=91d50ec0-92fc-11e3-853e-d4ae52a2cb52
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Just as the undead NCLB was resurrected in the form of the Common Core, look for this undead Orwellian total student information awareness database to be resurrected in a more devious form.
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As a parent there is no trust in DOE. For crying out loud my kid’s results from their state tests are just a number, no other information is provided to parents or teachers. Did they fall down in vocabulary, was it main idea, did they do well with character traits? Are they struggling with comparing and contrasting? Maybe they had good organization in their writing but spelling was abominable or ideas were to broad.
If I can’t trust you to share with me how my child is doing why would I give you their data?
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The true purpose is to wreck teacher evaluations, undo tenure with the new “2 years of ineffective and you are out” rule, and fire all teachers based on cockamamie test scores. And principals too. Then they close the school and open a charter. Ta Da….privatized education at tax payer expense. That is why Cuomo says untying the test from teacher evaluations is OFF THE TABLE.
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Dawn, what a coincidence! This teacher evaluation system you mentioned is also happening in my Midwestern state as well. Interesting how almost all the states enacted the same laws at almost the same exact times. What are the chances? Isn’t it amazing how all the states just decided to follow the same course so spontaneously? Next they will take away all the pensions and after that social security. All those selfish takers in our society! The grandmother down the street should get to work! It feels so good to live in a free country, doesn’t it? All these choices I have to make. We have so many wonderful television shows to choose from, so interesting and thought provoking! They are just so intelligent. Move over Shakespeare! The news had a story about snow again. It’s going to be cold tomorrow. I better bundle up. No more news about Ukraine. I am glad that the crisis is over. Haven’t heard one more word about that or anything else in the world. Isn’t that just fantastic? The world has no problems! I just feel so informed about the world by watching American news. They tell me everything I need to know. I trust them to pick the best stories, like that one about the cat and the kittens at the end. That just made me smile! I love that they finish the news with an animal story. Let’s stay positive. The stock market was down today, but it is up for the year. We are in a solid recovery now, so I guess I should ignore that the mall is half vacant or that many neighbors are foreclosing. Life is good!
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The new teacher evaluation systems being implemented nation wide are by no means a coincidence. They were a federal requirement in order for states to receive a waiver from the impossible AYP goal of the NCLB act.
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I continue to feel negative emotions when I read that Gates is involved with education in New York State. Just because something is counted, collected, and stored does not mean we have improved it or solved anything. I recently read Miles Wortman’s new book, The Road to HELP. Wortman looks at the influence that the mega-wealthy are buying with their philanthropy, and makes the point that engineers and financiers are unqualified to direct education policy, despite their enormous wealth.
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It is interesting how the federal government is so tied up in implementing an evaluation system they claim they have no hand in creating (other than forcing states to adopt certain characteristics).
I really do get the claim about how throwing money at education didn’t resolve the issues – resources for schools and smaller class sizes are one part of it. The government seems absolutely blind to the patent connection between socio-economic status and educational achievement. It’s not 100% (nothing is) but you can’t deny that social mobility is at an all time low, and millenials (those born since 1981 or so) are incredibly distrustful of pretty much everyone right now and everyone feels incredibly insecure, particularly since the crash of 2008.
Has education ever magically created jobs? Aren’t some of those who created the most jobs those who trumpeted having no High School education? Education was supposed to create a knowledgeable republic that could make good choices for society – nowhere in my teacher training did we address the job potential for students – we focused on making them engaged learners who would become lifelong questioners – not giving them an MBA degree so they could all go out and be entrepreneurs.
It’s incredibly frustrating to see the government take such a heavy hand with the education system, while doing so little to support it, and basically intrinsically blaming education for society’s ills when the purpose of education is being misconstrued and the factors that make for a successful education are distorted.
And somehow if we collect enough data on everyone we’ll find the magic teaching pill that will reach every child and make them all happy creative learners. Since we don’t have real AI yet, any adaptation to a child is basically a programmed best guess (possibly based on thousands of other similar data points) – by definition they can’t evaluate creativity since if it’s really new, a computer can’t process it (except by what it can process – number of words, correct spelling, does it follow the english language ruleset programmed into it, what are the parameters that each of those should be for each grade).
Let’s see how loquacious our children become while being completely vacant of curiosity or an ability to form a question that wasn’t made for them.
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Reblogged this on 21st Century Theater.
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