The Network for Public Education shares the widespread sentiment that testing has gotten out of control, consuming too much time in the classroom and narrowing the curriculum.
In this post, NPE endorses a new initiative to protect children from invasions of their privacy by online testing, which these days is collecting confidential information that may be shared with vendors and other third parties without parental consent.
Last weekend brought exciting news from our friends at United Opt Out and Student Privacy Matters. Recently Student Privacy Matters, an organization comprised of a national coalition of parents, co-chaired by NPE Board Member and Class Size Matters Executive Director Leonie Haimson, and Colorado parent Rachael Stickland, released information related to the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
COPPA states that parents of children under the age of 13 not only have a right to know what online information is being collected from their children, they have a right to opt them out of any online program that their child participates in at school, including online testing.
UOO believes that COPPA may be the key to a national opt out strategy. Last weekend UOO’s Peg Robertson, also know as blogger Peg with Pen, wrote the following:
This has serious implications for the Opt Out movement. As PARCC and SBAC and other online tests roll out we have a national strategy that can be used, for all children under age 13, as we opt out/refuse the tests. Currently, any other online programs and online testing in use for under age 13 can be halted. We know that there will be many questions to answer as we move forward with this strategy – understand that the only way to get our questions answered is to try it. Let’s do this.
Student Privacy Matters has provided sample letters to send to your child’s school to get information regarding what on-line programs are in use, as well as to opt them out off those programs. UOO recommends using the sample opt out letter to opt children under 13 out of the upcoming PARCC tests, which will be mostly administered online.
NPE will follow developments on this exciting potential opt out/refusal strategy, and provide updates as they become available.
For more information, open the link and read more about the organizations and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Why is it only for under 13?
Why not 18, since they are minors?
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COPPA only applies to children under the age of 13 and that is the law that some are exploring as an opt out strategy.
COPPA applies to commercial web sites that collect personal information from children under the age of 13. Whether a commercial operator like Pearson is collecting personal data from students when the data is being received from state departments of education is something that may have to be tested through litigation, although Student Privacy Matters seems to think COPPA would apply.
However, COPPA does not apply to non-profits like ACT, AIR, or ETS so it’s not a fully national strategy.
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I understand what the law says. I question why the law was not written to apply to all underage children. Choosing 13 as the cut-off age seems rather arbitrary. There must have been discussion; I wonder if the lobbyist for corporate America influenced this decision. They want as much data on teenage shoppers as they can get.
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As technology focused laws go, COPPA is an older one that was enacted in 1998. As I remember it, the choice of 13 as the cut-off age was arbitrary. The belief was that children 13 or older would be old enough to understand the implications of entering their personal data to online site. It’s somewhat similar to the idea of the PG-13 rating that is also pretty arbitrary.
Ironically, the design of the law gives the FTC great latitude to update the provision of the law in substantial ways except for the age limitation.
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Thanks for the explanation. Of course, how can we argue with that logic?
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Thanks Diane, New Jersey is ready!!
Happy Hanukkah – let freedom ring!
Rebellion is in the air
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I’m ready to stand up and cheer! But – wouldn’t an opt-in process be better? Parents would have to make an affirmative decision to give access to their kids information.
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We are all familiar with the phrase- “drinking the koolaid”. It’s a reference to the followers of People’s Temple founder Jim Jones, who willingly drank poisoned fruit punch (Flavor-Aid brand) in response to his command that they commit suicide as a ‘revolutionary act’. In the end, over 900 people died in the Guyana jungle where Jones had hoped to establish a Utopian community.
Well, in the effort to create a Utopia in our schools, an awful lot of poisoned punch is being served up: data-driven decision making, test-based accountability, ‘rigor’, high standards, Common Core, high-stakes tests, ‘school choice’, charters, vouchers, and more. One of the worst has to be the rah-rah sessions referred to as “Professional Learning Communities”. The term comes from the work of Rick and Rebecca DuFour and others. Ostensibly, a group of professional educators comes together on a regular basis to learn and share. They are supposed to set their own agenda, their own goals, and formulate their own plan to achieve those goals.
In daily practice in my district, PLCs are just another meeting with agenda dictated from above and predetermined outcomes. Exchange of ideas is not welcomed, and dissent is actively discouraged. Anyone with ideas or opinions not in line with the agenda and outcomes is to be silenced by whatever means. In other words, drink the koolaid, smile, and be happy about it. Yesterday I just about hit my limit.
Please, sir, could I have some more? NOT
http://classroomadventure.blogspot.com/2014/12/drowning-in-koolaid.html
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What?!?!?
You don’t like being professionally developed?!?!?
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Fighting against BPD, Being Professionally Developed, OOPS, I mean PLCs, is what got me into “trouble” at my last district (I’ve only been in two).
As department chair of the world languages department I met with the principal (who brought along three extra assistant principals-of which only one has any cojones and she was the only woman of the three-as a show of “force”) to discuss why the PLC process wasn’t working for department, why logically it couldn’t and what we wanted to do with that time (45 minutes every Tues A.M.)-bring in the struggling students and work with them. And she agreed that it wasn’t working and that our idea to work with the struggling students was a good one.
I was astonished, thinking wow, that was amazing, she just agreed with our department’s thinking (which I wasn’t expecting at all). . .
As soon as she agreed she stood up from her chair at the head of the table (the three assts were seated on a long one side when I came in so I chose to sit at the other “head” of the table and not across from the assts-I can be a prick like that-I knew the “power games she was attempting) leaning forward over the table at me, pointing her finger directly at me, voiced raised, practically yelling, and said: “BUT. . . , this school is doing PLCs, this district is doing PLCs, this state is doing PLCs, this country is doing PLCs AND YOUR (really jabbing her finger towards me know) DEPARTMENT IS DOING PLCS WHETHER YOU (meaning me as she was certain I was speaking only for me and had been getting the other department members to go along with me) LIKE IT OR NOT!!!
I calmly said “Okay??” and got up and left, fuming inside, her demand after agreeing that the PLC wasn’t and couldn’t work, that we continue doing the same shit blew my mind. I got back to my room and emailed my assistant principal, who was at the meeting, the only one of the three with cojones, trying to blow off some steam and commented to her that the PLC was just a bunch of “MENTAL MASTURBATION” and we needed to talk about the situation the next day.
Well, at 6:30 a.m. the next morning when I got to my room, my assistant principal was there. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “I couldn’t sleep last night.” she responded. I gave a questioning look and she said that she had been advised by the principal to file sexual harassment charges against me for what I had written in my email the afternoon before (she had been instructed to forward any of my emails and conversations to the principal). Fortunately for me that assistant principal has cojones and refused to do the dirty work of the principal. I knew I’d better find somewhere else because I was in the crosshairs of the principal (I’d seen her drive out three teachers of the year in the prior couple of years). Ten years later I’m where I am now and again am being subjected to “data”, “SLOs” “SGPs” and the “PLC” process which so far the other world language teacher and myself have been able to ignore and not do. . . .
Until now and next year as we have a new enforcer of a principal, one easily young enough to be my kid, who knows nothing of teaching a second language but supposedly knows how “to run a tight ship”. At least I can retire after this year if necessary.
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I’m with you in the same boat. In my small rural school we have one teacher per grade level. We have “departmentalized” so the kids have different teachers for each subject. I objected because I spent all summer integrating reading, math, and so on. We waited until the second semester to hire on another teacher so we can departmentalize.We have idiotic meetings after school when we should be tutoring students. I tutor reading, one of my M.A.’s is in linguistics. We pointed out that the meetings to talk about what to do were useless, just let us do what needs to be done. Our rural school is only open 4 days a week, why waste one day of tutoring? As you know, when you dare to make sense…The administration will be glad to see me leave. Right now I am finishing my special education certification and an M.A. in clinical counseling. I can retire at a reduced rate after this year. I ran the numbers, each year is equal to about 30 dollars a month…I think my mental health is worth more. I hope to work counseling and providing educational help for children outside the aegis of the schools, it will be the only way to help. By the way Duane, I have a son in Missouri, I will be going that way, where are some of the better hunting and fishing areas? He is near Hannibal.
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OT,
Email me at dswacker@centurytel.net about the hunting and fishing. Be happy to let you know.
Duane
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Reblogged this on onewomansjournal.
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