Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters and Lisa Rudley of the New York State Allies for Public Education (NYSAPE) wrote to New York State Commissioner MaryEllen Elia and the Board of Regents to protest the latest Gates grant for collection and implementation of student data. They are concerned that the purpose of the grant is to re-start efforts to exploit personally identifiable student data, one of Gates’ passions. In addition, the grant went to a privately funded group (funded largely by Gates) called the Regents Research Fund, which operates as a “shadow government,” with neither transparency nor accountability.
By law, the state is required to have a Chief Privacy Officer, but no qualified person has been appointed. The acting CPO has no background in the field and has resisted complying with parent requests for information about their own children.
The quest for student data is endless:
Our concerns about expanded student data collection are also exacerbated by the fact that we have been unable to get any information about why NYSED officials decided that the personal student data collected by the state should be eventually placed into the State Archives, eight years after a student’s graduation from high school, with no date certain when it will be destroyed. We have asked what restrictions will be placed on access to that data, when if ever the data will be deleted, and have requested a copy of the memo in which state officials apparently determined that these records have “long-term historical value and should be transferred to the State Archives.”vi Neither NYSED nor the State Archives will answer our questions or provide us a copy of this memo, and instead demanded that we FOIL for it.
They point out that the same issue raised parent ire against former Commissioner John King (now the Acting Secretary of Education):
The previous Commissioner faced intense opposition from parents, school board members, district superintendents, teachers and elected officials over his plan to share personal student data with the Gates-funded data store called inBloom Inc. Because of strong public opposition and NYSED’s refusal to change course, the Legislature was forced to pass a new law to block the participation of the state in the inBloom project. The controversy over inBloom was one of the major issues that contributed to the public’s loss of trust in Commissioner King’s leadership, as well as his eventual resignation. We do not want to have to engage in such an intense battle over student privacy once again in relation to this new data collection plan.
Parents should send their own letters to the State Commissioner, the Board of Regents, and legislators. Now is the time to protect your child’s privacy rights!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Why are Bill and Rupert so obsessed with the data that children other than their own generate? Follow the money to the US Department of Corporate Education and the grants that the taxpayers fund – How many millions did taxpayers waste on inBloom?
The department is corrupt and must be abolished!
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Reblogged this on stopcommoncorenys.
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“THEY’RE BA-ACK!” Here to go after our kids again. And, like many a sequel, it’s probably much worse than the original.
Poltergeist II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH-B6A04iK0
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Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
Why are they after the children’s’ data, that should remain private?
Well, yes, indeed, it’s all about the money.
Privacy rights should be inviolate. The rights of our children, and our rights, as well, for that matter.
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I no longer have children in public school. They all graduated. But as a teacher, I fear for my own right to privacy. I already believe that my right to free speech has been incumbered. I have a friend who said she can’t trust teachers because their hands have been tied to the core that she believes to be immoral and anti American. I had to remind her that I and countless other teachers do not check our morals and beliefs at the front door of our school buildings. I also reminded her that we needed our parents to stand up for us and get into the game. I do not know if that helped. But I love the parents in New York who are making a statement. Where are the parents in Utah?
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I have wondered the same thing. What I’ve decided is that the lack of outrage in Utah is a combination of a few things: the large family sizes in Utah (no time to get educated), a cultural passivity, and the tying up of teachers.
As you know, teachers in Utah are not even allowed to MENTION opting out. Most parents don’t know they have that right, even though it’s in state law. Districts are supposed to tell parents, but they don’t. And teachers have been threatened with their licenses if they tell parents.
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Gagging the teachers (with VAM and all the rest) is the first thing the “reformers” did.
People like Bill Gates are actually very astute. They understand quite well that that is the only way to succeed with their plan.
Data (on children and teachers) is simply another blade to hold over their heads to keep them quiet.
The East German Stasi understood this quite well.
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“Dangerous Teachers”
Teachers are a threat
Because they nurture thinking
Dangerous? You bet!
They send the shysters slinking
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“Achille’s VAM Boot”
VAM’s a steel-heeled boot
To guard against an arrow
From teachers who won’t root
For testing straight and narrow
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This is well researched letter with really sharp questions.
For readers who are not concerned about the specific issues in New York, there are major issues with data security and privacy at USDE. The footnotes in this letter are worth a look.
If you have an interest in seeing how USDE spends money on privacy and security issues (and research on educational issues generally) you can find the master spreadsheet of contrats and subcontractors at the link below
.
In an earlier post, I noted that there are numerous “security” contractors at work to keep USDE data from leaking. Contractors are shoring up breaches of privacy, upgrading outdated “security” systems and so on. This is in addition to USDE’s record of sidestepping privacy issues, stalling, stonewalling, and pretending that subcontractors can be relied upon to treat data security and privacy issues seriously.
The Inspector General for USDE does little more than recommend improvements. It all looks like amateur hour to me and with more contractors having access to the data than anyone should feel comfortable about.
The spread sheet also shows the number of research contracts that depend on gathering student data and using that data in a never-ending determination to prove that data-driven instruction is the greatest and best path to raising test scores.
The contractors and subcontractors are laughing all the way to the bank.
Ther is ample evidence that that Congress and USDE have no desire to frame policies based on evidence. If you look at the spreadsheet, note that some contracts extend to 2020 and that some of the research contracts are described so sloppily that money is shoved out the door even if the proposed research has been firmed up on which grade levels, subjects, and so onare part of the planned study.
USDE policies that purport to be evidence-based are too often large-scale experiments enlisting educators and students as if guinea pigs or lab rats, but with little or no evidence in support of them, and no request for compliance with the ethics of research on “human subjects.”
One of the most amazing USDE contracts, issued in 2012, was a study for the purpose of getting “rigorous” evidence on whether the evaluation systems called for in federal policy have their intended effects on teacher and leader performance and student achievement.
This five-year, $16 million study of “Teacher and Leader Evaluation Systems” will be completed by American Institutes for Research in 2017, long after teachers and principals in almost every state have endured the requirements of evaluation systems, including VAM and SLOs, known to be unreliable and ineffective as means to improve educational outcomes.
For the spreadsheet go to Active Contracts – U.S. Department of Education
For the AIR study try
http://www.air.org/news/index.cfm?fa=viewContent&content_id=1755.
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