Linda McNeill is a well-known scholar of high-stakes testing at Rice University in Houston.
She writes here about the ominous role of testing companies in data mining students as they are studying or taking tests online. They gather confidential data about every child. That data may later be used for commercial purposes.
Even as they regularly invade the privacy of unknowing children, they fiercely resist any attempts to make public their tests, on which the fate of students, educators, and schools hinge.
Any discussion of the test content will lead to claims of copyright infringement and threats of legal action. And as we have seen in recent weeks, the test publishers contact Twitter, Facebook, and other social media and lodge complaints that lead to the deletion of tweets, posts, and comments. The testing companies assert the right to censor other people’s products, while shielding their own from public scrutiny.
McNeill writes:
Corporations – from testing companies to third-party marketers to unknown (and perhaps international) vendors – can scoop up personal information on young children and teenagers to use for their own profit. And parents have few ways to find out what these strangers know about their children and how the data collected from year to year will be used to manipulate their children lives.
So are the testing companies advocates willing to have their “data” open to outsiders? It would seem the answer is a clear and resounding NO!….
We’re learning that questioning the tests can put the questioner in jeopardy. Anyone – including teachers – who wants more public scrutiny of the mandated standardized tests that so dominate our schools these days, may be “surveilled.” A teacher or blogger who raises questions about the tests is in danger of being threatened by – yes, the testing companies that have no problem gathering and selling data on young children but do not want anyone to know what they are doing.
What is sauce for the goose is definitely not sauce for the gander. They have a right to collect data about us without our knowledge, but we have no right to know how they are spying on us and data mining our children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I read the word “privacy” in the title as PIRACY!!! Our brains play little tricks, but the substitution works, doesn’t it?
For the so-called reformers, it’s quite simple, though they’ll never express it directly or honestly: children are data, and data is For Sale.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
The Big Brother of Orwell’s “1984” turns out to be for-profit corporations and not the governments we elect to represent the people.
The best way to deal with thuggish companies like Pearson and thuggish organizations like PARCC is simply not to do business with them.
They can only data mine students because of the weakened FERPA law of 1974. In 2011 the Dept of ED amended FERPA. EPIC challenged the proposed regulation that removed limitations prohibiting educational institutions and agencies from disclosing student identifiable information without FIRST obtaining student or parent consent. EPIC lost because the judge stated they didn’t have standing. https://epic.org/apa/ferpa/
We haven’t the Unions filed? Why haven’t educators that still have students in the system filed? You always hear, “if parents realized how much data the testing and tech companies have access to they would be outraged.” This is especially a concern since a lot of this is about making $.
Privacy, no more.
Schools have never been held to HIppa laws. Parents submit medical info as well as accompanying questionnaires, students answer surveys throughout their schooling; they provide license & car insurance for school parking; criminal history, financial info, parent’s schooling, personal interests; ferpa release; photo release for newsletter/ newspaper articles.. tracking via flipped classrooms, online labs, every student’s registered device used during the day and night (cookies).. there are baseline, interim and summative assessments online, highstakes (SAT, ACT, AP, COMPASS, ACTPLAN, IQ, SAGE,… Etc) Nevermind attendance, disciplinary data & transcripts, all tied together for the ‘partner’s use’. States longitudinal datastores, collegeboard’snonprofit datawarehouse, school network manager programs, workforce information networks..
The ability already exists to report on district/school/teacher/student level data… ALL data coupled with that ferpa release.
Philanthropy full circle.
Planned. Promoted. Produced in order to
provide partners with profitable perks.
All this before college or career
We’re in a pretty sad place when the word Philanthropy has now become synonymous with Profitability.
Think of it as Villainthropy
Or maybe “profiteering” would be an even better word.
The philanthropists are trying to profit at public expense.
The most obvious (although by no means only) way they profit is through taxes. Much of the money spent on “philanthropy” (eg, by gates foundation) would otherwise be simply “lost” to taxes.
The second way they profit is by maintaining a say over how the money is spent, which is actually related to the first way because if the money were simply ‘lost” to taxes, they would also lose all say in what it was used for.
The third way they profit, which is actually a version of the second is that it allows them to use their money for political purposes under the disguise of “doing good” (which is not even supposed to be allowed by charitable organizations, but which is readily disguised by philanthropic organizations and is seldom prosecuted, at any rate ) Perhaps the best example of this is the hundreds of millions Gates spent on developing Common Core, which (coincidentally, of course) just happened to be what the Obama administration needed to implement it’s own policies.
The fourth way they profit is by creating markets for the products that their companies produce. Bill Gates actually gave that as the primary goal of Common Core, although he claimed the markets would be in service of better teaching (right)
I doubt people like Gates would even be “giving money away” if not for the fact that they know that much of the money would otherwise simply be “lost” to taxes. This is why it is absolutely essential to address the tax structure (particularly the estate tax) if one is to have any hope of changing the perverse (profiteering) version of “philanthropy” that we currently see.
SomeDAM Poet: I’m always looking for the actions we voters need to support which will turn our country back from near-oligarchy to democracy.
Tax reform as you delineate, for sure. Someone on the board here recently posted a link I feel is worth re-posting. It’s a NYT article which spells out how much could be gained with even relatively-modest tweaks to the status quo: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/17/business/putting-numbers-to-a-tax-increase-for-the-rich.html?_r=1
But I think campaign reform takes precedence: current laws incentivize elected representatives to respond to their patrons rather than to their constituents. Without campaign reform, we are unlikely to elect any congress who will legislate around the Citizens’ United decision (step #1), let alone make taxation changes that would restore support to the common good. I am open to any ideas as how to do this. I remember signing Dylan Ratigan’s ‘get money out’ petition a few yrs ago; I see Bill Moyers & HuffPost have a few ideas. There needs to be a national focus on reining in both campaign contributions and lobbying. Every inroad made in this effort will increase the voice of ordinary Americans.
You are so right about the HIPAA law. It is ironic that during the 2000’s one was inundated at every junction of healthcare transactions w/HIPAA forms to be signed, all of which hastened to assure us our medical info would be kept private– even detailing how.
Yet, simultaneously, the digital age had taken hold to the point where there was capacity to input the data to a centralized bank, so your file could follow you wherever you went even as those venues multiplied due to hospital closings, clinic openings, insurance policy changes, what have you.
& I’m right w/you as regards schools’ ability to collect & store med data: they need it to help educate the kid, so they store it despite HIPAA law & it becomes part of an accessible ed file.
I had a very ill son (sadly now deceased) who was a computer whiz since young. He spotted immediately what that was all about, and would counsel me how to dither around the reqts so as not to have his med history jeopardizing his prospects…
I see the same exact trajectory with ed data. Higher-ed reform is already pushing for ‘accountability’ via employment stats for their future teachers’ students– which means employment stats can/are being collected. But regardless, all student data collected under the auspices of ‘ed accountability’ (ps & charter) can be merged w/ legal & med data, producing a file which has the potential to influence hireability & insurability.
“A petition, sent to U.S. Education Secretary John King, says changes made to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, known as FERPA, over the past several years have allowed education agencies and organizations to share student data with third parties without permission from students or their parents. It also says that the department has failed to protect data from major breaches, which have occurred at a number of schools and colleges.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/06/07/privacy-advocates-accuse-obama-administration-of-failing-to-properly-protect-student-data/
This was my comment at the Answer Sheet column:
This is a bureaucratic nightmare. As a simple parent/ taxpayer/ part-time [non-unionized] teacher who has identified ‘liberal’ lifelong, it says to me: shut down the fed Dept of Ed. Altho I value its contributions in the wake of ’60’s civil rights laws– & my own kids have benefited from IDEA laws– I now question whether I even want to see their face back in the old HEW mode. The sale/leak of private student info to third parties is a direct result of the fed ed agency’s overweening push to nationalize/ centralize education– moving way beyond its original mandate. That was already well underway since Reagan & ‘A Nation at Risk’– add the digital age & presto, a formula for distributing private info to all & sundry. Makes one question the viability of EVERY executive agency. Though any such agency was probably founded on the need for a watchdog for the public good, once they have enough power, they can use it any whichway the power-wind blows. When things were blowing my way– i.e., in what I thought were the interests of public good– conservatives & libertarians were cryibg foul & ‘social engineering’. Now the shoe is on the other foot, & I as a liberal realize belatedly that a democracy cannot afford to put unchecked power into the hands of any part of its government.
The data from state and federally mandates tests in schools (soon to include preschool tests) is systematically gathered for secondary marketing at greatschools.org where for-profit and non-profits gain access to the data “wholesale” for targeted uses, including ready-to-use-data for research. PARCC and SBAC test scores go there under “partnership” agreements that also enable targeted marketing of test prep materials “based on your child’s score). Test scores are transformed into a rating system for individual schools.
“The overall GreatSchools Rating is an average of how well students at a given school do on each grade and subject test. For each test, ratings are assigned based on how well students perform relative to all other students in the state, and these ratings are averaged into an overall rating of 1 to 10.”
“The distribution of the GreatSchools Rating in a given state looks like a bell curve, with higher numbers of schools getting ratings in the “average” category, and fewer schools getting ratings in the “above average” or “below average” categories.” (Much more goes into the rating scheme, but few schools get the highest ratings unless they are test-centric and no-nonsense. Infamous Eva’s Success Academy schools are rated 10.
The greatschools.org website sports the logos of the “top supporters: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Walton Family Foundation, Laura and John Arnold Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Einhorn Family Charitable Trust, The Leona M and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, (and 14 others). These foundation are not friends of public schools or teachers. They are fans of market-based and high-tech education, and all things that can be sold as if educational.
The website is a marketing hub. The board of directors for Great Schools is a who’s who in the demolition of public education with democratically elected school boards and citizen contributions. The writers of the bios really strained to show some connection of board members to schools, going back even to high school accomplishments.
Bill Jackson, Founder and CEO. ”a high-tech entrepreneur, has made GreatSchools …the premier source of education and parenting information on PreK-12th schools for parents nationally.” “As a high school student, Bill was the president of the Scientific Society at Phillips Exeter Academy;”
Ann Fuell, Chair. Former board member for the private Almaden Country School, tuition $22,980, also international experience with private schools;
Michael Schmier, Vice Chair. Currently VP & GM of Content and Services at Samsung Electronics America;
Matt Hill, Secretary. Superintendent of the Burbank Unified School District, worked for Accenture in the financial services;
Peter Cunningham, Executive Director of Education Post, voice box for market-based education;
Chris Adams, Financial advisor for GreatSchools. Investor in software and information services businesses;
Eric A. Hanushek. Economist, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University ”the first researcher to measure teacher effectiveness by the learning gains of the teacher’s students.” Promoter of VAM and economic analyses of education since the 1970s.
Dr. Karen Hill-Scott, Director. Child development specialist, former UCLA professor of urban planning.
Larry Kane. Partner in Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe specializing in corporate law. Larry is volunteer coach of the wrestling team at Galileo Academy of Science
Leanna Landsmann. Former president of magazine”Time for Kids,” editor and publisher of “Instructor,” director of Harcourt Brace Children’s Books. Started her career as a teacher in West Africa.
Gilman Louie. Partner of Alsop Louie Partners, a venture capital fund pioneer in the interactive entertainment industry, also on the board of NewSchools.org
Clesont Mitchell. Worker in PTA programs for 25 years currently a member of the National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education (NCPIE) and the National Coalition for Parents of English Language Learners (NCPELL).
Sean Ryan. Director of Game Partnerships at Facebook, chairman and founder of the Meez company (combines avatars, games, and a virtual world), helped launch Old Navy clothing line.
The greatschools.org rating system for schools will be able to accommodate all of the new data required under ESSA as well as absentee rates, expulsions, scores for social-emotional learning, etc.
“The website says that: “A range of partners have been critical to GreatSchools’ success. We are grateful to these partners, a sampling of which can be found here.” Look at the list. Remember this is JUST a sampling.
CONTENT
321 Fast Draw; Algonquin Books; Ashoka Foundation; Bay Citizen; California Watch; College Board; Common Sense Media; DK Publishing; Film Sight Productions; IDEO; Learning Ally; Learning and Leadership Center; Mind/Shift; National Center for Learning Disabilities; Parenting.com; Reading Rockets; Scholastic; Treasure Bay, Inc.; UCLA Department of Psychology; US Department of Education; Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence.
COMMUNITY AND FAMILY ENGAGEMENT
Families Empowered; Hillsborough County Public Schools
Iridescent Learning; KIPP; Magnet Schools of America; Miami Dade County Public Schools; Rocketship Education; Stand Up for Students; Step Up for Students; US Department of Housing and Urban Development
RESEARCH
Gallup Education; SurveyMonkey (see also Licensees); SRI; Rockman Et Al.
MARKETING & OUTBOUND MEDIA
Care2.com; Common Sense Media; Forbes; NBC News Education; The Bully Project; Univision.
LICENSEES
Apartments.com, Brain Pop; Digital Map Products; Dunn & Bradstreet; Fannie Mae; Maponics; Michael & Susan Dell Foundation; Military Child Education Coalition; Move Sales, Inc.; National Association of Charter School Authorizers; National Housing Trust; Onboard Informatics; Policy Map; Realtors Property Resource; SurveyMonkey; Target, US Department of Housing and Urban Development; Walmart; WolfNet; Zillow.
What do these “partners get” for signing on? At minimum, it is the opportunity to become an advertiser or license holder who can gain access to student’s test scores—for a fee.
You can find some of the ad rates here. https://selfserve.rubiconproject.com/advertise3/products/29619
At the bottom of the rate page (righ-hand corner) you can see that these packages are offered via the Rubicon Project. The Rubicon Project is the name for a company that scoops all of greatschool’s data and ratings , along with comments from users and their activity at the website and puts that information in Rubicon’s “Advertising Automation Cloud.”
This “cloud” (a misleading name for a data warehousing operation) “brings buyers and sellers closer together on a robust advertising technology platform. One of the largest cloud and Big Data computing systems in the world, the Automation Cloud leverages over 50,000 algorithms and analyzes billions of data points in real-time to deliver the best results for sellers and buyers,” with 300 real-time data-driven decisions per transaction.”
This is another reason for parents to opt out of tests and for legislators, school board members, superentendents and others to say no to tests and data mining.
The “collective impact” initiatives of predatory billionaires who use their tax-protected foundations to market products is dispicable. So are their willing collaborators called “partners,” and the Board of Directors (including billionaires, scholars, and for-hire shills).
All are treating students as nothing more than a marketing opportunity. All are actively and knowingly participating in a venture that promotes redlining in communities and profit-seeking from parents and familites. I call that unethical, a case of predatory philanthropy.