Leonie Haimson, one of the nation’s leading champions of student privacy, posted a detailed description of the Summit/Facebook platform, now in use in more than 100 schools (mostly public schools), and soon to be found in your own district or school, whether it is public or private.
She writes:
Summit is sharing the student personal data with Facebook, Google, Clever and whomever else they please – through an open-ended consent form that they have demanded parents sign. A copy of the consent form is here.
I have never seen such a wholesale demand from any company for personal student data, and can imagine many ways it could be abused. Among other things, Summit/Facebook claims they will have the right to use the personal data “to improve their products and services,” to “conduct surveys, studies” and “perform any other activities requested by the school. ”
The Terms of Service (TOS) limit the right of individuals to sue if they believe their privacy has been invaded:
As the Washington Post article points out, the TOS would force any school or party to the agreement (including teachers) to give up their right to sue in court if they believe their rights or the law has been violated, and limits the dispute to binding arbitration in San Mateo CA – in the midst of Silicon Valley, where Facebook and Google presumably call the shots. This is the same sort of abuse of consumer rights that that banks and credit card companies have included in their TOS and that the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is now trying to ban.
–The CEO of Summit charters, Diane Tavenner, is also the head of the board of the California Charter School Association, which has aggressively tried to get pro-privatization allies elected to California school boards and state office, and has lobbied against any real regulations or oversight to curb charter school abuses in that state.
You will not be surprised to learn that the big money behind this privacy invasion venture is Bill Gates and Laurene Powell Jobs.
In my view and that of many other parents, the explosion of ed tech and the outsourcing of student personal data to private corporations without restriction, like this current Summit/Facebook venture, is as risky for students and teachers as the privatization of public education through charter school expansion. In this case, the risk is multiplied, since the data is going straight into the hands of a powerful charter school CEO – closely linked to Gates, Zuckerberg and Laurene Powell Jobs, among the three wealthiest plutocrats on the planet.
Gates has praised Summit to the skies, has given the chain $11 million, and has made special efforts to get it ensconced in his state of Washington; Zuckerberg is obviously closely entrenched in this initiative, and Laurene Powell Jobs has just granted the chain $10 million to launch a new charter school in Oakland.
Don’t let them data-mine your child.
Get informed. Contact Leonie or other privacy advocates. Leonie’s email address is included in her post.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And the legal subversion, by the neo-profit mongers, of the U.S. Constitution, our republic; its participatory democracy, and eventually our freedom, marches on.
Good for her. And good for her for reading the TOS agreement.
This is a good piece on binding arbitration:
“On Page 5 of a credit card contract used by American Express, beneath an explainer on interest rates and late fees, past the details about annual membership, is a clause that most customers probably miss. If cardholders have a problem with their account, American Express explains, the company “may elect to resolve any claim by individual arbitration.”
Those nine words are at the center of a far-reaching power play orchestrated by American corporations, an investigation by The New York Times has found.
By inserting individual arbitration clauses into a soaring number of consumer and employment contracts, companies like American Express devised a way to circumvent the courts and bar people from joining together in class-action lawsuits, realistically the only tool citizens have to fight illegal or deceitful business practices.”
“This is among the most profound shifts in our legal history,” William G. Young, a federal judge in Boston who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan, said in an interview. “Ominously, business has a good chance of opting out of the legal system altogether and misbehaving without reproach.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/business/dealbook/arbitration-everywhere-stacking-the-deck-of-justice.html?_r=0
BTW, the Obama Administration is promoting the heck out of Summit Charter Schools.
They’re basically doing advertisements for the schools on the government website.
Rah, rah, rah.
I am not a lawyer, but from what I understand, a person cannot agree to a contract that they are not a party to. In other words, if the contract is drawn up without the input and consent of one of the parties, it is not a valid contract. Said another way, a contract drawn up on “unequal footing” may not be valid. Again, I am not a lawyer and I am bringing this up as a discussion point. I know that there have been courts that have ruled against this idea, but I think from a historical standpoint the idea that you have to be a participant with equal footing is necessary for a real contract.
This is not legal advice. I’m just a pondering fool.
The big lie is that it’s “new”. Ask anyone who works a low wage job for a big company. Most of them are trained using “tools” that look a lot like what they’re pushing into low and middle income schools, and have been for at least a decade.
I’d have to see a legal ruling on that. There are zillions of examples of “unequal footing” contracts that are drawn up by big corporations with high-powered attorneys that average people have little or no choice but to accept. Read the TOS on your internet or phone service, for instance.
These are Contracts of Adhesion which I explain below. Arbitration is not always a good choice…and is often forced on people… as with medical care. It is offered only on a ‘take or leave it’ basis.
What you’re talking about is called “consideration”. It essentially asks why the two parties would enter an agreement (what’s in it for each party?), and it gets at the idea of whether consent is voluntary.
I think in a school situation like this parents must feel pressure. After all, if they refuse, their children could miss out on classroom instruction. (Whether the software provides decent instruction is another issue altogether.) This is vastly different than not consenting to a field trip or an extracurricular activity.
I’d be curious to hear from an attorney who deals with parental consent and education law. Any reading this blog?
Secondary Math Teacher…this is called a Contract of Adhesion, and is one wherein it only benefits one of the signers, or there is a vast uneven result for the signers. For instance, we are now generally forced to sign arbitration/mediation clauses, and/or stop losses for malpractice, in medical and hospital offices…under duress… for they will not accept you as a patient unless and until you sign. Technically this can be fought, but who fights when they are ill and are told that they will get medical care ONLY if they sign the contract? Or when you cannot read and write in the language of the contract? Similar are car dealer contracts, and even real estate contracts..
In theory a contract is between two parties when one party offers ‘a peppercorn’ and the other party accepts it; but that old reasoning from British Common Law has long since been tortured to the advantage of the far stronger party, e.g. the doctor or hospital, the car dealer, the corporation, etc.
It used to be that one could cross out parts of the contract, and the parties could initial their agreement, but that too is generally no longer accepted by the disproportionately stronger of the parties.
This is also a major reason to beware of ballot measures when voting for they are generally written to deceive. Most voters are not lawyers, nor careful readers, and rely on 10 second sound bites to decide on positions….but only after the election do they learn how they have been duped, and how harmful laws have been adopted by use of artifice and lies. We in California had this happen with the Parent Empowerment Act of 2010, and now this law is used by Broad and the privatizers to charterize our public schools.
Caveat Emptor applies not only to contracts, but also in the Voting Process.
No one should be, to use Mark Zuckerberg’s own words describing people using Facebook, one of his “dumb f$$$s.”
I’d normally describe people using Zuckergerg’s platform as “customers,” but that contradicts the basic axiom of Internet use: if an online service is free, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.
So, can parents opt their kids out of the use of this platform? Refuse permission for their kids to participate?
And what pressure will be brought to bear by the school on such kids and their parents?
Parents need to know that CBE will be endless testing and data mining. Parents should have the right to refuse and demand human instruction for children.
I agree, and I hope that many, many parents do so.
I wish! I know of only 1 other. We were given consent forms that referenced the TOS and privacy policy, but did not actually receive that info.
I’m one such parent. As the article notes, I refused to sign. The pressure to sign is subtle, but persists.
I have been poking around and trying to see how the wind is blowing on the issue of student privacy, what with the HUGE push to online learning, instant feedback “adaptable” modules for learning with predictive analytics, and all of that jazz. The Summit schools contract is possible, in part, because this charter industry school is not truly public and not subject to FERPA laws. At the same time, the pushers of data-based decisions, online programing, and tech-for-everything are working hard on “model legislation” for data management and exchange for public schools, pre-K to postsecondary education. One approach is to take advantage of ESSA which gives a lot of authority to state legislators and state departments of education, including the opportunity for an “appointed” “Privacy Officer” who will have a lot of wiggle-room to re-set policies about the use of data on individual students and district interaction with “qualified vendors.” Here, for example, are some excerpts from just one of many “model legislation” proposals pushed by Jeb Bush and friends, big fans of on line/digital learning.
“K-12 school purposes” means purposes that take place at the direction of the K-12 school, teacher, or local education agency or aid in the administration of school activities, including, but not limited to, instruction in the classroom or at home, administrative activities, preparing for postsecondary education or employment opportunities, and collaboration between students, school personnel, or parents, or are for the use and benefit of the school;
(13) “Operator” means any entity other than the department, local education agency, or school to the extent that the entity:
(a) Operates an Internet website, online service, online application, or mobile application with actual knowledge that the website, service, or application is used for K-12 school purposes and was designed and marketed for K-12 school purposes to the extent that it is operating in that capacity; and
(b) Collects, maintains, or uses student personally identifiable information in a digital or electronic format; and
(14) “Targeted advertising” means presenting advertisements to a student where the advertisement is selected based on information obtained or inferred from that student’s online behavior, usage of applications, or student data. ‘Targeted advertising’ does not include advertising to a student at an online location based upon that student’s current visit to that location or single search query without collection and retention of a student’s online activities over time.
http://www.excelined.org/?s=model+legislation&x=0&y=0
Another law firm dealing with privacy, Education Counsel LLC. is a real powerbroker. Clients include some big tech enthusiasts: called “Partners,” The Lumina Foundation, The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Foundation, Center of America Progress, America Achieves, The Council for Chief State School Officers, Alliance for Excellence in Education.
Add the allowGates-funded Institute for Higher Education created to lobby Congress for a change in the Higher Education Act. The change would allow individual student “unit” record systems (currently prohibited) that can also be linked to middle and secondary school records, longitudinally, and a host of other databases, including the US Census.
The Institute is an umbrella non-profit funded for these purposes among others: “to develop a set of common postsecondary metrics providing postsecondary stakeholders with critical information on inputs, outputs, and outcomes; strengthen the higher education data community’s ability to drive clarity and convergence through the Postsecondary Data Collaborative; and support IHEP’s continued organizational health and growth by developing and implementing informed changes to its business model.”
Education Counsel also produces legal opinions for the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements, “a voluntary, regional approach to state oversight of distance education (NC-SARA). See this August 2016 Policy analysis treating 10 Issues in Educational Technology
Click to access final2016_edtech_polbrief_004.pdf
Page 2 illustrates some security breeches this year and last.
There’s a triumvirate behind this product: Summit, Facebook, and Clever. You should not overlook the third company. It is deeply immersed in the business of student information systems and data collection.
Anyone concerned about privacy should pay close attention to what Clever is doing. It’s the equivalent of a browser “cookie”, tracking student sign-ons, submissions and scores.
My district looked at using Clever at one time to help streamline student Google logins, etc. Once we saw the iffy TOS and a few other privacy things in Clever, we backed right off.
And whoever else they sign agreements with, in perpetuity.
Yesterday, Huffpo published a public letter signed by 50 people, mostly professors. The letter endorsed Hillary Clinton. The signers were described as progressives. The issues that they identified included pre-K and student college debt but not, the privatization of K-12 and Gates’ encroachment on both higher ed. and public schools. The signers criticized the economic condition of the country but, mustered no concern for the financial impact of the loss of teaching jobs. Instead the signers were content to shift attention to equal pay for equal work. It is similar to the observers of the Titanic’s sinking, who describe, to the exclusion of the looming iceberg, the dinner preparation, the billing system and, the pay of the employees.
Quote from the fictional novel, The Circle, by David Eggers, about a powerful internet company and our society’s obsessions with sharing and social media.
“Already 90% of the world’s searches go through the Circle. Without competitors, this will increase soon to 100%…if you can control the flow of information, you can control everything.”