A coalition of parents, educators, and privacy advocates issued a statement in defense of student privacy, which is threatened by efforts to create a massive federal data base containing personally identifiable data.
For more information: Leonie Haimson, leoniehaimson@gmail.com; 917-435-9329
Parent, education and privacy groups oppose overturning the ban on a federal student database
This morning a letter was sent to the federal Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking from parent groups, education advocates, and privacy experts, urging them against proposing that the ban on a centralized federal database of student personal data be overturned.
Recently, several DC-based groups testified before the Commission, urging that this ban be lifted, which was established by Congress as part of the Higher Education Act in 2008. The Gates Foundation has also announced that the creation of a centralized federal database to track students from preK through college, the workforce and beyond is one of their top advocacy priorities for 2017.
In the letter, parent, privacy and education organizations warned that eliminating this ban would risk that highly sensitive information would breached, as has occurred with sensitive data held by many federal agencies in recent years. A hack into the Office of Personal Management released personnel records of about 22.1 million individuals. More recently, an audit of the US Department of Education found serious security flaws in their data systems, and a government security scorecard awarded the agency an overall grade of D.
Moreover, K-12 student data currently collected by states that would potentially be incorporated in the federal database often include upwards of 700 specific personal data elements, including students’ immigrant status, disabilities, disciplinary records, and homelessness. Data collected ostensibly for the sole purpose of research would likely be merged with other federal agency data and could include information from their census, military service, tax returns, criminal and health records.
Said Leonie Haimson, co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, whose members led the fight against inBloom, designed to capture and share the personal student data of nine states and districts, “A centralized federal database containing the personal data of every public-school student would pose an even greater risk to individual privacy than inBloom. It would allow the government to create dossiers on nearly every United States resident over time, and if breached or abused would cause immeasurable damage.”
As privacy advocates in England recently discovered, the personal information in a similar national student database that the government promised would be used only for research purposes has been secretly requested by the police and by the Home Office, in part to identify and locate undocumented children and their families.
“Our disastrous data privacy situation here in England should serve to warn Americans of the grave dangers of this sort of comprehensive student surveillance and database. The personal confidential information in our National Pupil Database was supposed to be used only for research, but we found out recently that data on thousands of students and their families has been secretly requested by the police and for the purposes of immigration control in just the last 15 months. It would be unwise and irresponsible for the United States to create a similar database, which can so easily be used for political purposes which are not in all children’s best interests,” said Jen Persson, coordinator of defenddigitalme, a privacy and digital rights group in the UK.
Chad Marlow, Advocacy & Policy Counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union, said: “Improving educational opportunities for children and protecting student privacy are not mutually exclusive goals. In fact, it is our responsibility as parents, educators, and Americans to doggedly pursue both objectives. Creating any type of centralized database for personally identifiable student data would pose real and significant risks to the privacy of America’s students, and that is why such databases have consistently been rejected in the past. With education policy, as with privacy, ‘do no harm’ is a reasonable place to start, and here, doing no harm clearly requires rejecting any attempts to establish a universal database that compiles and tracks students’ most sensitive information.”
Diane Ravitch, President of the Network for Public Education and NPE Action pointed out, “Whether Democrat or Republican, the one thing parents agree on is the importance of their child’s privacy. To allow the federal government to collect personal and sensitive data on every public-school student in the nation risks that this information would be misused by the government and corporations.“
“Parents Across America opposes any effort to establish a national student record system. Ever since the federal government weakened protections for student privacy, parents have been in a crisis mode. Our children are exposed every school day to a growing mish-mash of screen devices and online programs that capture mountains of their data. We know that the threat to privacy will only get worse if there’s a national record system; education profiteers will line up to tap into an even more convenient source of private student information. But we are determined not to let that happen to our children’s data,” said Julie Woestehoff, Interim Executive Director of Parents Across America.
Lisa Rudley, Executive Director of the NY State Allies for Public Education, observed, “Data collection and sharing of our children’s personally identifiable information should require a parent’s informed consent. Just because the technology of data mining is here, it doesn’t mean children’s privacy rights should be sacrificed.”
“Our children and their families deserve protection of their data. More importantly, we must understand that protecting our children relies upon protecting their personal information from breach or abuse,” concluded Marla Kilfoyle, Executive Director of the Badass Teachers Association.
The Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking is accepting public comment on this matter until December 14, 2016. For more information, visit the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy website here: http://www.studentprivacymatters.org/federaldatasystem/
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Long post. ” The Gates Foundation has also announced that the creation of a centralized federal database to track students from preK through college, the workforce and beyond is one of their top advocacy priorities for 2017.”
This not a trivial matter.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has set its sights on data continuity from cradle to the workplace. In an unusual move, it has announced its data-priorities for postsecondary education. This initiative is for a national and substantially privatized postsecondary data gathering system, one that even calls for a Congressional modification of the Higher Education Act.
This Gates initiative is designed to allow non-profit and for-profit tracking of data on individual students as they move from high school into postsecondary programs (higher education and vocational certificate training) and then into the workforce for one year following the student’s exit from a post-secondary program, then again at the five year mark from that exit, and again at the ten year mark. All of that data-mongering would be aided by data from US Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (earnings, region and industry of employment, migration patterns and career pathways).
The biggest obstacle to this grandiose vision is the Higher Education Act (1974) which prohibits the government from creating a “student unit record system” with unique identifiers for individual students (e.g., SS numbers). Gates has been mustering support for a total by-pass of this federal privacy law. if this initiative succeeds, I believe it will also place in jeopardy current privacy laws bearing on elementary and secondary education records. Here is some background.
In August 2015, the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP)—created and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—first convened a working group of national postsecondary data experts “to discuss ways to move forward a set of emerging options for improving the quality of the data infrastructure in order to inform state and federal policy conversations.” The Gates Foundation is famous for setting up surrogate organizations like IHEP and soft selling the real agenda as if it is only a “conversation.”
The Gates Foundation is using IHEP as if it is a think tank. The Foundation commissioned IHEP to produce almost a dozen papers to pump up the “necessity” for a national postsecondary data system. Almost all of these papers offer reasons for changing the Higher Education Act which firmly prohibits the creation of “student unit record system.” Most of the papers are framed to suggest that the law needs to be changed in order to know how much a college degree is worth and how to achieve equity and greater efficiency in postsecondary education. All of the papers are here http://www.ihep.org/postsecdata/mapping-data-landscape/national-postsecondary-data-infrastructure)
The paper in the link below shows the intent to build a national “post-secondary” data ecosystem that would “include information held by the US Department of Health and Human Services’ National Directory of New Hires , the Social Security Administration’s wage and earnings data, the Internal Revenue Service’s tuition and required fees and financial aid data, the US Department of Defense’s military recruiting data, and data from the US Department of Veterans Affairs “(p. 1). http://www.ihep.org/sites/default/files/uploads/postsecdata/docs/resources/linking_federal_data_systems-executive_summary.pdf
The paper in the link below specifically tries to make the “case” for changing federal law to allow for nationalized “student unit record system.” http://www.ihep.org/sites/default/files/uploads/postsecdata/docs/resources/building_a_student-level_data_system-executive_summary.pdf
The paper in the link below shows the intent to connect the proposed national post-secondary data system with state longitudinal data systems (present in all but three states), including high school transcripts for individual students. The proposed connection would require enhancing the “interoperability” of National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) data system with state longitudinal data systems. The NSC has records for over 252 million students—Transcripts, Reverse Transfers, Financial Aid, Credential Verifications–and research based on that information. The state longitudinal data systems have been funded by Gates (Data Quality Campaign) and USDE since 2005.
This is a major claim: “There is currently no facility to provide self-service access to aggregate NSC data beyond the established reports that are published and distributed free of charge by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center (these include annual high school benchmarks for post-secondary access and progression, current term enrollments, annual retention, persistence and completion rates, as well as regular reports on student mobility and degrees awarded). There are also opportunities to further enhance the interoperability of NSC with state longitudinal data systems. These systems are currently able to link their high school graduates with subsequent postsecondary enrollments and progress, but they would realize far more powerful results and benefits by leveraging NSC’s ability to integrate more comprehensive data directly from school transcripts (Executive Summary, p. 2-3). http://www.ihep.org/sites/default/files/uploads/postsecdata/docs/resources/national_student_clearinghouse-executive_summary.pdf
I found no mention of the commercial ventures tied to the National Student Clearinghouse or the paper-thin privacy policy it has. That is a big deal when you look at the list of its “Partners” with “other industry and technology leaders.” Here are three of these, each harboring many others.
“Ellucian is the world’s leading provider of software, services and insight to higher education. Ellucian helps 2,400 institutions in 40 countries with various services. Ellician’s website also invites potential “strategic partners” to contact them the company if they can “complement and extend our core offerings.” “Alliance partners” of Ellucian are offered tiers of services and co-branding opportunities as outlined here http://www.ellucian.com/Collateral/Ellucian-Partner-Success-Program-Guide/
Hobsons helps more than 12 million students around the globe identify their strengths, explore careers, create academic plans, and find the right college match. Hobsons partners with more than 10,000 schools, colleges, and universities to better prepare students for success.
Hobsons, like Ellucian has many “strategic partnerships.” Here are a few: ACT Engages BenchPrep for an Enhanced Personalized ACT Online Prep Program; Gallup; Human Esources; RoadTrip Nation.com; Blackboard; Career Key®; ComEVO,LLC (Communication Evolved); The Common Application; Dell Boomi; EdMin; Experian® Data Quality; Front Rush; GeoLabs (based in UK, a call and marketing service for 65 higher ed institutions, including some in USA); iData Management for Higher Education; IntelliResponse; x2VOLpowered by intelliVOL; Kira Talent (a video admissions platform); mongoose (responds to inquiries with personalized “mass texts” — from a phone, tablet or computer); parchment (career and college planning resources with 13 “partners” able to tap K-12 data); PEARSON; Ruffalo Noel Levitz (software, and management services for higher education enrollment and fundraising); Sallie Mae® (publicly traded consumer bank with newly named loan management, servicing and asset recovery business, Navient Corporation); Teen Life® (Catholic ministry for high schools).
Oracle —multinational computer technology corporation allows hardware and software to work together — in the cloud and in the data center. Oracle enables its IT customers — 400,000 of them in more than 145 countries around the world to design and integrate databases. For example, Oracle Integration Cloud Service offers more than fifty pre-built adapters for apps including Ariba, Concur, LinkedIn, Salesforce, Slack, Twilio, Twitter and more. https://www.oracle.com/corporate/pressrelease/paas-cloud-momentum-091916.html
If this initiative from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation succeeds, it will also enable links to information in the Gates-funded “Data Quality Campaign” and USDE-funded Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) for pre-K to 12 education—data from all but three states. Anyone who thinks that student test scores and the student identifications attached to them are “secure” is probably mistaken.
Politico has publicized that the Gates Foundation, New America, the US Chamber of Commerce and the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association – have called on the federal government to track students as they move through and beyond college.
Because the Higher Education Act prohibits the government from doing so through a “student unit record” system,” Gates has launched a pilot program at the University of Texas as if to say, this is possible and here is the proof. The details are not clear, but US Census data will be included in the pilot–earnings, region and industry of employment, migration patterns and career pathways for UT graduates from 2003 to the present.
Unbelievable, especially if you are familiar with the Gates-funded Data Quality Campaign that begins with health records of infants.
Thank you, Laura and Diane. Data collection hurts many, yet doesn’t help anyone.