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Billionaire Foundation Secretly Funds Surveillance System for Baltimore

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2016 //
21

The John and Laura Arnold Foundation secretly funded a wide-area surveillance system for Baltimore, according to news reports.

See here and here and here.

Last week, the NPQ nonprofit newswire covered the story of the private funding of a surveillance system that would have monitored the streets of Baltimore secretly from the sky. The secrecy began with the funding mechanism, which bypassed the public scrutiny that the usual budgetary processes would have necessitated. The grant was made anonymously by Laura and John Arnold and run through a donor-advised fund at the Baltimore Community Foundation, whose president claims he knew nothing about it.

Anyway, now the Arnolds would like to claim that the outrage caused by the way the project was planned and funded entirely without public input is all part of a healthy process of public dialogue:

“We haven’t created a position as to whether or not Baltimore should use it. This is the first of many steps to evaluate whether the technology should be used,” said Laura Arnold, a Houston-based philanthropist who is paying for the surveillance with her billionaire husband, John. “No program would be successful unless they address these issues [of privacy]. They’re never going to reduce crime in Baltimore or any city unless the community is part of the solution. This is all very healthy.”

Laura Arnold is a lawyer, which you may be able to detect in the following statement:

As supporters of the ACLU, we deeply recognize the concerns and the tradeoffs that need to be made on privacy. Not only do we fully respect and support that process; for us, we don’t see it as a contradictory thing. We should have this conversation.

Although police department officials have denied that the program was secret, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and city council members said they, at least, were entirely in the dark until the publishing of an expose in Bloomberg Businessweek. No wonder they did not want to share! Now, a public hearing on the program is being scheduled by the city council. Maryland Public Defender Paul DeWolfe says the program should be halted immediately.

Laura Arnold would never, she said, “presume to tell you what’s best for your neighborhood.” I think the neighborhood might see that differently. Philanthropic money in public systems is enough of a complication and an end-run around democracy. Secret philanthropic money in public systems—especially in systems of policing—is an affront to taxpayers.—Ruth McCambridge

The Arnold Foundation is better known for its support for charter schools and its animus towards public pensions.

Categories Baltimore, Billionaires, Privacy

Laura Chapman on the Data Monster That Devours Privacy

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2016 //
11

I recently posted about a new partnership between the National PTA and the Data Quality Campaign. In response, our wonderful reader-researcher Laura Chapman dug deep into the money flow and produced this commentary:

 

 

Ah data. You can be sure the PTA is uninformed about the data being collected with their tax dollars. Here are some not widely publicized facts.

 

Between 2005 and early 2011, the Gates’ Foundation invested $75 million in a major advocacy campaign for data gathering, aided by the National Governor’s Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, Achieve, and The Education Trust—most of these groups recipients of Gates money. During the same period, the Gates Foundation also awarded grants totaling $390,493,545 for projects to gather data and build systems for reporting on teacher effectiveness. This multi-faceted campaign, called the Teacher Student Data Link (TSDL) envisioned the linked data serving eight purposes:
1. Determine which teachers help students become college-ready and successful,
2. Determine characteristics of effective educators,
3. Identify programs that prepare highly qualified and effective teachers,
4. Assess the value of non-traditional teacher preparation programs,

 

5. Evaluate professional development programs,
6. Determine variables that help or hinder student learning,
7. Plan effective assistance for teachers early in their career, and
8. Inform policy makers of best value practices, including compensation.
Gates and his friends intended to document and rate the work of teachers and a bit more: They wanted data that required major restructuring of the work of teachers so everything about the new system of education would be based on data-gathering and surveillance.

 

The TSDL system ( in use in many states) required that all courses be identified by standards for achievement and alphanumeric codes for data-entry. All responsibilities for learning had to be assigned to one or more “teachers of record” in charge of a student or class. A teacher of record was assigned a unique identifier (think barcode) for an entire career in teaching. A record would be generated whenever a teacher of record has some specified proportion of responsibility for a student’s learning activities.

 

Learning activities had to be defined by the performance measures (e.g., cut scores for proficiency) for each particular standard for every subject and grade level. The TSDL system was designed to enable period-by-period tracking of teachers and students every day; including “tests, quizzes, projects, homework, classroom participation, or other forms of day-to-day assessments and progress measures”—a level of surveillance that proponents claimed was comparable to business practices (TSDL, 2011, “Key Components”).

 

The system was and is intended to keep current and longitudinal data on the performance of teachers and individual students, as well schools, districts, states, and educators ranging from principals to higher education faculty. Why? All of this data could be used to determine the “best value” investments to make in education, with monitoring and changes in policies to ensure improvements in outcomes. Data analyses would include as many demographic factors as possible, including health records for preschoolers.

 

The Gates-funded TSDL campaign added resources to a parallel federal initiative. Between 2006 and 2015, the US Department of Education (USDE) has invested nearly $900 million in the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS) Grant Program. Almost every state has received multi-year grants to standardize data on education. Operated by the Institute of Education Sciences, the SLDS program is: “designed to aid state education agencies in developing and implementing longitudinal data systems.

 

What is the point of the SLDS program? “These systems are intended to enhance the ability of States to efficiently and accurately manage, analyze, and use education data, including individual student records…to help States, districts, schools, and teachers make data-driven decisions to improve student learning, as well as facilitate research to increase student achievement and close achievement gaps” (USDE, 2011, Overview).

 

The most recent data-mongering activity from USDE, rationalized as “helping keep students safe and improving their learning environments” is a suite of on-line School Climate Surveys (EDSCLS). The surveys will allow states, districts, and schools to “collect and act on reliable, nationally-validated school climate data in real-time,” (as soon as it is entered).

 

The School Climate Surveys are for students in grades 5-12, instructional staff, non-instructional staff in the schools they attend and parents/guardians. Data is stored on local data systems, not by USDE. Even so, but the aim is to have national “benchmarks” online by 2017 for local and state comparisons with national scores.

 

Student surveys (73 questions) offer scores for the entire school disaggregated by gender, grade level, ethnicity (Hispanic/Latino or not), and race (five mentioned, combinations allowed).
The Instructional Staff Survey has 82 Questions. Responses can be disaggregated by gender, grade level assignment, ethnicity, race, teaching assignment (special education or not), years working at this school (1-3, 4-9, 10-19, 20 or more).
The Non-instructional Staff Survey has 103 questions, but 21 are only for the principal. Demographic information for disaggregated scores is the same as for s instructional staff)
The Parent Survey has 43 questions, for item-by-item analysis, without any sub-scores or and summary scores. Demographic information is requested for gender, ethnicity, and race.

 

These four surveys address three domains of school climate: Engagement, Safety, and Environment, and thirteen topics (constructs).
Engagement topics are: 1. Cultural and linguistic competence, 2. Relationships, and 3. School participation.
Safety topics are: 4. Emotional safety, 5. Physical safety, 6. Bullying/cyberbullying, 7. Substance abuse, and 8. Emergency readiness/management (item-by-item analysis, no summary score)

 

Environment topics are: 9. Physical environment, 10. Instructional environment, 11. Physical health (information for staff, but no scores for students) 12. Mental health, and 13. Discipline.

 

Almost all questions call for marking answers “yes” or “no,” or with the scale “strongly agree,” agree,” ”disagree” “strongly disagree.” Some questions about drug, alcohol and tobacco abuse ask for one of these responses: “Not a problem,” Small problem,” “ Somewhat a problem,” “Large problem.” None of the questions can be answered “Do not know.”

 

 

I have looked at the survey questions, developed by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), and concluded they are not ready for prime time. Here are a few of the problems.

 

This whole project looks like a rush job. The time for public comment about this project was extremely short. USDE did not change flaws in the piloted surveys, claiming that there was no budget for revisions.

 

The flaws are numerous. Many of the survey questions assume that respondents have an all encompassing and informed basis for offering judgments about school practices and policies. Some questions are so poorly crafted they incorporate several well-known problems in survey design–including more than one important idea, referring to abstract concepts, and assuming responders have sufficient knowledge. Here is an example from the student survey with all three problems. “Question 8. This school provides instructional materials (e.g., textbooks, handouts) that reflect my cultural background, ethnicity, and identity.”

 

 

Many questions have no frame of reference for a personal judgment:

 

 

From the student survey:

 

“17. Students respect one another.”

“18. Students like one another.“
Other questions call for inferences about the thinking of others.

 

“50. Students at this school think it is okay to get drunk.”

 

Some questions assert values, then ask for agreement or disagreement.

 

In the parents survey,

 

“7. This school communicates how important it is to respect students of all sexual orientations.”
Others assume omniscience:

 

“41. School rules are applied equally to all students.” Some questions seem to hold staff responsible for circumstances beyond their immediate control. 74. [Principal Only] The following are a problem in the neighborhood where this school is located: garbage, litter, or broken glass in the street or road, on the sidewalks, or in yards. ( Strongly agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly disagree).

 

 

Overall, the surveys and the examples of data analysis they provides are unlikely to produce “actionable interventions” as intended. The questions are so poorly crafted that they are likely to generate misleading data with many schools cast in a very bad light. See, for example, page 26 data from this source. https://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/sites/default/files/EDSCLS%20Pilot%20Debrief_FINAL.pdf

 

 

The responsibility for privacy rests with the schools, districts and states, but everything in on line. A brief inspection of the background questions should raise major questions about privacy, especially for students who identify themselves with enough detail–gender, ethnicity, race, grade level (20 data points minimum)–to produce survey answers that match only one person or a very few individuals.

 

 

My advice, not just to the PTA: Stay away from these data monsters. They drown everyone in data points. Results from the School Climate Surveys are processed to make colorful charts and graphs, but they are based of fuzzy and flawed “perceptions” and unwarranted assumptions. The surveys offer 63 data points for profiling the participants, but only four possible responses to each of 283 questions of dubious technical merit.

 

 

Perhaps most important for parents: Some questions seem to breech the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) for topics in student surveys, especially questions pertaining to “illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating, or demeaning behavior.” More on FERPA at http://www.ed.gov/offices/OM/fpco/ppra/index.html

 

It would be nice to think that FERPA really protects student privacy. But former Secretary Duncan loosened the FERPA protections in 2011, to make it easier for outsiders to obtain student data. That was the premise behind the Gates’ Foundation’s inBloom project, which was set to collect personally identifiable data from several states and districts and store it in a cloud managed by Amazon. That project was brought down by parental objections, which caused the states and districts to back out.

Categories Data, Data and Data Mining, Privacy

NEPC: Who Is Watching Your Child Online?

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2016 //
7

The National Education Policy Center recently published its 18th annual report on schoolhouse commercialism. When these reports began, the focus was usually the intrusion of advertising and other selling of products via textbooks, videos, and other means of communication.

 

Now the commercialism is different: when children are online, corporations are watching them and mining their data.

 

 

Faith Boninger and Alex Molnar’s report is called: “Learning to Be Watched: Surveillance Culture at School.”

 

 

They summarize it thus:

 

 

“Schools now routinely direct children online to do their schoolwork, thereby exposing them to tracking of their online behavior and subsequent targeted marketing. This is part of the evolution of how marketing companies use digital marketing, ensuring that children and adolescents are constantly connected and available to them. Moreover, because digital technologies enable extensive personalization, they amplify opportunities for marketers to control what children see in the private world of their digital devices as well as what they see in public spaces. This year’s annual report on schoolhouse commercialism trends considers how schools facilitate the work of digital marketers and examines the consequent threats to children’s privacy, their physical and psychological well-being, and the integrity of the education they receive. Constant digital surveillance and marketing at school combine to normalize for children the unquestioned role that corporations play in their education and in their lives more generally.”

 

 

 

Key Takeaway: 18th Annual Report on Schoolhouse Commercialism Trends explores the use of digital marketing in schools

Categories Data and Data Mining, Education Industry, Education Reform, National Education Policy Center, Online Education, Privacy

California: Millions of Private Student Records Will Be Released to Outside Group

By dianeravitch
February 17, 2016 //
14

A group called the “Concerned Parents Association” won the right to obtain millions of personally identifiable student records. The group says it wants to verify that students with special needs are getting the services to which they are entitled. Corporations have been eager to get access to those records for commercial purposes.

Parents have the right to opt out but no one is informing them.

“The nonprofit said it needs the information to see if California schools are violating the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and other related laws. The database it will have access to includes all information on children, kindergarten through high school, who are attending or have attended a California school at any time since Jan. 1, 2008.

“The database contain students’ names, social security numbers, home addresses, course information, behavior and discipline information, progress reports, mental health and medical information, along with suspensions, expulsions and more.”

Privacy groups worry about hackers and identity theft. And well they should.

If you live in California, alert PTAs and parent groups about this. And contact privacy organizations to learn how to opt out.

Categories California, Privacy, Students

When Leonie Haimson FOILed John King–and Got No Answer–Then Found Out the Truth about inBloom

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2016 //
9

As readers of this blog know, Leonie Haimson is an intrepid activist. Apparently, she neither slumbers nor sleeps (if there is in fact a difference between slumbering and sleeping) when the rights of parents or children are abused.
In this multi-part series, Leonie tells the story of her quest to gain access to New York State Education Department emails and the various entities involved in the authorization of inBloom. That initiative involved public officials, the Gates Foundation, and many others. Its goal was to release personally identifiable information about students without their parent’s consent. The data would be stored in a “cloud” created by Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation (run by Joel Klein), with no guarantees that the data could not be hacked.

 

In the first entry, Leonie tells how she and allies filed Freedom of Information Law requests (FOIL), in an effort to obtain the emails among the parties that collaborated to bring inBloom to New York. The requests were delayed again and again. One man stood in the way: State Commissioner of Education John King, now the Acting Secretary of Education. On the day after King’s resignation, a large batch of the FOILed emails were released.

 

In the second entry, Leonie reviews the emails from 2011, when inBloom was in the formative stage.

 

She begins:

 

When my FOIL was finally responded to I received hundreds and hundreds of pages with printed out emails to and from NYSED and the Gates Foundation mostly; offering all-expense trips for various meetings about teacher evaluation, data collection, and other issues, as well as a pile of contracts and agreements. It took weeks just to sort them and start to look through them. Sadly there were no emails from Merryl Tisch’s account, as I had asked for; and no emails from most of the state officials whose communications we had FOILed. But we did find out some juicy details….

 

Her third entry reviews the highlights of 2012. You might think you were in an episode of Downton Abbey, as you observe the rich and powerful planning how to gather and use the data of New York’s children, without their parents’ permission.

 

She writes:

 

NYSED’s emails to the Gates Foundation about inBloom and Wireless Generation from 2012 are below; highlights include a dinner party at Merryl Tisch’s home, to which Commissioner King invites an array of corporate reform leaders — to the dismay of Joe Scantlebury of the Gates Foundation. Also amusing is their account when I crashed a Gates-sponsored ” SLC Learning Camp” designed to lure software developers into designing products to take advantage of the wealth of personal student data to be gathered and shared by inBloom.

 

Her fourth entry details the controversy roiling inBloom and its final death throes.

 

She introduces this last entry:

 

This post, the final one with excerpts from the emails I FOILed from NYSED, documents the rise and fall of inBloom; through their communications to officials at the Gates Foundation and assorted consultants and allied organizations. inBloom was formally launched as a separate corporation in Feb. 2013 and died in April 2014, after little more than one year of existence. These fourteen months were marked by myriad public relations and political disasters, as the Gates Foundation’s plans for data collection and disclosure experienced national exposure for the first time and fierce parent opposition in the eight inBloom states and districts outside NY.

 

Once parents in the rest of the country learned through blogs and news articles of the Foundation’s plans to upload onto a data cloud and facilitate the sharing of their children’s most sensitive personal information with for-profit vendors, their protests grew ever more intense, and inBloom’s proponents were powerless to convince them that the benefits outweighed the risks. Though the Gates Foundation had hired a phalanx of communications and PR advisers, they were never able to come up with a convincing rationale for inBloom’s existence, or one that would justify this “data store”, as they called it, that cost them more than $100 million dollars to create.

 

The Foundation started the 2013 with a plan to promote inBloom through the media and at the large SXSWedu conference, and to expand the number of inBloom “partners” beyond the original nine states and districts that they said were already committed; instead they watched as every one of these nine states and districts withdrew or claimed they had never planned to share data with inBloom in the first place.

 

The ending is not surprising: The project failed, but everyone involved got promoted.

Categories Data, Education Reform, Privacy

U.S. Department of Education Still Pursuing Your Child’s Data

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2016 //
17

Valerie Strauss writes that the U.S. Department of Education plans a new student data base that will collect personally identifiable information on 12,000 students, 500 teachers, and 104 principals, and and make the data available to private contractors.

 

EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center), the nation’s premier organization defending privacy, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education and said that its plans violate federal privacy laws.

 

The project is small today, only 12,000 students. But the precedent would allow larger and larger invasions of student privacy in the future.

 

The U.S. Department of Education worked closely with the Gates Foundation to try to establish inBloom, a data-collecting project that was halted by parent opposition. That data would have been available to private vendors too.

 

There is a federal law protecting student privacy. Clearly, the law should be strengthened so that the Department of Education is clearly barred from gathering personally identifiable information about any student. Under this administration, the ED has been a willing handmaiden of commercial interests, not children. This must stop.

Categories Education Reform, Privacy, U.S. Department of Education

Parents to New York Education Leaders: No Snooping on Our Children’s Private Data

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2016 //
10

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!

Categories Data, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, New York, Privacy
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