Parents, Experts Blast New State Database of Private Student Info

<p>In NYS you can bet that Pearson is one of those companies that will be receiving the data.</p>

<p>I agree with some of the people here. Why does any educational company need personal information on a student? Isn’t it sufficient to have an alias ID with the attributes? </p>

<p>It is not the same as credit scoring. I am assuming they don’t have my doctor’s files on me or whether my employer punished me for something.</p>

<p>The only way I can think of to fight this is through the school districts. People need to start inquiring if they are signing up for this program, and then organize and protest at the local level. I think this is an issue that easily crosses party lines. </p>

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<p>I’d love to hear an example or two of benefits to kids that can’t be achieved through other means, or at least, anonymously. I’m scratching my head, as honestly, I don’t see the value. I definitely don’t think the value outweighs the damage that could be caused by having such personal data of our kids on file for whatever uses may be drummed up down the road. I don’t have school aged kids anymore, but it still really bugs me, and scares me a bit, frankly. And I’m a liberal Dem, usually supportive of government. But I don’t trust companies that will use this info for profit, and I don’t like our government handing over our kids private information without our consent.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.ncsl.org/portals/1/documents/Educ/PAEarlyChild-Stedron.pdf[/url]”>http://www.ncsl.org/portals/1/documents/Educ/PAEarlyChild-Stedron.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>This relates to early childhood, but it’s intended to link up with k-12 data systems.</p>

<p>Big Data = Big $</p>

<p>Privacy is fast becoming a thing of the past</p>

<p>This is a rather complex topic. The concept is powerful, but there is certainly the potential for misuse of the data. I don’t know enough yet to form an opinion, but here is the best description of the initiative that I could find:</p>

<p><a href=“With $100M From The Gates Foundation & Others, inBloom Wants To Transform Education By Unleashing Its Data | FinancialContent Business Page”>With $100M From The Gates Foundation & Others, inBloom Wants To Transform Education By Unleashing Its Data | FinancialContent Business Page;

<p>Here is website for the database company – which is a non-profit. Check out the tab that lists the partners, some of which are non-profit and some of which are for-profit. Some provide educational content that they claim can be “personalized” to the individual student and some provide applications that the schools can use to analyze and present the data.</p>

<p><a href=“inBloom · GitHub”>inBloom · GitHub;

<p>It is important to note that some school systems (such as the one in my town) already have this type of data stored in their own private data base that can be accessed by students, parents and school personnel via the Internet. I have found it to be convenient, but it does come with a privacy risk. This initiative aims to standardize and centralize these local databases with the goal of stimulating the development of more applications. It appears that the local school system still “owns” the data rights even though it is stored centrally by the non-profit company. It appears that the for-profit companies get access to the data by signing a contract with the local school system – which is what they would do now to develop an application for a school system with a private database. </p>

<p>There is not enough detail in the articles I could find to determine if there is more or less risk than all the other online databases that contain personal information.</p>

<p>very interesting article. thanks for posting.</p>

<p>The article states that …“Educational companies can use the data to create teaching tools for students.”</p>

<p>Much like analzying survey data, you don’t need names and home addresses to do that. Seems like a good idea implemented the wrong way.</p>

<p>No one has any right to be upset. This information was never private. The database simply makes non-private information available to certain people for more efficient access. There is plenty to criticize in organized education, from the numbers game of standardized testing to elitism in admissions. Focus more more on what organizations do with information they have on students and waste less time complaining about how third parties share information with each other.</p>

<p>this is just another example of the chip chip chipping away of civil liberties and privacy. as to new york–add this ‘database’ with stop-and-frisk run amok, and you have a ticking time bomb!</p>

<p>The information is for NY Public Schools only. Not for private companies.</p>

<p>The “educational companies” that get the data are probably providing kickbacks to officials somewhere. NY (particularly NYC) = Corruption, after all.</p>

<p>Too bad NYS can’t use their own data to stop the ongoing Medicaid fraud that’s occurring in school systems!</p>

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<p>I believe that it should be de-identified. I don’t see what purpose attaching names to the data serves. FERPA explicitly states that this type of info is not to be released to anyone - even within the institution - without a true “need to know.” I can’t imagine why anyone needs to know the individual names.</p>

<p>My assumption has always been that once my kids leave high school their K-12 school records are sealed, other than their transcripts. I’ve never given it much thought, though. None of mine had any big disciplinary issues, and they didn’t/don’t have IEP’s. </p>

<p>However, if data is released with names, and if my child had documented issues of any kind, I would be worried that this data base would become another part of the background checks done for employment. My oldest just had three background checks done for a job. State check where we live, FBI check, and another check through DC. </p>

<p>I’d bet that this data would become part of background and security clearance checks, and although juvenile records are sealed, these would be wide open.</p>