Hypothetical (or not) exercise on inBloom, data, and student privacy
by Chalk Face, PhD
Here’s a little thought experiment.
Big Data advocates like inBloom are proposing to collect about 400 data points on every student in states that contract with this company. That’s a pretty long list. Presented as such, it may seem fairly innocuous. Your child’s school already has this information on file for the most part. All that needs to be done is to compile it from various documents and databases into one comprehensive source. That way, a host of multiple-regression analyses and other advanced statistical techniques can be used to operate schools from a boardroom, not a classroom.
But imagine a parent’s severe displeasure if this information was actually presented beforehand in a single survey and the parent was actually asked about these data points in one sitting. I liken this to a discussion of taxes. Normal folks pay all sorts of taxes. What if we were able to keep every penny of our paychecks and had to write one check on April 15th for all of the taxes we paid, sales, payroll, everything? Imagine the outrage in that instance.
Here’s what I’ve done. I examined a list of “data fields” from inBloom’s own website. I picked a few easy ones, then compiled several of what I thought to be the most provocative data points. Rather than this being done nefariously, in