State Data Deal with Media Should Alarm You
Thanks to KOUW’s article, State Deal to Give Media Organizations Student Data Alarms 
Privacy Experts, the deal the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) made to provide the Seattle Times with individual teacher and student level data has been exposed. This deal has alarmed more than just privacy experts. I predict it will alarm even more as people become aware, especially parents. If you are a student, parent, teacher, taxpayer, voter, or community member you should become alarmed as well.
Privacy Experts, the deal the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) made to provide the Seattle Times with individual teacher and student level data has been exposed. This deal has alarmed more than just privacy experts. I predict it will alarm even more as people become aware, especially parents. If you are a student, parent, teacher, taxpayer, voter, or community member you should become alarmed as well.OSPI will release individual staff and student data to the Seattle Times. The KOUW article says:
The Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, generally prohibits release of confidential student data without parental consent.
That may have been true about FERPA in the past. Without congressional approval or authorization, the U.S. Department of Education made substantial changes to FERPA regulations in 2011. Those regulation changes were made to enable these kinds of data deals without any requirements for parental consent or even notification. Even if this data deal is within the guidelines of the new FERPA regulations, morally and ethically is it a sound deal?
State government has way too much data on students. It has this data without active consent of parents. When was the state going to fully disclose this to parents or ask for their consent? I think it’s clear: Never.
The agreement itself has a clause in it that states:
Data provided by OSPI cannot be linked with other data or data sets as a way to determine