A Formal Response to the CCSSO Letter on Student Data Privacy
35 groups in 25 states co-signed this letter written by Dr. Karen Effrem, President of Education Liberty Watch and co-founder of the Florida Stop Common Core Coalition. Since Truth in American Education is a network made up of different organizations and individuals we were not a co-signer, but several of the groups and individuals who comprise our network did. You can read Karen’s response below:By Karen Effrem
On January 23rd, 2014, thirty-four chief state school officers sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan trying to reassure the public that individual student test data will not be given to the federal government and that that data is safe as the Common Core national standards and federally funded and supervised national tests are put into place.
Here are the important quotes from that letter:
- “We are writing today to confirm that the consortia will not share any personally identifiable information about K–12 students with USED or any federal agency.” (Emphasis in original)
- “Our states have not submitted student-level assessment data in the past; the transition to the new assessments should not cause anyone to worry that federal reporting requirements will change when, in fact, the federal government is prohibited from establishing a student-