Data Collection on 49 Million Students Going To Drive “Equity”
The mainstream press is FINALLY starting to pick up on the disconcerting uptick in federal data collection. TheNew York Post published an article on 7-19-15 documenting the various ways the federal government plans to socially engineer our lives through the collection and use of data to back policy mandates. Using the strictest definition of equity, where everything is exactly even, they want to make sure: we all live in discreet neighborhoods which exactly match the racial distribution of the entire country, have access to financial instruments equally based on race not economic markers, and are treated exactly the same in school regardless of innate ability or effort. This worked so well in the whole sub-prime mortgage market, why wouldn’t we try to do it on a larger scale? And with foreign tech workers so easily able to hack any sensitive data the feds collect, what could we possibly worry about? The Post summed it up this way.“Such databases have never before existed. Obama is presiding over the largest consolidation of personal data in US history. He is creating a diversity police state where government race cops and civil-rights lawyers will micromanage demographic outcomes in virtually every aspect of society.”
When it comes to the education data bases the Post is not exactly correct. The article cites the mandatory Civil Rights Data Collection survey which has actually been in existence since 1968. The purpose of the data collection was to collect data on “key education and civil rights issues in our nation’s public schools for use by OCR in its enforcement and monitoring efforts regarding equal educational opportunity.”
The CRDC was a biennial sample survey of schools up until 2011. That year it was expanded to cover every school every year. Now they boast it covers “approximately 16,500 school districts, 97,000 schools, and 49 million students” covering the following topics:
- Data for every public school disaggregated by race/ethnicity, English learner status, sex, and disability Data for all schools now disaggregated by seven race and ethnicity categories, including Native-Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and multiracial students
- Measures student access to college- and career-preparatory science and math courses, AP courses and tests, SAT/ACT tests, gifted and talented programs, IB programs, preschool programs, and interscholastic athletics
- Tracks teacher and resource equity, including teacher experience and salary levels, other personnel and non-personnel expenditures, and access to school counselors
- Reveals school climate disparities related to student discipline, restraint and seclusion, retention, and Data Collection on 49 Million Students Going To Drive “Equity” » Missouri Education Watchdog: