Saturday, May 11, 2013

NYC Public School Parents: More states fall away from inBloom, though NY remains, and all parents should remain vigilant!

NYC Public School Parents: More states fall away from inBloom, though NY remains, and all parents should remain vigilant!:


More states fall away from inBloom, though parents should remain vigilant!

Yesterday we learned from the twitter feed of the invaluable Reuters investigative reporter Stephanie Simon that  "there are no plans" for Delaware, Georgia or Kentucky to share their confidential, personally identifiable student data with the Gates-funded corporation called inBloom Inc.  Moreover, Bob Swiggum, Chief Information Officer at the Georgia Department of Education has said that the furor over student privacy makes states wary of this insecure database: "I don't know how inBloom will survive this."

So, let's make a quick review of where the states and districts now stand that inBloom still claims as "partners":
  • John White, the Louisiana State Superintendent announced a few weeks ago he was pulling all student data out of the inBloom cloud because of protests and privacy concerns of parents.
  •  Georgia, Delaware and Kentucky, all three states listed on the inBloom website as "Phase II" states, due to start piloting the system in 2013, have now said that they too are not planning to participate. 
  • A high-ranking Massachusetts education official recently wrote that they reconsidering their plan to share