NYC Public School Parents: More districts opt out of Race to the Top but NYSED insists their personal student data will "travel" anyway -- without their consent

NYC Public School Parents: More districts opt out of Race to the Top but NYSED insists their personal student data will "travel" anyway -- without their consent:

More districts opt out of Race to the Top but NYSED insists their personal student data will "travel" anyway -- without their consent

I wonder if any NY district Superintendent is refusing to share with the state the personally identifiable details described below, including student disabilities, immigrant status and their disciplinary records, knowing that it will be disclosed to inBloom and dashboard vendors, despite the wishes of their parents.  Please let me know at leonie@classsizematters.org if your district is considering holding back this data from the state, or has joined the growing list of RTTT opt outs. 

There’s a good article in today’s Buffalo News, about at least two more NY school districts upstate, Williamsville and West Seneca,that have decided to turn down Race to the Top funds to try to protect their students’ privacy, joining the growing list of suburban districts that have already announced this. 

Here are just some of the districts that have announced their withdrawal so far:  Spackenkill (See here); Hyde Park ( here); Pleasantville ( here); Comsewogue (here); Rye Neck,  Pelham, Pocantico Hills, Hastings-on-Hudson, and Mount Pleasant(here)  Districts considering doing the same include Dobbs Ferry, and South Orangetown (here).  (Thanks to No DATA NY blog).

According to an article in Capital NY, 90% of the state’s 700 districts were originally participating in the RTTT program, and of these, one fourth of them, or about 160, failed to sign up for dashboards by the official deadline of October 30.

This is despite the fact that Ken Wagner of NYSED has made it clear, including again in the Buffalo News, that this does NOT mean