Obama Insiders Want to Buy Floundering For-Profit, University of Phoenix | deutsch29

Obama Insiders Want to Buy Floundering For-Profit, University of Phoenix | deutsch29:

Obama Insiders Want to Buy Floundering For-Profit, University of Phoenix

Today, I read an article entitled, “Bid to Buy For-profit College by Former Obama Insiders Raises Questions.” I cannot share it with readers because the articleappeared in Politico Pro, an exclusive publication that costs between $10,000 and $300,000 a year for a subscription. (The article was sent to me. I did not pay for it. Even USDOE decided not to pay the $25,000 per year it would cost to subscribe.)

But I believe it is important to relay to readers information from the article. So, what I will do in this *free* post is paraphrase some of the article content and cite from/link to other sources.

(Update 06-30: Thank you to Peter Greene, who found the very same article on “regular” Politico. Read it here. Apparently the $10,000 – $300,000 difference is in a day: The free piece was posted on 06-29, and the pay piece was posted 06-28.)

Obama’s very close friend (“first friend?”), Marty Nesbitt, and others are seeking US Department of Education (USDOE) approval to purchase the fiscally-troubled for-profit, University of Phoenix. Nesbitt and former Deputy Secretary of Education, Tony Miller, run a Chicago-based private equity firm, Vistria Group.

Vistria Group is part of a small collective that wants to purchase University of Phoenix, and the for-profit school’s parent organization, Apollo Education, is apparently all in. 

USDOE approval would keep the student loan and Pell grant bucks coming to University of Phoenix– which happens to be the subject of three state attorneys general as well as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The price tag for Vistria et al. appears to be $1.1 billion. As it stands, University of Phoenix receives $2 billion annually in public money.

If University of Phoenix goes under, then all of those student loans are forgiven– which means taxpayers foot the bill. If Vistria et al. acquire University of Phoenix, then the goings-on at the school become private. No more requiring that that public be made aware of the salaries of the school’s executives, or that the public be made aware of litigation against the school, or that the public know about pending investigations.

Then comes the issue of a number of people close to Obama, or the White House, being involved in the proposed acquisition. Miller is one. He would be in charge of Apollo Education if Vistria et al. acquire University of Phoenix.

Another Vistria convert is former White House aide, Jonathan Samuels. In 2014, Fortune featured the Nesbitt-Samuels connection in this piece:

The private equity firm run by one of President Obama’s best friends is getting even closer to his administration. The Chicago-based Vistria Group, co-founded last year by longtime Obama pal Marty Nesbitt, has hired Jon Samuels, one of the President’s top lieutenants on Capitol Hill, Fortune has learned.

It’s not immediately clear what role Samuels will fill for the fledgling 

Obama Insiders Want to Buy Floundering For-Profit, University of Phoenix | deutsch29:

How Fair is the “Fairness Formula” for New Jersey School Children & Taxpayers? | School Finance 101

How Fair is the “Fairness Formula” for New Jersey School Children & Taxpayers? | School Finance 101:

How Fair is the “Fairness Formula” for New Jersey School Children & Taxpayers?

New Jersey Education Policy Forum

Mark Weber, PhD Student, Rutgers Graduate School of Education

Ajay Srikanth, PhD Student, Rutgers Graduate School of Education

PDF Policy Brief: Weber.Srikanth.FairnessFormula.June_30

Executive Summary

This brief provides a first look at the “Fairness Formula,” Chris Christie’s school tax reform plan. In this analysis, we show:

• The “Fairness Formula” will greatly reward the most-affluent districts, which are already paying the lowest school tax rates as measured by percentage of income.
• The “Fairness Formula” will force the least-affluent districts to slash their school budgets, severely increase local property taxes, or both.
• The premise of the “Fairness Formula” – that the schools enrolling New Jersey’s at-risk students have “failed” during the period of substantial school reform – is contradicted by a large body of evidence.

The “Fairness Formula,” then, would transform New Jersey’s school funding system from a national model of equity[1] into one of the least equitable in the country, both…

View original post 36 more words

 How Fair is the “Fairness Formula” for New Jersey School Children & Taxpayers? | School Finance 101:

Big Education Ape: Marie Corfield: 7 Things Wrong with Gov. Christie's School Funding Proposal - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/06/marie-corfield-7-things-wrong-with-gov.html

Schools Matter: More Screen Time = More Radiation for Kids

Schools Matter: More Screen Time = More Radiation for Kids:

More Screen Time = More Radiation for Kids

The Silicon Valley elites, the paternalistic politicians, and the corporate education parasites comprise an axis of influence that threatens the public space, educational integrity, and the health of children.  ESSA's funding for competency-based personalized learning, which amounts to constant prepping and testing via wi-fi networks, is the latest example of wired education going haywire.  

Already, the charter school industry has discovered that children forced onto screens half the day can save millions in personnel costs by reducing the number of required teachers.  Without oversight or regulation, KIPP, Rocketship, Uncommon Schools, and other brutal charter chains have used the most vulnerable children as guinea pigs without any monitoring of the health effects of hooking children to screens for half the school day. The visual below is from KIPP Empower in Los Angeles, where up to 30 kindergartners have been warehoused in a single classroom.

Now with federal support guaranteed under ESSA, the competency-based education scheme will assure the spread of these potentially dangerous practices into public schools as well.  

The lack of concern among Silicon valley profiteers is evident with Google's latest eye candy that could be damaging children's brains.  

Does Google know if their free virtual Mars journey has deep health costs?  Should children be holding cell phones to their eyeballs, thus directly exposing their frontal cortex to more radiation? 

Environmental Health Trust (EHT) scientists are calling on Google to stop the spread into schools of wireless virtual reality system Global Expeditions Pioneer Program where middle-Schools Matter: More Screen Time = More Radiation for Kids:

Promising Changes for Special Education Under ESSA

Promising Changes for Special Education Under ESSA:

Promising Changes for Special Education Under ESSA

For years, in many school districts across the country, it wasn’t uncommon to hear stories about special education students lacking adequate resources. They might go months without textbooks. Or, if they had textbooks, they were decades old. Technology was scarce in some schools while in other places it was outright broken. Additionally, students with severe cognitive delays were expected to take a standardized test, regardless of the recommendations of their individualized education program (IEP).

With the implementation of the new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), that’s about to change. “With ESSA, we get to be part of the conversation about what will be required of our students,” says Angela Waiters Jackson, a special education teacher for eight years, and now the president of the Guilford County Association of Educators in North Carolina. “Before we would just get whatever came along,” which was mostly brought on by No Child Left Behind.

Special education teachers are expected to see promising changes under ESSA, which reduces the federal government’s role over education policy and gives state and local authorities more control. The law also places less emphasis on testing, reduces the amount of schools labeled as “failing,” and gives educators a bigger opportunity to take make decisions based on the needs of their students and schools.

That’s music to Jackson’s ears. She’s seen firsthand the damage wrought by the old law’s requirements, especially in the area of standardized tests. “We were asking students to do things we knew we shouldn’t be asking them to do, but every student had to be tested,” says Jackson.

Testing Gone Wrong

Florida served as an example of standardized testing at its worst. In 2014, NEA learned of Ethan Rediske. He had entered the Orange County Public School system at the age of three. By the time he hit the equivalency of third grade, he was required Promising Changes for Special Education Under ESSA:

Why Is The Walton Family Foundation Putting Another $250 Million Into Charter Schools? - Forbes

Why Is The Walton Family Foundation Putting Another $250 Million Into Charter Schools? - Forbes:

Why Is The Walton Family Foundation Putting Another $250 Million Into Charter Schools?

Brought To You By Wal-Mart? How the Walton Family Foundation’s Ideological Pursuit is Damaging Charter Schooling - Cashing in on Kids - http://cashinginonkids.com/?p=1520

Billionaire sister and brother Alice and Jim Walton have explained this week’s $250 million grant from the Walton Family Foundation to aid in building charter school facilities as a salute to their parents’ emphasis on education. “My parents spent a lot of time with us growing up just enforcing the fact that education is what could really be the great equalizer in the world,” says Alice Walton, the only daughter of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton and his wife Helen, in a video promoting the initiative.

“The importance of providing high-quality education for as many children as we possibly can, for all children, I think is critical to the future of this country,” adds Jim Walton, the youngest of the three Walton sons. He has a fortune that FORBES estimates to be $36.3 billion and his sister’s fortune is estimated at $35 billion.

“I think the charter sector has demonstrated that there can be hope, there can be opportunity, there can be high-quality education provided within many of our low-income areas in this country,” he adds.

The foundation describes the Building Equity Initiative as “a first-of-its-kind nonprofit effort to provide charter schools with access to capital to create and expand facilities.” The nonprofit Civic Builders will manage the initiative, which will focus on 17 cities* where the foundation already makes grants.

Charter schools often struggle to find appropriate buildings and pay for them. It’s often the reason they can’t get off the ground. Only one in three states with charter schools provides facilities. I know from my experience on the public school board in Hoboken, N.J., that when charters rent space from the district, the rules can be onerous. One charter school was not allowed to hang a sign advertising its annual application period and lottery on the outside of the public school building it rented.Why Is The Walton Family Foundation Putting Another $250 Million Into Charter Schools? - Forbes:

In Detroit, It's Charter Schools Gone Wild

In Detroit, It's Charter Schools Gone Wild:

In Detroit, It’s Charter Schools Gone Wild

Writing in The New York Times, Kate Zernike documents a charter school disaster being perpetuated on Detroit children and families. It is a story of phony “choice,” not better schools. It is a warning of what can happen to education in the United States if the charter school movement is allowed to grow unchecked and unregulated.

Zernike’s opens with a focus on the experience of one family. Damian and Omar Rivera attended a series of Detroit charter schools as their mother tried to offer them a brighter future. Damian, the older son, initially was enrolled at a charter school across the street from their home. He earned top grades and dreamed of becoming an engineer, until he was accepted into a special program at the University of Michigan where he discovered he knew far less about almost everything than similar students from Detroit public schools. Ana Rivera pulled her son out of the charter and sent him to a Catholic school, where charter school A’s suddenly turned into Catholic School D’s. Damian is now a discouraged learner.

According to Zernike, so many national for-profit charter school chains entered the Detroit “market” that in some poorer communities “it easier to find a charter school than to buy a carton of milk.” Detroit has a bigger percentage of students enrolled in charter schools than any U.S. city except New Orleans, whose public school system collapsed and was abandoned after Hurricane Katrina. The Detroit charter companies compete to attract students and government pay-outs by offering “cash bonuses, laptops, raffle tickets for iPads and bicycles,” but the promise of a better education is illusory.

There are many villains in the Detroit education debacle, but the main ones are a former Michigan governor, the state legislature, and of course, the for-profit charter school companies. The force behind the 1993 state charter school law was Republican Governor John “Free Markets” Engler, who not coincidently was an opponent of teachers’ unions. Engler wanted schools that were publicly financed but independently run. In theory, choice would lead to innovation; at least that was his theory.

Michigan decided to let virtually anybody set up charter school and actually paid school districts a bonus to promote the program. For-profit companies saw the law as their chance to cash in and they rapidly moved into the Michigan school market. Currently for-profit chains operate 80% of the state’s charter schools, a much higher percentage than in any other state. The companies also became major political lobbyists in Michigan with support from some of the state’s most powerful Republican Party donors.

Market dogma produced all kinds of absurdities. In 2011, the state legislature ended In Detroit, It's Charter Schools Gone Wild:

Charter Schools Not Performing Better Than Traditional in Detroit, Florida, Georgia

Charter Schools Not Performing Better Than Traditional in Detroit, Florida, Georgia:

Reminder: Education Is Not a Damn Marketplace
And charter schools are not working.

Here's a debate I'd like to see pursued vigorously within the Democratic Party. (Hey, everybody else gets to complain about this, why not me?)

Resolved: No matter how noble the original motives, public school "reform" as pursued by private interests in general, and by plutocratic dilettantes in particular, has been an abject failure and an almost limitless vista of low-rent scams and high-tech brigandage. 

Discuss.

Through the inexhaustible Diane Ravitch, we have found several recent examples of evidence for the affirmative here. First, there was this account in The New York Times about how the ragged remnants of the Detroit public schools were handed over to the charter-industrial complex willy nilly, and how that notion has crashed and burned in spectacular, if entirely predictable, fashion.

Michigan leapt at the promise of charter schools 23 years ago, betting big that choice and competition would improve public schools. It got competition, and chaos. 

Detroit schools have long been in decline academically and financially. But over the past five years, divisive politics and educational ideology and a scramble for money have combined to produced a public education fiasco that is perhaps unparalleled in the United States. 

While the idea was to foster academic competition, the unchecked growth of charters has created a glut of schools competing for some of the nation's poorest students, enticing them to enroll with cash bonuses, laptops, raffle tickets for iPads and bicycles. Leaders of charter and traditional schools alike say they are being cannibalized, fighting so hard over students and the limited public dollars that follow them that no one thrives. 

Detroit now has a bigger share of students in charters than any American city except New Orleans, which turned almost all its schools into charters after Hurricane Katrina. But half the charters perform only as well, or worse than, Detroit's traditional public schools.

Of course, reply the folks on the other side, this was all done with The Kids in mind. Let's talk to Damian and his mom, shall we?

She enrolled her older son, Damian, at the charter school across from her house, where she could watch him walk into the building. He got all A's and said he wanted to be an engineer. But the summer before seventh grade, he found himself in the back of a classroom at a science program at the University of Michigan, struggling to keep up with students from Detroit Public Schools, known as the worst urban district in the nation. They knew the human 

Charter Schools Not Performing Better Than Traditional in Detroit, Florida, Georgia:

California’s Charter School Led CBE Invasion | tultican

California’s Charter School Led CBE Invasion | tultican:

California’s Charter School Led CBE Invasion

This January (2016), Fortune Magazine announced that Netflix CEO, Reed Hastings, has launched a new $100-million-dollar fund to support education initiatives and other groups. The notice goes on to state:

“Hastings is the fund’s sole trustee while Neerav Kingsland, the former CEO of charter school supporter New Schools for New Orleans, is serving as CEO. The fund’s website explains its philanthropic mission: “Currently, too many children do not have access to amazing schools. Our aim is to partner with communities to significantly increase the number of students who have access to rich and holistic educational experiences.”

The “rich and holistic educational experience” is to be delivered by charter schools employing competency based education (CBE).

Competency Based Education

The United States Department of Education promotes and describes CBE:

 “Transitioning away from seat time, in favor of a structure that creates flexibility, allows students to progress as they demonstrate mastery of academic content, regardless of time, place, or pace of learning. Competency-based strategies provide flexibility in the way that credit can be earned or awarded, and provide students with personalized learning opportunities. These strategies include online and blended learning, dual enrollment and early college high schools, project-based and community-based learning, and credit recovery, among others.”

 Instead of a structured course with a teacher, students will log into a computer and earn badges for demonstrating competencies in an online environment. “Personalized learning opportunities” is a euphemism for a computer based course delivered in isolation.

It is a terrible idea! The last thing a 21st Century student needs is to be shoved in front of another inert digital device. Students need to interact with “highly qualified” certificated teachers, adults who they can trust. Students need to; measure, calculate, weight, work in small groups, discuss ideas, write, and get professional feedback. Students need structure, stability and direction. None of this is provided online.

Technology in education is more of an expensive mirage than a useful tool and competency based education (CBE) is fool’s gold.

In 2003, I took the state of California’s 52-hour life insurance course. That meant 52 hours of seat time with an insurance industry veteran who made the subject California’s Charter School Led CBE Invasion | tultican:

There’s a disturbing side to Kaya Henderson’s legacy of progress in D.C. Public Schools - The Washington Post

There’s a disturbing side to Kaya Henderson’s legacy of progress in D.C. Public Schools - The Washington Post:

There’s a disturbing side to Kaya Henderson’s legacy of progress in D.C. Public Schools

For nearly a decade, Kaya Henderson has been a commanding presence in the D.C. Public Schools system. In 2007, she became an influential deputy chancellor under the famous (some would say infamous) Michelle Rhee, and in 2010 Henderson succeeded Rhee as chancellor. She was praised by Arne Duncan when he was U.S. education secretary, and the school system became seen as a national example for corporate-modeled school reform, which emphasized high-stakes tests and private philanthropy. First Rhee, and then Henderson, had more power than any D.C. schools chief ever, and on Oct. 1, when Henderson steps down, she will be leaving behind a powerful legacy.

But what is that legacy? She certainly made some progress in improving the system, but was it enough for the time and money spent? What was her impact on academic improvement, student and educator assessment, teacher and principal recruitment and retention, and the overall teaching and learning culture? What does the system that she leaves look like — and is that what the city’s residents want?

When Rhee quit in a huff after her patron, then Mayor Adrian Fenty (D), was defeated in the 2010 Democratic primary, Henderson took the reins amid a sigh of relief among many in the city who saw her as a less-divisive school reformer who said she wanted to collaborate with educators and the community. Nobody expected Henderson to be as vitriolic or as public a personality as Rhee — who famously appeared on the cover of Time magazine wielding a broom — and Henderson never did, proving far more likable and thoughtful.

[D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson to step down, leaving legacy of progress]

Today Henderson’s biography on the district website says that the D.C. system became the “the fastest-improving urban school district in the country” under her leadership. That depends on the metrics one chooses to consider.

It’s true that student test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress — sometimes called “the nation’s report card” —  are higher than when she became chancellor and made the biggest jump of any participating urban school district; scores published in 2015 found that fourth-grade scores had moved from the bottom of large urban districts in 2007 to the middle (though eighth-grade scores were still near the bottom.)

High school graduation rates have moved up during her tenure, from 53 percent in 2001 to 64 There’s a disturbing side to Kaya Henderson’s legacy of progress in D.C. Public Schools - The Washington Post:

Jersey Jazzman: Christie Visits ANOTHER Gulen-Linked Charter School

Jersey Jazzman: Christie Visits ANOTHER Gulen-Linked Charter School:

Christie Visits ANOTHER Gulen-Linked Charter School

 There are times when I am astonished that the press doesn't pick up on a particular story. For example: according to activists on Facebook, Chris Christie is having a private meeting tomorrow, June 30, 2016, at Paterson Charter School for Science and Technology.


If this is the case, it will be the third time since this spring that Chris Christie has visited a charter school linked to the controversial Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish expatriate living in seclusion in the United States.

On May 16, Christie visited Thomas Edison EnergySmart Charter School in Franklin. Two days later, he trekked to Bergen Arts & Sciences Charter School in Hackensack. Thomas Edison, Bergen A&S, and Paterson Science & Tech have all been linked by the Gulen Charter Schools website to the Gulenist movement in the US.

As I've written previously, the proliferation of Gulenist charter schools is not some wild-eyed conspiracy theory: it's been reported on by CBS News, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Wall St. Journal. These schools, all linked to Gulen's movement, have been popping up all over the country and are the subject of concerns expressed by the federal State Department due to their use of H1B visas to admit Turkish nationals into the US.

Given how closely tied Christie is to Donald Trump -- who wants a ban on Muslims entering the country (although even he doesn't seem to understand his own plan) -- I can't understand why no one in the state press has pursued this story. Why is Christie praising so many Gulen-linked charters? Why is he visiting so many of them?

Back in 2011, Leslie Brody, when she was writing for The Record, broached the subject with the CEO of Bergen A&S:

In some states, such as Texas, charter schools led by Turkish immigrants have caused controversy, with critics claiming the schools were used to bring in teachers from Turkey and give contracts to Turkish businesses without fair bidding. In June, The New York Times ran a lengthy examination of these schools, citing some researchers' findings that many were inspired by the views of Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim preacher. Gulen, who lives in the Pocono Mountains, has promoted peaceful dialogue and tolerance but had critics who feared his influence in Turkish government. 

Guvercin said he admires Gulen — just as he admires Gandhi — but his 

Jersey Jazzman: Christie Visits ANOTHER Gulen-Linked Charter School:

 

Big Education Ape: KILLING ED: 120 American Charter Schools and One Secretive Turkish Cleric -http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/01/killing-ed-120-american-charter-schools.html

New York Times Columnist Charles Blow to Discuss Child Poverty at 2016 Children’s Budget Summit | First Focus

New York Times Columnist Charles Blow to Discuss Child Poverty at 2016 Children’s Budget Summit | First Focus:

New York Times Columnist Charles Blow to Discuss Child Poverty at 2016 Children’s Budget Summit

Washington – New York Times columnist and CNN contributor Charles Blow will talk about the intersection of child poverty and race at the 2016 Children’s Budget Summit, an annual event hosted by First Focus, at noon Thursday, July 7, at the National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.

Held annually to discuss the effect that current federal expenditures have on the impact of programs and policies that benefit the wellbeing of children, the theme of this year’s Children’s Budget Summit is“Place, Race and Economy: Closing the Gap for Kids.”

“We’re very excited to welcome Charles Blow to talk about his perspective of the challenges that children in America face today,” said Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus. “For many years, Mr. Blow has contributed insightful and poignant commentary on the state of children, the politics of investing in children, and the intersection of the wellbeing of youth, race, and social justice.”

According to the 2016 Children’s Budget Book – to be released at the Children’s Budget Summit – Congress has disproportionately cut funding to children’s programs to just 7.83 percent of the federal budget in fiscal year 2016, a continuing downward trend in investment for children that could be exacerbated by the nation’s growing racial generation gap. Already, states with the highest racial generation gaps have fared poorly in investing in children’s programs, such as education.

“When you take into account a state’s wealth, it is clear that states with a high racial generation gap provide far less effort in funding and support for their state’s public schools than the rest of the country,” Lesley writes in the 2016 Children’s Budget Book. “We must examine a range of public policy choices to redress the generational compact between generations, along with policy decisions in areas such as housing and education that have the negative consequence of creating a greater generational divide.”

The Children’s Budget Summit will feature a diverse panel of speakers who will discuss the state of children in the context of today’s politics, the current economy, and racial equity, including:

• William Frey, Demographer, The Brookings Institution
• Kristen Grimm, President, Spitfire Communications
• Bruce Lesley, President, First Focus

Several members of Congress – 2015 First Focus Campaign for Children “Champions and Defenders of Children” – have also been invited to attend. Past Children’s Budget Summit speakers have included U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan-Grisham, D-N.M.

The Children’s Budget Summit is open to the press and public, but seats are limited. A networking session with complimentary beverages will follow the summit from 4 to 5:30 p.m., at the Press Club. RSVP today.
What: 2016 Children’s Budget Summit, “Place, Race, and Economy: Closing the Gap for Kids.”

Who: New York Times Columnist and CNN Contributor Charles Blow, Spitfire Communications President Kristen Grimm, First Focus President Bruce Lesley

When: Noon to 5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 7

Where: National Press Club, 529 14th St. NW, Washington, D.C.

RSVP: Click here or e-mail gabev@firstfocus.org.

###

First Focus is a bipartisan advocacy organization dedicated to making children and families a priority in federal policy and budget decisions. For more information, visit www.firstfocus.org.

New York Times Columnist Charles Blow to Discuss Child Poverty at 2016 Children’s Budget Summit | First Focus:

 

CURMUDGUCATION: Relatively Pregnant

CURMUDGUCATION: Relatively Pregnant:
Relatively Pregnant

New pet peeve: "Relatively unique." You can no more be "relatively unique" than relatively pregnant.

— Robert Pondiscio (@rpondiscio) June 29, 2016

I totally owe this post to Pondiscio's tweet.

First, I share his pet peeve (even though I'm not prepared to bet anything valuable that I've never violated it). You are unique or you're not. You are pregnant or you're not. There is no relatively unique, relatively pregnant.

Put another way, when you got to the doctor to see if you're pregnant or not, the doctor does not say, "Well, let me draw some blood. As soon as I've collected samples from a few hundred other women, I'll be able to decide whether you're relatively pregnant or not."  No, there is no "relatively pregnant." 

You take the test. You find out whether or not you're pregnant. You are just as pregnant when you take the test alone as you are when you take it at the same time as thousand so of other women. 

Yes, this is yet another way to look at the difference between standards-referenced and norm-referenced testing.

If the Big Standardized Test (PARCC, SBA, PSSA, MOUSE, ETC) were truly a standards-referenced test, a student could take the test and know if she were proficient or not. And that is the implied promise of the BS Tests-- that they will measure proficiency against a standard.

But if that were true, we would not need thousands of students to take the test. One student, alone, CURMUDGUCATION: Relatively Pregnant:

Safeguarding Student Data in a Digital World

Safeguarding Student Data in a Digital World:

Safeguarding Student Data in a Digital World

When it comes to student data, striking the right balance between collection, analysis, privacy, and security can be complicated. A new policy brief released by the National Education Association (NEA) offers recommendations on how data can be used for good with policies and systems that prevent it from being used for ill.

Collecting student data isn’t new, and the goals are often lofty – data helps identify potential problems early and can allow educators to personalize learning and create more targeted instruction. But unfortunately the data can be used for less noble goals.

Some private companies collecting the data have shared, sold and mined it for profit. For example, in Arizona and Tennessee, health care provider chains inappropriately gained access to student information and used the information to market services to parents.

The main problem with the practice of collecting student data for monitoring and improving student performance, according to the report, is that statutory protection hasn’t kept pace with the technology.

Flaws in Federal Laws

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) limits the circumstances under which a school, district, or state education agency (SEA) may disclose personally identifiable information (PII), and requires schools to inform parents of their right to review and correct their children’s records. It also empowers parents to opt out of disclosure of information for purposes not specifically authorized by the law.

But FERPA does not require parental notification or consent for disclosure of educational records to contractors, consultants, and others over whom the educational institution exercises control.

Those conducting research, developing or evaluating assessments, or administering student aid programs may also be granted access, the report finds, provided PII is not disclosed to anyone beyond representatives of the organization, and such information is destroyed when no longer needed.

The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) requires school districts to work with parents to develop policies regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of Safeguarding Student Data in a Digital World: