Data mining, which started out at schools as a plan to identify ways to improve education and determine what’s working and what’s not in the nation’s schools, has morphed into a huge dilemma for parents who don’t want their children tracked for the next 20 years of their lives.
Stephanie Simon at Politico has uncovered the growing problem parents are facing as they try to stop the growing business of big-data collection in the nation’s schools. Thus far, private-sector dating mining companies known as “ed techs” are collecting a staggering amount of data on children, from tracking what games they play online, what videos they watch, what books they read and how many laps they run in physical education.
“The monitoring continues as they work on assignments from home, with companies logging children’s locations, homework schedules, Web browsing habits and, of course, their academic progress,” Simon writes.
There are two different kinds of ed-tech companies that collect this data – some which serve as a kind of “digital file cabinet” for existing student records with others deliver lessons online and collect data directly from students as they work.
States are also jumping into the fray with the Obama administration now backing huge state databases that are being built in nearly every state at a total cost of over $1 billion. These data bases will store even more intimate details on millions of children who will be tracked for more than two decades, literally from infancy to the start of their careers. Data will include identification by name, birth date, address and, in some cases, Social Security number – supposedly to “help officials pinpoint the education system’s strengths and weaknesses and craft public policy accordingly,” Simon reports.
But when we look at the kind of questions the Education Department is asking the states to answer about each child, the shock factor rises considerably.
“Did she make friends easily as a toddler? Was he disciplined for fighting as a teen? Did he take geometry? Does she suffer from mental illness? Did he go to college? Did he graduate? How much does he earn?”
At the present time, at least 19 states now link school records to workforce data, Simon reports, tracking such things as which students end up on disability or unemployment.
“Some states plan to build an even richer data set by linking school records to public health, social service or criminal justice data bases. Others aim to start even before pre-K, inputting data on infants enrolled in state-funded programs,” Simon writes.
“Every parent I’ve talked to has been horrified,” said Leonie Haimson, a New York mother who is organizing the national Parent Coalition for Student Privacy. “We just don’t want our kids tracked from cradle to grave.”
And for good reason. Due to lax student privacy laws in most states, data can be sold to just about anyone and used in a variety of ways, from determining what products to promote to a particular person to what information can be provided to a prospective employer or school admissions officer.
“We don’t know what they’re tracking and we don’t know what the implications are going to be for these children in the future,” said retired teacher and parent, John Eppolito to The Blaze. “Going for jobs in the future, trying to get into college – we’re in unchartered territory and we just don’t know the implications it’s going to have for the children. We need to slow down.”
Although Simon reports that there is no conclusive proof that any company has exploited this data, privacy experts say it’s almost impossible to know that for sure.
“The marketplace in personal data is shadowy and its impact on any one individual can be subtle. Who can say for sure if they’re being bombarded with a certain ad or rebuffed by a particular employer because their personal profile has been mined and sold,” Simon reports.
It’s not surprising that the onset of data mining is causing outrage among parents who are banding together to fight the trend and having surprising success. Student privacy concerns are now prominent issues in statehouses across the country where parents are working with lawmakers to limit the scope of these databases and restrict the use of the information collected.
According to Simon, 14 states have enacted stricter student privacy laws in the past five months and at least 105 student privacy bills were introduced in 35 states so far this year.
Contact your state representatives today to ask what they’re doing to protect your child’s privacy!
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