Longitudinal Data Systems and Personally Identifiable Information
When states accepted the CCSS, they were also given money through the State Fiscal Stabilization Funds to set up longitudinal data systems (LDS), also referred to as state longitudinal data systems (SLDS). The Department of Education (DOE) has explained that data systems created with these funds were required to “have the capacity to link preschool, K-12, and postsecondary education as well as workforce data.” The DOE further explains, “These data systems will capture data on students from one grade to the next, measuring whether they are on track to graduate and telling K-12 schools whether they are preparing their students to succeed in college and the workforce. The data systems also can help identify teachers who are succeeding so states can reward them, and find teachers who are struggling and help them improve.” These systems are managed by individual states’ P-20 or P-20W Councils. The P stands for Preschool. Depending on where you look, the 20 stands for grade 20 or age 20 and is intended to span to “education after college.” The W stands for Workforce. The Data Quality Campaign also explains how these SLDS work and how they were started: “Every governor and chief state school officer has agreed to build statewide longitudinal data systems that can follow individual students from early childhood through K–12 and postsecondary education and into the workforce as a condition for receiving State Fiscal Stabilization Funds as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).”
Under these systems, each student is supposed to be assigned a unique identifier under which Personally Identifiable Information (PII) will be collected. The data that is potentially being gathered under these systems is large and personal. Personally Identifiable Information is defined on page 6 of Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act Regulations 34 CFR Part 99. It includes such things as a student’s medical information, bus stop information, family income, religious affiliation, nickname, family relationships, mother’s and father’s education levels, transportation status, social security numbers, and a number of other things. Many of these seem to have little or no relation to education. You can see a number of these data categories here. It also includes biometric records, which are (as defined on page 4 of Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act Regulations 34CFR Part 99) “a record of one or more measurable biological or behavioral characteristics that can be used for automated recognition of an individual. Examples include fingerprints; retina and iris patterns; voiceprints; DNA sequence; facial characteristics; and handwriting.” No one knows for sure exactly what information will actually be collected with the SLDS, but it seems that they have opened the doors for just about anything. To get a better understanding of how some personal information may be collected without students or parents even realizing it, you can read Dr. Thompson’s letter to Superintendent Menlove of Utah.
The DOE explains the “unique identifier for every student…does not permit a student to be individually identified (except as permitted by federal and state law).” However, if personally identifiable information such as social security numbers are allowed to be collected as part of these LDS, I am not sure how students will not be individually identified as the DOE claims. After all, personally identifiable information is, by definition, personally identifiable! Either way, I am not comfortable with the schools and government collecting all this information on my children.
Changing the Privacy Laws so Data Can be Shared
I am especially opposed to this data collection though given that the federal privacy regulations under FERPA were recently changed by the request of Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education. The new laws were effective starting January 3, 2012. These laws were specifically changed in order to “reduce barriers that have inhibited the effective use of SLDS as envisioned in the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act (the America COMPETES Act) (Pub. L. 110–69) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) (Pub. L. 111–5)” (page 2 of the DOE’s FERPA document).
Under these new FERPA regulations, students’ PII are not to be disclosed without written consent from parents or students eighteen years of age or older, “except to the extent that FERPA authorized disclosure without consent.” The rules go on to explain that:
When states accepted the CCSS, they were also given money through the State Fiscal Stabilization Funds to set up longitudinal data systems (LDS), also referred to as state longitudinal data systems (SLDS). The Department of Education (DOE) has explained that data systems created with these funds were required to “have the capacity to link preschool, K-12, and postsecondary education as well as workforce data.” The DOE further explains, “These data systems will capture data on students from one grade to the next, measuring whether they are on track to graduate and telling K-12 schools whether they are preparing their students to succeed in college and the workforce. The data systems also can help identify teachers who are succeeding so states can reward them, and find teachers who are struggling and help them improve.” These systems are managed by individual states’ P-20 or P-20W Councils. The P stands for Preschool. Depending on where you look, the 20 stands for grade 20 or age 20 and is intended to span to “education after college.” The W stands for Workforce. The Data Quality Campaign also explains how these SLDS work and how they were started: “Every governor and chief state school officer has agreed to build statewide longitudinal data systems that can follow individual students from early childhood through K–12 and postsecondary education and into the workforce as a condition for receiving State Fiscal Stabilization Funds as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).”
Under these systems, each student is supposed to be assigned a unique identifier under which Personally Identifiable Information (PII) will be collected. The data that is potentially being gathered under these systems is large and personal. Personally Identifiable Information is defined on page 6 of Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act Regulations 34 CFR Part 99. It includes such things as a student’s medical information, bus stop information, family income, religious affiliation, nickname, family relationships, mother’s and father’s education levels, transportation status, social security numbers, and a number of other things. Many of these seem to have little or no relation to education. You can see a number of these data categories here. It also includes biometric records, which are (as defined on page 4 of Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act Regulations 34CFR Part 99) “a record of one or more measurable biological or behavioral characteristics that can be used for automated recognition of an individual. Examples include fingerprints; retina and iris patterns; voiceprints; DNA sequence; facial characteristics; and handwriting.” No one knows for sure exactly what information will actually be collected with the SLDS, but it seems that they have opened the doors for just about anything. To get a better understanding of how some personal information may be collected without students or parents even realizing it, you can read Dr. Thompson’s letter to Superintendent Menlove of Utah.
The DOE explains the “unique identifier for every student…does not permit a student to be individually identified (except as permitted by federal and state law).” However, if personally identifiable information such as social security numbers are allowed to be collected as part of these LDS, I am not sure how students will not be individually identified as the DOE claims. After all, personally identifiable information is, by definition, personally identifiable! Either way, I am not comfortable with the schools and government collecting all this information on my children.
Changing the Privacy Laws so Data Can be Shared
I am especially opposed to this data collection though given that the federal privacy regulations under FERPA were recently changed by the request of Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education. The new laws were effective starting January 3, 2012. These laws were specifically changed in order to “reduce barriers that have inhibited the effective use of SLDS as envisioned in the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Act (the America COMPETES Act) (Pub. L. 110–69) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) (Pub. L. 111–5)” (page 2 of the DOE’s FERPA document).
Under these new FERPA regulations, students’ PII are not to be disclosed without written consent from parents or students eighteen years of age or older, “except to the extent that FERPA authorized disclosure without consent.” The rules go on to explain that:
One exception, which permits disclosure without consent, is disclosure to school officials with legitimate educational interests. A school official is a person employed by the school as an administrator, supervisor, instructor, or support staff member (including health or medical staff and law enforcement unit personnel) or a person serving on the school board. A school official also may include a volunteer or contractor outside of the school who performs an institutional service of function for which the school would otherwise use its own employees and who is under the direct control of the school with respect to the use and maintenance of PII from education records, such as an attorney, auditor, medical consultant, or therapist; a parent or student volunteering to serve on an official committee, such as a disciplinary or grievance committee; or a parent, student, or other volunteer assisting another school official in performing his or her tasks. A school official has legitimate educational interest if the official needs to review and education record in order to fulfill his or her professional responsibility. (pg. 52)
That seems pretty broad to me,
and that is huge array of people who could possibly be authorized to share PII
without any consent from parents.
The document goes on to list eleven specific instances in which PII may be shared without the consent of parents or eligible students. Some of these instances seem reasonable, while others may be questionable. Particularly alarming to me though is that PII may be released without consent, “to organizations conducting studies for, or on behalf of, the school, in order to: (a) develop, validate, or administer predictive test; (b) administer student aid programs or (c) improve instruction” (page 54). I don’t want the school releasing any PII of my children to any organizations without my consent.
Furthermore, under these FERPA rules, keeping the public informed about what, when, and why PII is disclosed is optional. FERPA only states that “it is best practice to keep the public informed when you disclose PII from education records” (pg. 51). It is therefore not required.
(By the way, Family EducationalRights and Privacy Act Regulations 34 CFR Part 99 is a document that defines all the terminology in the federal FERPA Rules.)
While the language in FERPA suggests that sharing PII is permitted but not required, other contracts made through the CCSS and SBAC make the sharing of student data mandatory. For example, the Cooperative Agreement Between the U.S. DOE and the SBAC for the State of Washington clarifies that the state, “must provide timely and complete access to any and all data collected at the State level to ED or its designated program monitors, technical assistance providers, or researcher partners, and to GAO, and the auditors” (page 10).
The legality of the new FERPA regulations are also in serious question. For that reason, there is currently a law suit pending by the Electronic Privacy Information Center against the DOE.
But for now, it appears that data is set to be collected and shared. This data is not only being shared with the government; as set forth in the new FERPA regulations it can also be shared with private organizations and interests. According to Class Size Matters, nine states are currently part of a pilot program in which they have “agreed to share confidential student and teacher data with a Gates-funded organization called the “Shared Learning Collaborative” or SLC, which has now spun off as a separate corporation called inBloom Inc.” You can view the data that inBloom plans to collect here. If that isn’t bad enough, inBloom’s privacy policy states that they “cannot guarantee the security of the information stored in inBloom or that the information will not be intercepted when it is being transmitted.”
Additionally, you can read some of the possible implications of all this data collection here.
Data and Standardized Testing
It should be easy for this data to be collected under SBAC and PARCC, the testing arms of CCSS, because these tests will be computerized (see question 7 here). Also, based on all the accommodations and set up for this testing that schools will have to do, it will doubtlessly be quite expensive. (See “Race to the Top Assessment and YOU: MakingSense of SBAC/PARCC Technology" to get and idea of what is involved.) The Heritage Foundation’s article “National Education Standards and Tests: Big Expense, Little Value” breaks down some of the estimated costs of implementing CCSS and their assessment testing.
Also, as a general note on standardized testing: It is not always a good measure of academic performance or knowledge. I have always performed very well academically but not well on standardized tests. For example, I excelled academically in high school and graduated as one of the top ten members of my class. However, my ACT score was significantly lower than everyone else’s in that group, and for that reason I did not get offered scholarship money to attend college. Yet, I performed so well in my first year at Brigham Young University, I was given half tuition scholarship the following year, and full tuition scholarship for all the years following that. Some people test well, and others do not.
While standardized tests have their place, I do not believe that such testing should be given excessive emphasis in determining where students or teachers stand. The first 30 or so minutes of the previously mentioned video between the authors of the blog “Common Core Education Without Representation” and Chicago History teacher Paul Horton who is part of Citizens Against Corporate Collusion delves into some of the problems with so called high stakes testing of CCSS. (This is the same video I referred to when talking about how some businesses are profiting from CCSS.) I also recently read about an email that an eighth grade teacher from the Jordan School District in Utah sent to Utahns Against Common Core explaining how teachers are to use testing in their classes as explained to them during a meeting on Common Core. This teacher explains that during the meeting:
The document goes on to list eleven specific instances in which PII may be shared without the consent of parents or eligible students. Some of these instances seem reasonable, while others may be questionable. Particularly alarming to me though is that PII may be released without consent, “to organizations conducting studies for, or on behalf of, the school, in order to: (a) develop, validate, or administer predictive test; (b) administer student aid programs or (c) improve instruction” (page 54). I don’t want the school releasing any PII of my children to any organizations without my consent.
Furthermore, under these FERPA rules, keeping the public informed about what, when, and why PII is disclosed is optional. FERPA only states that “it is best practice to keep the public informed when you disclose PII from education records” (pg. 51). It is therefore not required.
(By the way, Family EducationalRights and Privacy Act Regulations 34 CFR Part 99 is a document that defines all the terminology in the federal FERPA Rules.)
While the language in FERPA suggests that sharing PII is permitted but not required, other contracts made through the CCSS and SBAC make the sharing of student data mandatory. For example, the Cooperative Agreement Between the U.S. DOE and the SBAC for the State of Washington clarifies that the state, “must provide timely and complete access to any and all data collected at the State level to ED or its designated program monitors, technical assistance providers, or researcher partners, and to GAO, and the auditors” (page 10).
The legality of the new FERPA regulations are also in serious question. For that reason, there is currently a law suit pending by the Electronic Privacy Information Center against the DOE.
But for now, it appears that data is set to be collected and shared. This data is not only being shared with the government; as set forth in the new FERPA regulations it can also be shared with private organizations and interests. According to Class Size Matters, nine states are currently part of a pilot program in which they have “agreed to share confidential student and teacher data with a Gates-funded organization called the “Shared Learning Collaborative” or SLC, which has now spun off as a separate corporation called inBloom Inc.” You can view the data that inBloom plans to collect here. If that isn’t bad enough, inBloom’s privacy policy states that they “cannot guarantee the security of the information stored in inBloom or that the information will not be intercepted when it is being transmitted.”
Additionally, you can read some of the possible implications of all this data collection here.
Data and Standardized Testing
It should be easy for this data to be collected under SBAC and PARCC, the testing arms of CCSS, because these tests will be computerized (see question 7 here). Also, based on all the accommodations and set up for this testing that schools will have to do, it will doubtlessly be quite expensive. (See “Race to the Top Assessment and YOU: MakingSense of SBAC/PARCC Technology" to get and idea of what is involved.) The Heritage Foundation’s article “National Education Standards and Tests: Big Expense, Little Value” breaks down some of the estimated costs of implementing CCSS and their assessment testing.
Also, as a general note on standardized testing: It is not always a good measure of academic performance or knowledge. I have always performed very well academically but not well on standardized tests. For example, I excelled academically in high school and graduated as one of the top ten members of my class. However, my ACT score was significantly lower than everyone else’s in that group, and for that reason I did not get offered scholarship money to attend college. Yet, I performed so well in my first year at Brigham Young University, I was given half tuition scholarship the following year, and full tuition scholarship for all the years following that. Some people test well, and others do not.
While standardized tests have their place, I do not believe that such testing should be given excessive emphasis in determining where students or teachers stand. The first 30 or so minutes of the previously mentioned video between the authors of the blog “Common Core Education Without Representation” and Chicago History teacher Paul Horton who is part of Citizens Against Corporate Collusion delves into some of the problems with so called high stakes testing of CCSS. (This is the same video I referred to when talking about how some businesses are profiting from CCSS.) I also recently read about an email that an eighth grade teacher from the Jordan School District in Utah sent to Utahns Against Common Core explaining how teachers are to use testing in their classes as explained to them during a meeting on Common Core. This teacher explains that during the meeting:
“We were told that students would no longer be graded on completion of assignments or an average of assignment and test scores over a grading period. Instead grading will be based on mastery of a subject. How do we determine mastery? The district has provided bench mark tests in language arts. We were told that these are not mandatory BUT that if we did not use them they would become mandatory. I find it scary that students will now be graded only on tests written by the core. The final assessment was a research paper on modern revolutions. Interesting how now in the sixth grade learning can be skewed to a political point of view that may or may not be historically accurate. I find the curriculum scary and the measurement of learning terrifying.”
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