Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has developed funding for schools that is unsustainable……
It’s My PII
OCTOBER 14, 2015 BY LISA HUDSON
In December 2011, President Obama signed an Executive Order amending The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), dramatically expanding disclosure exceptions and authorizing increased sharing of student personally identifiable information (PII) without parental consent. The changes to FERPA stripped away every shred of privacy protection students and their families have with respect to sensitive personal information.
The Obama Administration downplayed the changes by describing them as “unlocking the data,” which sounds innocuous, but is a gross oversimplification of what actually happened. The Administration counted on the ambivalence of the American people, and complicit state governments. For the most part, parents don’t know what or how student information is protected, much less who has access to it outside teachers and school administrators. State officials, well aware of the elimination of privacy protections, have turned a blind eye.
With the big push toward functional literacy, Positive Behavior Intervention Strategies (PBIS), anti-bullying legislation, and the expansion of Title IX to include gender identity as a protected class, education records contain a wealth of highly sensitive information far in excess of academic data. Private information about students (criminal history, discipline records, and history of pregnancy and child birth, for example), is available for use in behavioral, psychological, and social science research unrelated to academics.
Since the election of Arizona Governor Doug Ducey in 2014; a man whose campaign platform included strong opposition to federal involvement in public education, conservative Arizona legislators have been unsuccessful pushing through legislation that would, among other things, prohibit the collection and distribution of personally identifiable and non-cognitive data. Early in 2015, legislation passed in the Arizona House and the Senate Education Committee, giving privacy advocates some hope. Interestingly, Lisa Graham-Keegan, a former Superintendent of Public Instruction and education co-chair of the governor’s transition team, testified in opposition to the bill at the Senate hearing. Governor Ducey’s response to the proposed legislation was not markedly different.
Not only did the governor not give vocal support for the bill, he actively pushed back against the legislation. Governor Ducey publically rejected the proposed legislation before a final hearing in the Senate. Faced with a veto, the bill failed to secure sufficient votes and the privacy provisions intended to protect Arizona students went down in flames.
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Follow the Money: Privacy vs. Common Core
By Dale Brethower, Ph.D.
Representative Mark Finchem, AZ Legislative District 11, is onto something important. He talked about it recently at a meeting of the Oro Valley Republican Women. Mark believes that it is helpful to follow the money if we what to understand any government action. No surprise there, but he has an interesting question about Common Core: Why do deep pockets folks support Common Core? Follow the money!
Common Core provides a way to keep lots of money flowing into deep pockets. Makers of tests love Common Core. Publishers of textbooks and such that are used in public education love it. Who else loves it? Arnie Duncan who was, until recently, the leader of the Department of Education loved it. Marketers probably love it. Why? Because Common Core data collection could provide them with millions of dollars worth of information about millions of school children—and their families.
To read more: Follow the Money: Privacy vs. Common Core – click here