National Parent Coalition Letter to Congress on Student Data & Psychological Privacy

Education Liberty Watch had the honor of helping to lead a national parent coalition of national, state and local organizations concerned about student data and psychological privacy after a recent U.S. House hearing on the topic. The following email was sent to the Education and Workforce Committee:

Dear Chairwoman Foxx, Ranking Member Scott, Chairman Rokita, and Ranking Member Polis and the Education & Workforce Committee,

Thank you for holding the recent hearing on federal education research & privacy. Please see the following link to a national parent coalition letter containing the views, concerns and recommendations regarding student data and psychological privacy after the June 28th hearing of the Subcommittee on on Preschool, Elementary, and Secondary Education titled “Exploring Opportunities to Strengthen Education Research While Protecting Student Privacy.”

http://edlibertywatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Final-Letter-to-Committee-chairs-7-17-.pdf

This coalition includes 9 national organizations and 72 state and local organizations from 33 states, representing hundreds of thousands of concerned parents and citizens across the nation.

We respectfully, but strongly urge you to not include social emotional research in any reauthorization of ESRA, rescind the Obama administration regulatory gutting of privacy in FERPA as that is reauthorized, and enforce PPRA to prohibit psychological screening & profiling in any kind of assessments, not just surveys.

I will be happy to forward any responses from you to the coalition.

Thank you for your attention to this critical education issue.

Best regards,

Karen R. Effrem, MD

President, Education Liberty Watch

Executive Director, The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition

Education Liberty Watch President, Dr. Karen Effrem made the following statement to the media:

“It is extremely important for Congress to hear from parents of students whose lives are affected by the womb-to-tomb data collection and psychological profiling,” Parent concern about the social emotional learning (SEL) research and other data collection in the Strengthening Education Through Research Act (SETRA) as well as the regulatory weakening of FERPA were extremely important in keeping SETRA from passing in the last session of Congress. All of the data breaches and the push for SEL teaching, assessment, and research without consent has made parents more concerned, not less, about their students’ privacy, and more determined than ever to protect it in this next session of Congress.”

Please contact your members of Congress about this letter and demand protection of student privacy!