Education Liberty Watch Response to Senate Author of Florida Data Tracking Bill

Last week, Florida Senator Bill Galvano sent the following email to a constituent who had called and visited his office with very legitimate concerns regarding Florida SB 878 (See detailed analysis ).  Dr. Karen Effrem offered a point-by-point response which hopefully will be instructive to other states as they fight the imposition of a very alarming set of Common Core Standard linked assessment and data collection system that will affect students, families, and teachers. (Dr. Effrem’s responses are in italics below each point from the senator).  Education Liberty Watch and the statewide coalition of Florida citizens thank Senator Galvano for being willing to consider these concerns as the bill moves forward.

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From: GALVANO.BILL <GALVANO.BILL@flsenate.gov>

Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2013 17:46:10

Subject: SB 878 – Education Accountability

Ms. <Redacted>

I appreciate you taking the time today and sharing your views with my office regarding Senate Bill 878, Education Accountability, which requires performance accountability for public schools by strengthening the definition of co-located schools and establishing protocols for access to existing quality data. SB 878 strengthens, streamlines and establishes protocols for access to existing data maintained by the Florida Department of Education.

With all due respect, there is too much data collected and too much access to this data to entities that do not have the privacy or best interests of our children and families in mind.  The last thing we want is to strengthen or stream line that process.

The bill does not expand data that is collected.

 Yes the bill does expand data that is collected.  Lines 115-117 say, “To promote adoption of a common set of data elements identified by the National Center for Education Statistics to support the effective exchange of data within and across states.” This NCES list contains hundreds of data points including very personal items, such as “religious affiliation”, “voting status”,” parental income”, and “Disease, Illness, or Health Condition” . (See http://nces.sifinfo.org/datamodel/eiebrowser/techview.aspx?instance=studentElementarySecondary)  If the FL DOE is already collecting this amount of data, then this bill should be seriously limiting what the state and federal governments collect on innocent children and if it is not, this current bill language will allow expansion to the full NCES model to happen.  In addition, according to the US DOE, the plan is to use the Common Core Assessments to measure for“21^st century skills” of grit, tenacity, and perseverance, and key psychological resources (mindsets, learning strategies, and effortful control) for a range of purposes that the Common Core standards are supposed to teach. (See US DOE report Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance: Critical Factors for Success in the 21^st Century)This is rank psychological manipulation.

The bill simply creates a web-based interface to serve as a single location for access to aggregated data from the K-20 warehouse.

There are actually two portals created by this bill: 1) The public portal does a decent job of making the data anonymous in lines 272-274.  2) However, the “Research Portal” contains no such restrictions in the bill or mentions any in current law or regulation.

The bill also formalizes procedures for accessing and reporting data pursuant to the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

FERPA student privacy protection has been significantly weakened via regulation by the Obama administration, so much so that the Electronic Privacy Information Center is suing the U.S. Department of Education.  One of the biggest concerns is the expansion of who may have access to individually identifiable student data without parental consent to “A contractor, consultant, volunteer, or other party to whom an agency or institution has outsourced institutional services or functions may be considered a school official under this paragraph…” Therefore, FERPA protections are not very comforting to parents that wish to protect their children’s and family’s sensitive data.  Parents, the PTA, and ACLU in nine states are loudly protesting this situation in combination with a new national database called inBloom developed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Rupert Murdoch’s Amplify Education Company. (See the Reuter’s story K-12 student database jazzes tech startups, spooks parents ).  SB 878 uses the term “authorized agent, ” which means this long list of outside entities that has data access ,  12 times in the text of the bill.  The bill also mentions the phrase “FERPA exception,” which means all the excuses that the government uses for allowing access to individual data, three times and the term “personally identifiable data” seven times. Again, there is no stipulation for anonymizing data accessible to researchers in this bill.

Before providing student data to researchers, DOE strips personally-identifiable information from student data and assigns a random, annonymized ID to each student record.   The bill does not change this.

There is no reference to statute or regulation stipulating that this is the procedure that is carried out.  That reference should be put in the bill or language requiring such procedures should be written into the bill at a minimum.  Anonymization is a help, but does not answer the basic question of why so much sensitive student and family data is kept by the state and is now or will be linked to the federal NCES databases.  The other issue is that the government still has the link to the anonymized ID numbers and there is no real way to assure parents and the public that this data is safe.

Additionally, there is a provision in the bill that prohibits the commercial sale of a child’s information.

This language prohibits the direct sale, but does not necessarily prohibit the use of this data for research for developing commercial products be they software, assessments or even pharmaceuticals based on all of the psychological data that will be measured, collected, and given to entities that have “a legitimate educational interest” in that data.  There is also nothing in the bill that limits any of the parameters in the “written agreement,” only that entities with access to our children’s data have to follow the agreement.

As a father of 3 children in the public school system, I am very concerned about protecting their private personal information.

We are glad to hear that you are concerned about your children’s privacy.  Hopefully the information in this email will spur you to continue to protect that privacy as well as that of all of your constituent’s children as you no doubt intended to do but may not have had enough information to fully accomplish with this legislation.

Notwithstanding the above, I will review the bill again with your concerns in mind.

Thank you for your willingness to do so.  We hope that this information will help you decide to withdraw or delay you bill until it contains language that rolls back the significant government surveillance of and access to the sensitive data of our children.

Bill Galvano

State Senator, District 26

Education Liberty Watch Introduces New Freedom Grading Scale for Private School Choice Laws

The concept of trying to rescue poor and minority students from failing public schools is a noble one.  However, if the private schools are forced to teach the public school standards, which are at grave risk of becoming nationalized via the Common Core and its accompanying tests in 45-1/2 states and the District of Columbia (Minnesota accepted the English standards but not the math), in order for their students to pass the state tests, private schools will no longer be a meaningful alternative to the public schools.

This danger was detailed in our 2011 alert Imposing a Federal Curriculum on Private Schools – Why Voucher Programs that Require State Tests Are So Dangerous. At that time, we mentioned Minnesota’s proposed law that has not yet passed (that would have received a D grade on our scale) and Indiana’s enacted law (that did receive an F grade) that both require state tests to be given to private school students receiving vouchers or to the entire private school.  Since then, I have reviewed the testing accountability requirements for all of the 30 school choice laws that have passed in 18 states and the District of Columbia through 2012 based on the Alliance for School Choice’s annual report  and looking at the  newest 2012 laws passed since that report was written.

And, since grading scales are becoming de rigeur, I though that Education Liberty Watch should join in on the trend and provide a freedom grading scale based on how well each statute protects private school autonomy.  My hope is that you will see where your state falls and contact your policymakers to either improve your own state law if needed, make sure that any school choice bill offered in your state is as strongly pro-freedom as possible, and if nothing else, warn the private schools in your area what may be coming and urge them to speak up as this type of legislation is considered.

Before the table with the grades is presented however, it is important to also mention the education plan of presidential candidate Mitt Romney on this issue.  Thankfully his plan is a just a plan right now that was likely mostly written  or at least heavily influenced by former Governor Jeb Bush.  Mr. Bush, whose organization is funded by the Bill Gates Foundation, is a huge fan of the Common Core to the point of trying to prevent model legislation against the standards from being supported by ALEC. He also seems to be completely tied in with the corporate interests such as the US Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, and the Business Partnership and the Gates Foundation, which has funded his own organization, that seem not at all concerned or even determined to bring about the usurpation of private school curriculum with the national standards. The Romney plan, A Chance for Every Child, speaks of the federal government promoting and paying for both public and private school choice.  It says on pages 23-24:

Romney Administration will work with Congress to overhaul Title I and IDEA so that low-income and special-needs students can choose which school to attend and bring their funding with them. The choices offered to students under this policy will include any district or public charter school in the state, as well as private schools if permitted by state law… To ensure accountability, students using federal funds to attend private schools will be required to participate in the state’s testing system. (Emphasis added.)

Aside from the fact that the federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in education, a fact both parties have completely forgotten, this would be an utter disaster for education freedom.  It would bring the full force of the federal government to impose the federal curriculum of the Common Core on private and religious schools.  It would also negate the laboratories of democracy in the states that have passed good state laws that do not require this public school testing accountability.  On Education Liberty Watch’s Freedom Grading Scale, the Romney education plan, as currently written, would receive a D grade for requiring students to participate in the state tests.  If the plan is meant to require that all of the students in a private school attended by voucher recipients take the state (Common Core) tests, we would give it a failing grade.

However, the good news is that Governor Romney has recently made some important and very good statements opposing the Common Core and government expansion of preschool, which we will outline in our next alert. It is therefore hoped that the more pro-freedom members of his education team are beginning to hold sway and that Governor Romney can be educated about the perils to private schools in his plan.

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Education Liberty Watch Private School Choice Freedom Grading Scale Table

FREEDOM GRADING SCALE:

A+ = No testing requirements and accountability only to parents

A = No testing requirements

B+ = Requires only a nationally norm-referenced test and reports results to parents

B = Requires only a nationally norm-referenced test  (Not currently tied to Common Core)

C = Requires the state tests or a nationally norm-referenced test

D+ = Requires private schools to give voucher recipients the state tests but reports results to an outside entity instead of the state

D = Requires private schools to give voucher/tax credit recipients the state tests

F = Requires private schools to give state tests to all students in a private school

ABBREVIATIONS:

CSTC = Corporate Scholarship Tax Credit

ESA = Education Savings Account

FSV = Failing School Voucher

ISTC = Individual Scholarship Tax Credit

MTV = Means Tested Voucher

NNRT = Nationally Norm-Referenced Test

SNV = Special Needs Voucher

UV = Universal Voucher

*Information, except for 2012 laws, adapted from Alliance for School Choice: School Choice Year Book 2011-12

Quotes and References Regarding the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment

THERE IS NO CRISIS

“The total percentage [3-10% for 2009] of students rated on average as not yet showing proficiency in each of the five developmental domains has remained consistent throughout the seven years of the study.” – 2009 Readiness Study Report, MDE, April 2010, p. 13

“The advocates sponsoring these ads base their claims on some early learning studies done by the Minnesota Education Department. But those studies did not draw dividing lines between children at different levels of development. They did not brand some students ready or not ready for kindergarten. The Education Department studies do show that between 2 percent and 11 percent of children do not yet demonstrate some skills or behaviors they need for success in school. Another group, about half, are in the process of acquiring those skills. They should succeed in schools that offer solid academic programs. The rest show full proficiency.  If the claims of the advertising campaign were true, it would certainly show up three years later in the third-grade Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment results for reading and math ability. In fact, in 2004, 74 percent of Minnesota third-graders achieved proficient scores in the reading assessment; 71 percent were proficient or better in math. Some of those successful students must have been in the group not fully prepared for kindergarten. – Commissioner Alice Seagren, Pioneer Press, February 5, 2006, emphasis added

LABELING CHILDREN CAN HAVE NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES

“Because children develop and grow along a continuum with great variability, the goal of these studies is to assess children s proficiency within and across these developmental domains and not establish whether or not children are ready for school with the use of a composite ready or not ready score. Young children develop rapidly and at varying rates across the domains, and an early, definitive determination of readiness can have unintended negative consequences” – 2006, Readiness Study Report, MDE, p.7,  emphasis added

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