ELW Joins Liberty Counsel & National Coalition to Fight Invasive Mindset Profiling in NAEP

For Immediate Release! Liberty Counsel, Education Liberty Watch & Many Groups Warn of Illegal NAEP Mindset Profiling!

Liberty Counsel, an international legal, media and policy organization with an emphasis on religious liberties protected by the First Amendment, sent a letter to several congressional committees regarding the very problematic and illegal plan of the National Assessment Governing Board to assess mindsets and other subjective, socioemotional factors in the 2017 version of the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). This letter was signed by eight national organizations, including Education Liberty Watch, and 69 state organizations in 29 different states, including the  Florida Stop Common Core Coalition (FSCCC).   Here is a summary of those concerns according to Liberty Counsel Attorney Richard Mast, the author of the letter:

The NAEP is poised to violate federal law by collecting extremely sensitive psychological/socioemotional data on children; it will do so in a necessarily subjective manner;  it contains a substantial risk of exposing the subject children to possible negative consequences in their later schooling and employment careers, to the extent that even supporters of such assessments are concerned; and it will entrust extremely sensitive data to agencies that are no longer governed by serious privacy law and that have proven they cannot or will not keep personal student data secure.

These proposed changes constitute potential parental rights violations, and expose the children to a litany of harms in the present and in the future. Thus, any efforts to ask questions concerning mindsets and other socioemotional parameters and to collect that data via the NAEP should be halted immediately.

“We are extremely pleased and thankful that Liberty Counsel and so many organizations around the country have joined this important national fight for student data and psychological privacy,” said Dr. Karen Effrem, president of Education Liberty Watch and executive director of the Florida Stop Common Core Coalition. “Congress must do its due diligence and properly exercise its oversight authority to stop these obvious statutory and constitutional violations and this continued federal overreach before the privacy and futures of our students are further harmed. We urge our members to help educate their members of Congress about this issue and to be sure to opt their children out of this very invasive test.”

Contact:

Karen R. Effrem, MD

dockaren@edlibertywatch.org

952-361-4931 (office)

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What You Can Do:

1) Make sure your members of Congress see this letter and demand that the planned psychological profiling of our children be stopped.

2) Also educate your congressional representatives on the dangers of social emotional research in SETRA – S 227, the Strengthening Education Through Research Act by giving or sending them this one page handout.

3) Educate your candidates for Congress on these very important privacy issues

4) PLEASE support us in this David and Goliath battle against the Washington Education Cartel trying to control the lives and futures of our children and grandchildren! 

DONATE AT http://edlibertywatch.org/donate/

Thank you for everything you are doing to protect the hearts and minds of our children!

The Pulse 2016 Publishes New ELW Article Rebutting Big Data’s Entitlement to Student Data

We continue to marvel at the imperial sense of entitlement and cluelessness of Big Data in thinking both that they deserve sensitive personal student and psychological data without consent and that parents are “afraid” of student research.  Here is an excerpt from Dr. Effrem’s latest privacy article posted on The Pulse 2016 in rebuttal to this Brookings Institute attorney titled Memo to Big Data: Parents Are Furious — Not Fearful — About Data-Mining:

 

Affective Data Mining in NGSS Shows Need for Data Protection

The Pulse 2016 published Dr. Effrem’s latest post on the dangers of student data privacy in response to US News & World Report’s frightening op-ed lauding invasive affective data mining that psychologically profiles our children in the name of promoting the absolutely awful Next Generation Science Standards.  Here is an excerpt:

Gobert, whose company develops the software she lauds (no conflict of interest there), attempts to justify both the invasive data-mining and the NGSS, which have received poor reviews from many, varied organizations. She raises the favorite bogeyman of the establishment — American students’ 21st place in international rankings of science performance, supposedly endangering US global competitiveness. Yet, she ignores contrary data and research showing no correlation between these rankings and national economic performance.
More alarming is this paragraph, containing the kind of language that sends parents running for the exits of public schools and possibly towards attorneys:

Educational data mining offers more than the traditional statistics used on typical, multiple-choice tests. These high-fidelity data are in the form of log files from mouse clicks within the digital learning environment. They also measure and monitor things like students’ saccadic eye patterns as students learn from visual and textual information sources, data from sensors tracking facial expressions and posture, and more. These data are all fine-grained, reflecting students’ learning processes, knowledge, affective states . . . . [emphasis added].

Such devices were illustrated and described in a 2013 report called  by the US Department of Education’s Office of Technology (USOT) (since removed from the website due to parental backlash):

This is yet another reason to urge your members of Congress to oppose SETRA and to put affective data mining protections in any reauthorizations of FERPA or PPRA.

Alabama Fighting Invasive Data Mining Bill

Sadly the corporate and government establishment has blocked an excellent data protection bill, HB 267, by Rep. Arnold Mooney that was supported by a coalition of organizations as diverse as Alabama Eagle Forum and the Alabama chapter of the ACLU, had 35 co-sponsors  and for which both the American Principles Project and Education Liberty Watch were consulted.

Now, the chairwoman of the House Education Committee has authored an invasive data mining bill, HB 125, which establishes a longitudinal database with very few privacy protections.  It is backed by the Business and Workforce Councils of Alabama, the type of state level corporate and government groups that have been pushing the inferior, inappropriate, and indoctrinating Common Core Standards; the invasive tests, and career tracking that will be possible with these databases.

Here is a description of the bill and the Alabama Eagle Forum’s concerns as reported by the Alabama Political Reporter:

HB125 would create the Alabama Office of Education and Workforce Statistics.  This bill will apply to all public school students and workers leaving public education. Eagle Forum writes, “It will collect private information on individuals, potentially through their entire lives. The purpose of this bill is to collect information on students, and monitor them indefinitely. As the bill states, ‘to create the Alabama Longitudinal Data System to provide for the matching of information about students from early learning through postsecondary education and into employment.’ (pg. 1) The stated goal of the legislation is to, ‘guide decision makers at all levels.’ (pg. 3) No clear basis or need for this mass amount of data collection on private citizens including students is provided. The bill contains only vague promises of confidentially with no actual method of protection or limitation on the data collection power of these new agencies. The bill claims to provide protections but provides none. The protection and the maintenance of confidentiality of collected educational data, including compliance with the Federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and all other relevant state and federal privacy laws, and all relevant state cyber security policies, (pg. 5).”

Eagle Forum wrote, “There are currently no State or Federal laws which apply to this bill in regard to protecting students’ personally identifiable information such as name, social security number, or family information.  Even if all the information collected were dis-aggregate (meaning not on-its-own enough to identify an individual) it is still dangerous. Dis-aggregate information becomes personal information once you have just a few data points. Eagle Forum of Alabama opposes HB125, as it would create two extremely powerful agencies and violate the rights of Alabamians. If the government is going to seek any private information from citizens, they must provide a sound basis or get a warrant.”

If this issue is important to you and you have friends and family in Indiana, you may wish to get in touch with them to urge their Alabama senators to oppose HB 125 right away (session ends May 16th)! Thank you!