The National Pulse: Will Congress Spend Big on This Failed Education Program in 2018?

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by Dr. Karen Effrem, MD

The corporations, foundations, investors, and politicians funded by them have been working hard this year to promote competency-based education (CBE), also called personalized learning, as well as its evil sibling, social-emotional learning (SEL). CBE, although poorly defined by proponents, is essentially machine-based learning with constant assessment, including SEL assessment and profiling, to track students into higher education and workforce futures by inaccurate and inhuman computer-generated algorithms. Unfortunately, that also includes the Higher Education Act, now called the PROSPER Act, discussed in last week’s article. Here is the promised review of the CBE aspects of that bill.  https://thenationalpulse.com/commentary/will-congress-spend-big-failed-education-program-2018/

The National Pulse: Grading the GOP’s Latest Education Bill: Needs Improvement (on Data Privacy)

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by Dr. Karen Effrem, MD

The House Education and Workforce Committee completed their mark-up last week of HR 4508, which they have named the Promoting Real Opportunity, Success, and Prosperity through Education Reform (PROSPER) Act. Here is an update on the data privacy implications of this bill.

The good news is that the ban on a student unit-record system is still in place. The previously proposed College Transparency Act would have allowed non-consensual tracking of personally identifiable information from college through the workforce by monitoring individual data from the colleges and universities, the IRS, and the military. (See also here and here for more details.) Committee chairwoman Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) deserves great thanks and kudos for authoring that ban in the last version of the Higher Education Act and for keeping it in place in PROSPER.  https://thenationalpulse.com/commentary/grading-gop-latest-education-bill-needs-improvement-data-privacy/

The National Pulse: Invasive Plan to Data Mine Preschoolers Globally Draws International Criticism

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by Dr. Karen Effrem, MD

Back in February, both Education Liberty Watch and American Principles Project warned about and submitted comments to The Federal Register opposing U.S. participation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) latest ill-advised and invasive International Early Learning Study (IELS). This is a new scheme to extend international standardized testing, social-emotional profiling, and data mining via tablets.   See the full article at: Invasive Plan to Data Mine Preschoolers Globally Draws International Criticism

The National Pulse: Guess What? Congress Wants to Collect Even More Sensitive Student Data

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Dr. Effrem discusses the new version of The Student Right to Know Before You Go Act by Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Mark Warner (VA). While improved on the basis of data security, the bill still allows the collection of way too much data without student knowledge or consent, fundamentally changing the relationship between citizens and the government. Read the full article HERE.