Data Collection and Data Privacy Federal Education Social Emotional Learning/Mental Health
Jun 3, 2015
ELW
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Response to Concerns about the Student Privacy Protection Act – S. 1341 (Full Document)

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Karen R. Effrem, MD – President of Education Liberty Watch & Executive Director of the Florida Stop Common Core Coalition

Jane Robbins, JD – Senior Fellow, American Principles in Action

The following is a respectful disagreement with and response to a recent critical analysis[1] of Senator David Vitter’s (R-LA) privacy bill, the Student Privacy Protection Act (SPPA), S. 1341[2]. This bill is the culmination of many discussions and the attentive listening of Senator Vitter with constituents, parents, pro-privacy attorneys and physicians, and others who have spent years fighting the data collection[3] associated with the Common Core standards and aligned assessments and the mental screening of children. Clarification of several misunderstandings about current law and policy will show that this legislation is a major step forward in improving student data privacy and protecting students’ freedom of conscience and freedom from psychological profiling.

Claim:

SPPA will increase psychological screening and profiling: “[Vitter] defines in great detail every aspect of psychological testing, treatment, analysis, and evaluation—the affective domain—that requires permission, and then allows the special education teams to implement the entire affective domain list.”

Fact:

One of the most exciting parts of SPPA, especially for analysts and activists like Dr. Effrem, who has been fighting mental screening and the over-diagnosis and drugging of children as young as infancy for more than a decade[4] , is the prohibition on psychological testing and the strengthening of the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment.  After defining various terms, the bill does not merely require consent for mental screening and assessment or surveying of psychological attitudes with federal funds (a completely inappropriate federal activity), it fully prohibits psychological screening and profiling. The only exception is for special education evaluations, which is already current law. Significantly, the bill extends the prohibition of psychological screening and profiling to assessments, and thus would also ban the more horrific features of the Common Core assessments.

Here is the key language of SPPA:

‘‘(2) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no funds provided to the Department or Federal funds provided under any applicable program shall be spent to support any survey or academic assessment allowing any of the following types of data collection via assessments or any other means, including digitally[5] (Emphasis added):

This language protects a long list of affectively related surveying and testing parameters,[6] and is much more protective of students in this area than any other legislation, state or federal, introduced anywhere.

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Federal Education
May 25, 2015
ELW
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Crucial Fed Ed Bills to Discuss with Members of Congress

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Here are brief descriptions of three great and important federal education bills that increase parental rights, state sovereignty, and local control.  Then are three bills that dramatically increase federal control and destroy education data privacy as well as our children’s freedom of conscience and the rights to be secure in their thoughts and attitudes without federally funded psychological profiling.  Please review this information and ask your members of Congress by phone  (www.house.gov/representatives and www.senate.gov/senators/contact/ to support the first three and oppose the second three:

BILLS TO SUPPORT AND PROMOTE:
1) Student Privacy Protection Act (SPPA) – S 1341:

The text of this great bill sponsored by Senator David Vitter (R-LA) is available HERE.
This legislation provides important protections in the following areas:
  • Rolling back the disastrous extra-congressional regulatory changes that vastly expanded access of third parties to our children’s personally identifiable data, now limiting that access and requiring parental consent in all cases
  • Holding educational agencies, schools, and third parties liable for violations of the law through monetary fines, damages, and court costs
  • Prohibiting psychological or attitudinal profiling of students or gathering of sensitive family information via any assessments, including academic assessments or survey.
  • Extending data protections for homeschooled students required to submit educational data to public school districts
  • Prohibiting educational agencies, schools, and the Secretary of Education from including personally identifiable information obtained from Federal or State agencies through data matches in student data.
  • Banning Federal education funds to states or districts that film, record, or monitor students or teachers in the classroom or remotely without parent or adult student and teacher consent.
Eight national and twenty-six groups from twenty-one different states have initially signed on in support and that list is likely to grow as more hear about this excellent bill.  It needs to have many co-sponsors in the Senate and a sponsor and many co-authors in the House.

2) Local Education Authority Returns Now (LEARN) Act – HR 121

HR 121, is sponsored by Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ).  It is the best alternative to the terrible No Child Left Behind reauthorizations (see below)that we have seen.  Neil McCluskey of the Cato Institute wrote the following about it:
Short of outright eliminating the federal schooling leviathan, there is one proposal worth looking at: the Local Education Authority Returns Now Act (LEARN) from Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), which would let states declare they’ll run their own education systems, then let state taxpayers keep the money Washington would have used to “help” them in education. It would sever the cord Washington has around states to make them do its bidding–tax dollars their citizens had no choice about paying–and reward their taxpayers directly.What about the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success Act (APLUS), which is a Heritage Foundation-backed piece of legislation? It is better than the status quo or main House GOP bill, but it contains two major, unacceptable provisions:  1) A requirement that the U.S. secretary of education approve state requests to control consolidated funding.A continued requirement that each state have a single set of standards, tests, and “proficiency” goals. and 2) Essentially, it’s the same basic shell as No Child Left Behind, only with more state autonomy over spending.
That’s not good enough.
Please ask your US House members to co-sponsor this bill and  to ask them to sponsor this bill in the Senate!

3) The Student Testing Improvement and Accountability ActS 1025

This bill is sponsored by Senator John Tester (D-MT).  It returns to the much more reasonable testing schedule before NCLB, requiring statewide assessments once each during grades 3-5, 6-9, and 10-12.  While we would like to see the federal testing mandates removed altogether, this is a reasonable interim step.  Please ask your congressional representatives to support this bill at the same time you ask them to support the Vitter privacy bill (S 1341) and the LEARN Act (HR 121).
Data Collection and Data Privacy Federal Education
May 14, 2015
ELW
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Education Liberty Watch Congratulates Senator Vitter & Joins Wave of National Support For Data Privacy Bill – S1341

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Education Liberty Watch is pleased to join a broad coalition of state and national groups in supporting The Student Privacy Protection Act introduced by Senator David Vitter (R-LA) today. The text of the bill is available HERE.

Here is Senator Vitter’s Statement from his press release:

“Parents are right to feel betrayed when schools collect and release information about their kids. This is real, sensitive information – and it doesn’t belong to some bureaucrat in Washington D.C.,” Vitter said. “We need to make sure that parents and students have complete control over their own information.”

Here is Dr. Karen Effrem’s statement from that same release:

“While this bill is very strong in a number of areas critical to student, teacher, and family data privacy, we are especially pleased with the language that prohibits psychological and attitudinal profiling of students in surveys or academic assessments, ” said Dr. Karen Effrem, president of Education Liberty Watch and executive director of the Florida Stop Common Core Coalition.  “Senator Vitter deserves great thanks for his tireless efforts to roll back the intrusive data gathering, psychological profiling and career tracking of our children by the federal government and corporations.” (See Dr. Effrem’s research paper “Psychosocial Manipulation in the Common Core Standards and Aligned Tests and Curriculum”  for more details on this issue.)

What follows is a national unity statement with the  initial strong and very likely to increase list of state and national organizations supporting the legislation:

We; the undersigned groups that have grave concerns about the loss of student and family data privacy, psychological profiling, and career tracking related to the Common Core standards, aligned state tests and longitudinal data systems; are grateful to Senator David Vitter for introducing and do strongly support The Student Privacy Protection Act.

This legislation provides important protections in the following areas:

  • Rolling back the disastrous extra-congressional regulatory changes that vastly expanded access of third parties to our children’s personally identifiable data, now limiting that access and requiring parental consent in all cases
  • Holding educational agencies, schools, and third parties liable for violations of the law through monetary fines, damages, and court costs
  • Prohibiting psychological or attitudinal profiling of students or gathering of sensitive family information via any assessments, including academic assessments or surveys
  • Extending data protections for homeschooled students required to submit educational data to public school districts
  • Prohibiting educational agencies, schools, and the Secretary of Education from including personally identifiable information obtained from Federal or State agencies through data matches in student data.
  • Banning Federal education funds to states or districts that film, record, or monitor students or teachers in the classroom or remotely without parent or adult student and teacher consent.

We strongly urge the senators of our respective states to co-sponsor this critically important piece of legislation and our congressional representatives to author and co-sponsor this bill in the US House.

NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS:

American Principles in Action

Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee

Eagle Forum

Education Liberty Watch

Home School Legal Defense Association

Women on the Wall

Special Ed Advocates to Stop Common Core

Stop Early Childhood Common Core

STATE ORGANIZATIONS:

Arkansas

Arkansans for Education Freedom

Arkansas Against Common Core

California

Faithful Christian Servants

Florida

The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition

Florida Parents RISE

The Tea Party Network

Georgia

Georgians to Stop Common Core

Idaho

Idahoans for Local Education

Indiana

Hoosiers Against Common Core

Iowa

Iowa RestorEd

Iowa for Student Achievement

Kansas

Kansans Against Common Core

Louisiana

Louisiana Against Common Core

Massachusetts

Common Core Forum

Stop Common Core Massachusetts

Michigan

Stop Common Core in Michigan, Inc.

Minnesota

Minnesotans Against Common Core

Missouri

Missouri Coalition Against Common Core

Ohio
Ohioans Against Common Core
Oklahoma
Restore Oklahoma Public Education
Pennsylvania

Pennsylvanians Against Common Core

Pennsylvanians Restoring Education

South Dakota

South Dakotans Against Common Core

Tennessee

Tennessee Against Common Core

Texas

Truth in Texas Education

Truth in Catholic Education

West Virginia

WV Against Common Core

Wyoming

Wyoming Citizens Opposing Common Core

Data Collection and Data Privacy
Feb 25, 2015
ELW
3 Comments

S227 (SETRA) is a Federal Data Mining Bill that Destroys Student Privacy

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Karen R. Effrem, MD – President

Besides urging a no vote on HR 5, the Student Success Act that replaces No Child Left Behind, please contact your US representatives and Senators to vote NO on S 227, the Senate version of the federal data mining bill.  Having already passed the Senate last year and about to be passed again, it was scheduled for a vote today, Wednesday February 25th in the US House.  That vote was contingent on easy passage in the Senate.  Thankfully, however, as more information comes out about this bill, it is no longer seen as non-controversial, and easy passage is no longer assured in either chamber.  It has been removed from the House calendar pending Senate approval, but thanks to the work of Education Liberty Watch, The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition, American Principles in Action, Eagle Forum and others, Senators are objecting.

S 227, the Strengthening Education through Research Act (SETRA) reauthorizes the 2002 Education Sciences Reform Act (ESRA) that has been very problematic, because it started the concept of state longitudinal databases, stepped around the prohibition on a national database by creating “national cooperative education statistics systems,”  allowed personally identifiable information to go to international agencies, and removed the  previous penalties of fines and imprisonment for misusing individual student data. SETRA continues or worsens all of that. Here are four major problems with SETRA (A detailed analysis of these points is available HERE):

1.  SETRA seeks to expand federal psychological profiling of our children
Section 132 of the bill (page 28, line 16-21) inserts the following:
”and which may include research on social and emotional learning, and the acquisition of competencies and skills, including the ability to think critically, solve complex problems, evaluate evidence, and communicate effectively…” (Emphasis added).
The US Department of Education (USED) is already a flagrant violation of the Tenth Amendment.  The amount of data collected on individual children, families, and teachers via USED through this law and the weakening and loopholes of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA) that provided individual data to the federal government is appalling and a complete violation of the Fourth Amendment as well.  To then give the federal government the right to research the thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors of free American citizens, especially innocent children, is completely unacceptable and without justification.
2.  SETRA only appears to prohibit a national database.
Section 157 of the bill takes out the word “national” and still only by words, prohibits a national database. While this appears to be an improvement, it unfortunately doesn’t do anything to stop the egregious loss of privacy that has happened since ESRA established the national cooperative statistics systems and state longitudinal databases in 2002.  These databases have been enhanced by The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, Stimulus), Race to the Top, and the America COMPETES Act.  In addition they are relying on outdated and weak student privacy laws (FERPA and PPRA), there is no enforcement mechanism, and we have seen how the federal government repeatedly and flagrantly violates its promises not to extend its authority, as with Race to the Top, Common Core and the national tests.
3. The bill continues to rely on a severely outdated and weakened FERPA to protect student privacy.
Both ESRA and SETRA refer to FERPA (20 USC 1232g) in Section 182 and requires data privacy to be handled according to that law.  However, FERPA passed in 1974 long before the presence of interoperable databases and cloud computing.  It also only discusses sanctions on entities that mishandle the data and those, which used to include fines and imprisonment, were severely weakened when ESRA was passed in 2002.  Students, families, and teachers whose sensitive personal and family data about everything from “social and emotional” issues to genetic data in newborn screening data, have no redress.  According to an investigation by Politico, education technology companies are “scooping up as many as 10 million unique data points on each child, each day.” (Emphasis added) Finally, FERPA has been severely weakened via regulatory fiat to gut consent requirements and broaden access to data by federal agencies and private entities.

4. SETRA continues the large loophole that renders PPRA ineffective in preventing nosy social questions in curriculum and assessments.
PPRA, cited in section 182 as 20 USC 1232h, prohibits the collection of psychological, political, religious, and other sensitive data in surveys, but not in curriculum and assessments such as in Common Core.

 

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