The National Pulse – 6 Big Problems with Latest “Social Emotional Learning” Report

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This National Pulse article written by Dr. Karen Effrem outlines what makes the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development’s new report on the use of social emotional learning in public education problematic. More specifically, how the report failed to complete fundamental and controversial issues with the teaching method such as invasion of privacy, federal overreach, etc…

1.) The Commission promotes the care and development of the “whole child” as an individual while simultaneously pushing standardized SEL teaching and assessment via “state standards, guidance, and frameworks” and the trend toward machine based skills training (including SEL training and assessment) via competency-based and personalized learning.

This is an oxymoron. If there are at least nine different names for SEL and schools are supposed to help children grow into their best individual selves, than how can there be SEL standards at all? The answer lies in the career focus of SEL.

2.) The Commission wants to expand SEL research, despite the lack of scientific and policy consensus on a definition of SEL and the existence of many SEL studies that have flaws and mixed or negative results.

We have discussed this aspect a number of times (see here and here for example). Even proponents and SEL experts admit there are problems with the research. This includes research on the academic achievement, brain science, and genetics aspects of SEL to name a few. In many ways, it is like the research on preschool described above or that of psychiatric drugs. There are grand claims initially for these programs or products, but with time and further scrutiny, the claims fall apart like wet tissue paper.

3.) The final report only contains two token mentions of privacy, which is gravely endangered by the SEL and the ed-tech phenomena.

The rate and extent of social emotional data collection — via federal assessments like the NAEP and federally mandated state assessments, education technology companies like Knewton and Dream Box that are collecting millions of data points per student per day, and foreign entities like OECD and China — is becoming difficult to follow. That is why the gutting of the federal privacy law, FERPA, during the Obama administration and the recent passage of FEPA that will create a de facto national database is all the more maddening.

4.) The Commission believes that there will be no federal control or interference for states and districts implementing SEL — even while one of their interim reports lists scores of federal programs supporting those concepts.

No kidding. After the Commission policy brief lists 111 different federal programs in 8 different federal agencies, plus the Corporation for National and Public Service that can be “leveraged” to achieve their SEL nirvana, Commission co-chairman Tim Shriver and putative conservative Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute solemnly intone that the report “should not be mistaken for an invitation to federal policymakers” to get involved in SEL.

5.) The Commission believes that somehow teachers can and will want to “develop expertise in child development and in the science of learning” with all of their other burdens, when there is no clear consensus on the science of SEL and in the midst of national teacher shortage.

Wonderful, experienced teachers are leaving the profession in droves because they are forced to teach the academically inferior, developmentally inappropriate, and psychologically manipulative Common Core while they are monitored on everything they teach via poorly validated tests that affect their pay and tenure via incomprehensible algorithms, have their desired curriculum removed from their classrooms, and are required to act as amateur psychologists in order to prevent school shootings and suicide.

6.) The Commission expects that SEL programs and curriculum will fill the cavernous social emotional void for the millions of children growing up in fatherless homes.

The statistics are overwhelming that children — especially boys — from fatherless homes have more SEL problems. Examples include:

Significantly higher juvenile crime rates

A 279 percent increased likelihood of carrying a gun

Externalizing behavior problems as early as one year of age

The full article can be found here on The National Pulse’s website.

The National Pulse – Corporate America Continues to Treat Students as Widgets

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In this article, found here, written for The National Pulse by Dr. Karen Effrem, the issues of corporations and education policy makers dehumanizing students are discussed. Specifically, the problems with treating the education system as primarily a job training program are brought to light.

This education-as-workforce-preparation approach has also led to the imposition of Common Core, competency-based/personalized learning with its machine-based skills training, and the massive data collection and social emotional/personality profiling via education technology occurring in many schools. As chronicled here and other places in detail, this is all very dangerous to academic achievement, privacy, freedom of conscience, and being able to choose one’s own destiny.

But most importantly, it is not the right or the function of corporations or the federal government to treat people like widgets for their own use. Donohue mentioned in his speech that the Chamber is involved in what he terms the “Talent Pipeline Management.” This is analogous to former Exxon Mobil CEO and major Common Core proponent Rex Tillerson’s description of a student as a “product at the end of that high school graduation…Now is that product in a form that we, the customer, can use it? Or is it defective, and we’re not interested?”

These businesses and organizations do not have the right or authority to treat our children as mere links in their labor supply chain and to manipulate sensitive data (including social emotional and personality data often collected without consent via murky algorithms) to slot and shunt people into jobs according to the desires of Big Business and Big Government. Joy Pullman at The Federalist explains just how egregious and dangerous to our children and country this crony control really is:

You can find the entire article here on The National Pulse’s website.

Anti-Privacy Database Bill Set to Become Law without Trump Veto

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This article written by Dr. Karen Effrem for The National Pulse is an alert regarding a new bill in the House that will invade student’s privacy.

HR 4174, the privacy-crushing de facto national database bill discussed here earlier this week and recently at Townhall, will become law as early as tomorrow, January 12th, without a presidential veto. Economic and privacy experts are gravely concerned about this bill due to its potential to expand the welfare state and planned economy and an increased vulnerability of government data to hacking. This will also affect our children due to the ever-expanding mountain of data collected on them through education technology and state longitudinal databases as well as the weakening of FERPA, the federal privacy law.

Although much is happening with the border crisis and the government shutdown, concerned citizens must keep up the pressure. A new way to raise awareness is to take a few minutes to share these 50 tweetsprovided by our friends at Patriot Journalist to explain how dangerous this data mining legislation really is and then to alert your friends. You may also continue to email the president here. (The White House comment line is not taking calls due to the shutdown.)

Other details are available at these resources:

Stop FEPA Facebook Page

Rebuttal to House Staff “Myths and Facts” on HR 4174

Summary of HR 4174/S 2046, The Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act

“Parent Activists: Data-Sharing ‘Grinch’ Bill Will Create ‘De Facto National Database’” by Dr. Susan Berry at Breitbart

What is FEPA?

Radio Interview on FEPA by Dr. Karen Effrem with the American Family Association of Pennsylvania

Radio Interview on HR 4174 by Dr. Mary Byrne with Morning Coffee (Missouri)

Talking Points to Veto FEPA by Dr. Mary Byrne

“Paul Ryan’s Trojan Horse for the Welfare State” by economist Sven Lundgren at AIER explaining how this bill expands the swamp on welfare, health care and other issues

“Privacy-Crushing FEPA Bill #HR4174: 10 Nitty Gritty Facts You Missed #VETO !” by Cristel Swayze at “What is Common Core”

Michelle Malkin on Tucker Carlson Explaining Dangers of Ed Tech in Schools

Please take this stand for your privacy and futures and those of your children! Thank you!

Townhall – Lame-Duck Congress Plays Grinch to Citizens by Passing Anti-Privacy Database Bill

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In a new column at Townhall.com, Dr. Effrem explains the dangers of the unrecorded voice vote passage of yet another privacy invading bill by the U.S. Senate, waiting until after the election to pass a bill that dozens of citizen and parent groups opposed when passed by the House in 2017. This excerpt discusses some of the many reasons HR 4174, the Foundations for Evidence-based Policymaking Act (FEPA) is so problematic based on a summary and a rebuttal prepared by groups opposing FEPA:

While FEPA itself doesn’t expressly establish a formal data system with a central repository, the bill’s mandates regarding linking and sharing data among multiple federal agencies and thousands of bureaucrats will create essentially the same result: a de facto national database.

The federal government is demonstrably incompetent at data security; moreover, it routinely ignores the overwhelming data it already has showing the ineffectiveness of many (most) federal programs. There is no reason to believe an even more enormous trove of data can be secured, or that it will actually change government behavior in any meaningful way.

Most importantly, collecting and holding massive amounts of data about an individual has an intimidating effect on the individual—even if the data is never used. This fundamentally changes the relationship between the individual and government. Citizen direction of government cannot happen when government sits in a position of intimidation of the individual.

The full commentary is available HERE and has also been discussed at Breitbart.com and EdWeek.org.

Due to the partial government shutdown, the White House comment line is not operating, but you may urge President Trump to veto this egregious violation of citizen led-governance and privacy by emailing him or tweeting to @realDonaldTrump or @POTUS.