CNN Video Clip and Parent Letter to Schools: On the Invasion of Privacy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1pwUSlqerg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

This important video begins with a CNN clip describing the Dept. of Education’s recent steps that make it easier for federal forces to see massive amounts of personal information.

Then the video moves to an Oklahoma Educational group’s conference that explains what P-20 means (preschool to age 20) and why states have P-20 councils and workforces to track every person.  (Yes, it’s here in Utah.)

Before the era of nationalized education under Common Core, states (not the federal government) just collected aggregated (not individualized, kid-specific) academic information for schools.

But now the federal government is pushing to make it legal for the feds to access schools’ information about absolutely everything:  academics, health, mental health, school bullying statistics, where kids live, how much money their parents have, where they live, where they were born, how many absences they have had from school, how much they weigh, what time they get on the bus.  (Don’t believe it?  Look up “National Data Collection Model” online.)

Also, see the federal Family Policy Compliance Office website: http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/index.html which openly admits: “The changes to the FERPA  regulations will have the important effect of improving access to data.”  Indeed!

A huge fat lie from that same site: “The Department values this trust and strives  to do all it can to protect the privacy of student information.”

The government does not want to have to go to the trouble to get parental consent before accessing student and family information.  (This is why FERPA laws are being abused by the U.S. Dept of Education –the feds changed FERPA regulations in January 2012 without getting permission from Congress– and this is why Common Core requires states to “address barriers in state law”).

Because of these and other facts, I gave my school a letter today.  I’ll paste it here: Feel free to use this to protect your own kids and family from this invasion in your own school.  I hope it works.

May 18, 2012

Dear Wasatch High School and District,

My daughter, _____________________, is taking the A.P. Geography test today, and I give permission for the school to release her test scores –to A.P. only.

I do not give permission for my daughter’s academic or nonacademic information to ever be released to any group,  entity or stakeholder outside Wasatch school district without my written consent.  This applies to the whole duration of her high school career.

Christel Lane Swasey