How Common Core and School Data Mining are Inseparable

A growing number of the proponents of Common Core say they are opposed to the data mining that uses school-collected data.

How does this position even make sense?  The two programs are so married. 

1.  President Obama’s the  head cheerleader for both programs and he bundles them in his vision for education reform.  Part of the Race to the Top application was an agreement for states to adopt Common Core Standards, and part was to have a State Longitudinal Database System (SLDS) that would match every other SLDS in the nation (using federal grants to build it.)  Points were awarded to states who did both.   Clearly, both Common Core and the SLDS data system were part of that federal reform package and both comply with the “Big Government” vision of socialistically controlled education.  (The fact that our state –Utah– received no RTTT monies and isn’t part of RTTT, is irrelevant, since Utah still chose to remain bound under Common Core and the federally funded SLDS even after not winning any grant monies.  Don’t ask me why.  That decision makes no sense at all.)

2. In public speeches, Secretary Arne Duncan calls for “robust data” –and he is the very man who altered federal FERPA regulations to make access to private data more easily accessible by a large number of agencies –without parental consent, and this is the same Arne Duncan who boasts of Obama’s “College and Career Readiness” (Common Core standards) as if he birthed them,  in public speeches.  Again, the two programs go hand in hand and come from the socialistic ideals of the Department of Education.

3. At a recent White House event entitled “DataPalooza,” eScholar CEO Shawn T. Bay gave a speech in which he stated that although aggregate data is useful, it’s most useful to look at the individual consumer or the individual student. He said, too, that Common Core is so important to the open data movement, because Common Core is “the glue that actually ties everything together.”Here is the video.  http://youtu.be/9RIgKRNzC9U?t=9m5s  See minute nine to find where the data push depends on Common Core.

4.  For those states (including SBAC-droppers like Utah) who are still in any way connected to the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) there is the damning evidence found in a key document called the Cooperative Agreement with the Dept of Education.  Here you will discover that only the fiscal agent state, Washington, has any real authority over what happens in all the other states of the SBAC.  Here you will also see the illegal moves of the Department of Education very clearly.  The Department mandates synchronization of tests between the SBAC and the PARCC.  It mandates the sharing of data on an ongoing basis.  It mandates phone calls, conferences and much more sharing of testing information. This is completely illegal under GEPA law and under the 10th Amendment.  By triangulating tests and data between the SBAC, the PARCC and the Dept. of Education, they have created a nationalized system that removes local authority and the local voice.It troubles me that the proponents of Common Core continue to call opponents like me “misinformed” when the opposite is obvious from source documents.

It troubles me that I actually go out of my way to request proof that we opponents are “erroneous” and “misinformed” and the proponents don’t even respond to the emails.

Proponents of Common Core seem to me to be increasingly uninterested in the truth.  That troubles me most of all.

I am interested in the truth.  I have no other object in this fight against Common Core except wanting academically legitimate, locally amendable and locally controlled standards.

I am a teacher and a mother, not a politician or lobbyist or even a reporter.

But.

If I actually was a politician or reporter, here’s what I would take the time to study and then write.  The article would be entitled:

“Putting the Pieces Together on the Data Mining – Common Core Puzzle.”

A good starter article on the data mining of schools has been done by Caleb Warnock at the Daily Herald.  More is needed.

First, I’d call state technology directors in various states and I’d ask them the same questions about federal compliance issues surrounding data collection that I’ve asked our Jerry Winkler of Utah.

First, I’d  clarify whether the technology director is aware of the federal requests for voluntary submission of private student data (not in aggregate form).  I would mention at least three federal sources: CEDS, DQC, NDCM.  They’d likely be unaware (but maybe not).

Then I would ask the technology director what information is currently being collected by the state student surveillance system, the SLDS, (which all states have and use on the state level but which most states do not YET open up to the feds –except on an aggregate level.)  This would vary from state to state.

Then I would ask him/her what information is given to the federal EDFACTS Data Exchange.  I would also ask if he/she is aware of the law suit against the federal Dept. of Education (altering privacy regulations to loosen parental rights)

Then I would ask the big question:  Who makes the call on when these puzzle pieces will fit together in compliance with federal goals?  Who has that authority in our state?

We have fitting pieces of the horrific, 1984-esque puzzle, but when will we choose to put it  together? 

We know that the feds are asking us to voluntarily share personally identifiable data, we know that the Dept. of Ed sneakily destroyed FERPA privacy law to make data accessing easier; we know that we as states do collect it, and we know that we already share the aggregated form of student data.

What’s next? And who makes the call?