Archive for the ‘database’ Tag
My heart was pounding with indignation when I read today that the CCSSO (–that’s the State Superintendents’ Club– a private group, not accountable to the public and in no way under voters’ influence– the same group that created and copyrighted Common Core–) this CCSSO has a division called EIMAC. It stands for Education Information Management Advisory Consortium.
Why was my heart pounding? 2 reasons:
1) EIMAC’s formation is even more proof that America is being led into a system of nonrepresentative governance, an un-American, nonvoting system.
2) U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is a liar, a deliberate, conscious liar. (I only dare make such an awful accusation because it’s obvious to anyone who does even a small amount of fact checking on his statements.)
So let me explain. EIMAC declares, out loud, that its purpose is to network state education agency officials tasked with data collection and reporting; EIMAC advocates to improve the overall quality of the data collected at the NATIONAL level – See the rest at: http://www.ccsso.org/What_We_Do/Education_Data_and_Information_Systems.html#sthash.UZIBs53C.dpuf
Ah, did they just say: DATA COLLECTED AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL?!??
Does anyone remember that earlier this summer, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan made a speech to the American Society of News Editors, in which he claimed that there is NO NATIONAL COLLECTION OF STUDENT DATA?
Secretary Duncan’s exact words were these:
“Critics… make even more outlandish claims. They say that the Common Core calls for federal collection of student data. For the record, we are not allowed to, and we won’t.”
FACT: Duncan collects student level data directly from the Common Core testing consortia, as mandated in his Cooperative Agreement with these testing groups.
FACT: Duncan collects K-12 state school data directly at the federal EdFacts Exchange.
FACT: Duncan collects personally identifiable information indirectly via the 50 federally paid-for, fully interoperable State Longitudinal Database Systems (SLDS) that could be called a separated, but interlocking, national database in matchable segments.
FACT: Duncan has direct access to personally identifiable information indirectly via the National Data Collection Model, Data Quality Campaign, and Common Educational Data Statistics.
FACT: Most angering of all, Duncan circumvented Congress to destroy the power of the longstanding federal privacy law called FERPA. His damages there mean that parents have no guarantee, no legal stand, no rule saying that they MUST be asked for consent, before their child’s personally identifiable information will be accessed by governmental and corporate “stakeholders” who have been redefined as “authorized representatives.”
The longitudinal databases don’t just track students; they track people throughout their careers. This is lifelong citizen tracking, without our vote, without our consent, and without most people’s knowledge.
Secretary Duncan has made the unconscienable, legal.
He’s done what he’s done with the blessing of President Obama, whose four pillars of education reform are stated to alter these four things: COMMON STANDARDS, GREATER CONTROL OF TEACHERS, and ALTERING OR CLOSING OF SCHOOLS, and DATA COLLECTION.
Right Under Our Noses.
I want to share this most VITAL point recently articulated on the Utahns Against Common Core website by Utah parent Oak Norton:
“We totally agree [with the State Office of Education] that we should strengthen privacy laws. In fact, the most secure way to secure our children’s personally identifiable information is to NOT STORE IT IN A DATABASE. It’s pathetic that the USOE and State Board signed us onto this whole mess with grant and wavier applications and now go running to the legislature (whom they constantly criticize for interfering in education), and ask them to protect them from themselves. HELLO??? Who signed the waivers and applications? The Board President, State Superintendent, and the Governor.
The best way to protect this data is to unwind it.”
Michelle Malkin’s true to her word. She said her New Year’s Resolution would be to expose the truth about Common Core, and she’s well on her way. Her fourth installment in the series “Rotten to the Core” is out.
In “The Feds’ Invasive Student Tracking Data Base” Malkin brings up the fact that while millions of Americans worry about government drones spying on citizens from the skies, millions are unaware that Washington is already spying on us using a web of recent “education reforms” known as the Common Core Initiative.
Malkin shares a link to the National Data Collection Model which asks states to report intimate details of an individual’s life, including bus stop times, parental names, nicknames, languages spoken, and more.
Reading her article made me think of last year’s “child privacy no more” revelation.
Last year, when I first learned these student data tracking facts, I contacted my state school board to ask if there was an opt-out privilege. Could my public school attending child NOT be intimately tracked by the state’s SLDS data collection system? The answer came back, eventually. They said NO. They blamed it on the technology: the technology doesn’t allow us to opt certain children out.
The idea of “data driven decision making” has become a passion to many educrats, corporate icons and government leaders (Think Obama, Duncan, Joanne Weiss, –or Utah’s own John Brandt, David Wiley, and Judy Park).
“Data Driven” is a concept used as justification for behavior that in the end amounts to corporate/government stalking of children –without any parental consent.
I’m not using the word “stalking” facetiously. Does the governmental obsession with personal data collection differ from stalking?
Individual stalkers have their reasoning for doing what they do, that makes sense to them, just as gleaning student data without parental consent that makes sense in Utah’s education leaders’ own heads, too.
I can think of only one answer to the question of how these differ: an individual stalker tends to stalk just one person at a time and rarely “inspires” millions to help stalk.
So what do we do? Let’s look at our options. We can:
1. Dismiss facts and call student stalking by government a silly conspiracy theory —even though there’s nothing secret about it— as many do.
or–
2. Wake up, stand up and tell our state leaders that we and our children have had enough.
Our Governor’s To-Do list:
1. Read the Constitution closely and think about what freedom looks like, in comparison to what Utah leaders promote;
2. Shut down Utah’s SLDS, P-20, and Prosperity 2020 systems;
3. Fire John Brandt, Judy Park, the Utah Data Alliance staff, and everyone who works as if “1984” was an instruction manual for school improvement;
4. Stop accepting money and directives from the Dept. of Ed.;
5. Cancel membership with the National Governors’ Association;
6. Get rid of the trojan horse of Common Core which serves the tracking goals of the federal and corporate elite;
7. Insist that only parents of school-aged children, people who honor freedom, not socialism –and know the difference– serve on any school board;
8. End cradle to grave tracking in the state.
COMMON CORE 