The first is a PBS News Hour discussion in their Making the Grade segment with Miami-Dade mom, researcher, blogger, and anti-Common Core warrior Suzette Lopez. Lopez's son's social security number was stolen. Here is the video followed by a partial transcript:
SUZETTE LOPEZ, Parent: I'm trying to protect my kids, and there's so much data collection that's going on right now that we we're not even aware of.
JOHN TULENKO: Suzette Lopez is a graphic designer who sends her children to Miami public schools.
SUZETTE LOPEZ: It's these third-party vendors that are what we're partnering with, that we're bringing them in. But then, how much oversight really is there with these partners? Who's keeping an eye on that data?
JOHN TULENKO: Suzette Lopez is a graphic designer who sends her children to Miami public schools.
SUZETTE LOPEZ: It's these third-party vendors that are what we're partnering with, that we're bringing them in. But then, how much oversight really is there with these partners? Who's keeping an eye on that data?
After teachers and students admitted that they go around the districts's security set-up all the time to download various apps, the reporter also interviewed a US attorney about how easy it was for a food service worker to log in and print out student social security number that she then used to set up fraudulent tax returns. This worker incident happened after the SSN of Lopez's son was stolen but the issues are the same. Lopez ontinues:
LOPEZ: My son's Social Security was stolen. So, it was stolen and it took three years to clear up and three years to keep telling the IRS that my son was my son.
In a related video student privacy expert and law professor Dr. Joel Reidenberg of Fordham University also discussed the dangers of the amount of data regarding how a child interacts with education software and applications, called metadata. Here is that video followed by what we see as the most important quotes from the interview:
REIDENBERG: The worst that could happen is several forms of harm to children. Educational harm to children, where they are tracked or improperly labeled because of bad data practices.
"There has to be satisfactory remedies when children's information is misused. We have none today...Right now the sanction that exists in current law is totally ineffective. There's only one sanction in FERPA which is, the Federal Government can withhold funding to the school system if they're violating FERPA. In the 41 year history of the Statute, it has never happened."
It is imperative that you contact your member of the US House of Representatives and ask for the following:
- Vote No on SETRA, S 227 because it psychologically profiles children unless that provision is removed and there is real data privacy protection via a new FERPA law.
- Do not vote to reauthorize FERPA unless the collection of social emotional data is prohibitied and there is real student data privacy protection.
- Demand that the US Department of Education halt the plans to assess mindsets in the NAEP test next year because it violates one or more federal statutes and the Constitution.