Recently a friend of mine has been sharing information from the federal government's Common Education Data Standards website on her Facebook page, and it's kind of scary stuff. To begin with, the federal government has a poor record around abusing information gathering in the past (think former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover or the NSA) and secondly, not even the government is able to keep our data completely safe. Thus, I think most people agree we don't like having the government collecting massive amounts of data on us. And while having companies collect our shopping data is definitely annoying and intrusive, having the government collecting personal data is a whole different thing. Especially when they may be sharing that data with private companies as well.
FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) was amended in 2008 and again in 2011 in order to allow data sharing between not only state and educational agencies but also amongst private entities who were included in the new definition of "school officials". This carries huge implications as to who now has access to our children's data and for what purpose it may someday be used. And the amount of data that is being collected is massive. Check out a little of the database here.
Here's a screenshot from a page my friend managed to dig up on this database.
FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) was amended in 2008 and again in 2011 in order to allow data sharing between not only state and educational agencies but also amongst private entities who were included in the new definition of "school officials". This carries huge implications as to who now has access to our children's data and for what purpose it may someday be used. And the amount of data that is being collected is massive. Check out a little of the database here.
Here's a screenshot from a page my friend managed to dig up on this database.
My friend's comment with this post: "So if a students swears, of course it should be noted, recorded, processed and then studied to see of there is a significant correlation between swearing and later ending up in prison, or has positive or negative correlation w/ future earnings of the individual. WE NEED THIS DATA!!!!"
Having been both a middle school and high school student and having worked in a middle school for a number of years, I can safely say that if things continue as they've been going, there will no doubt be a very large number of people with things like this on their permanent FEDERAL record in the future.
And remember, this is the "P-20W(early learning postsecondary and workforce)" database. How much of this kind of stuff are they planning to include?
How long will this data follow our kids around? And who are the ultimate end users of it all?
Do we have the right to expose our children's personal data like this?
Having been both a middle school and high school student and having worked in a middle school for a number of years, I can safely say that if things continue as they've been going, there will no doubt be a very large number of people with things like this on their permanent FEDERAL record in the future.
And remember, this is the "P-20W(early learning postsecondary and workforce)" database. How much of this kind of stuff are they planning to include?
How long will this data follow our kids around? And who are the ultimate end users of it all?
Do we have the right to expose our children's personal data like this?
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