Is @Pearson the new KGB?

Pearson: Rolling over teachers who dare to speak out

It began with discreet data collection. For a while now Pearson has been quietly collecting information about our children, students and schools, and sharing it with third party vendors—many of which are funded with 'reformy' money—for a whole host of reasons. 

Then last year, Bob Braun's blog site was mysteriously shut down for a brief period coincidentally right after he posted this piece about Pearson spying on students who were tweeting about the PARCC test. Valerie Strauss picked up the story in her column at the Washington Post.

But wait, there's more...

Leonie Haimson and the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy have been monitoring student data mining for quite some time. Just two months ago they reported that Lacey Twp parent, Heather Hicks, complained to her local board of ed about a blended learning software used in her son's biology class, the contract for which was later not renewed. 

Heather was surprised to discover later that she was repeatedly criticized by Bruce Friend, the chief operating officer of iNACOL (the International Association of K-12 Online Learning) in a February 10, 2016 workshop he gave at  Pearson’s CITE 2016 conference – in a presentation called “Gaining Stakeholder Buy-in for your Online/Blended Learning Program.”  He later gave the same presentation at the Mid-Atlantic Conference on Personalized Learning, where the session was described this way:

Gaining Stakeholder Buy-in for Blended Learning This session will address the importance of gaining stakeholder support as you seek to build a blended (or online) learning program. Stakeholders include students, parents, teachers, school leaders. We will share effective strategies in gaining the support of these key contacts; discuss barriers to gaining support; and share examples of the consequences when stakeholder support is not achieved.

Heather made this video to tell the real story of what happened. It highlights the lengths to which ed 'reformers' will go to spin their rhetoric, deny the facts and crush the opposition. This is the only way they can keep their house of cards from falling. Obviously what Heather did struck a nerve. Please watch this video before you read the rest of this post.




And then yesterday, Diane Ravitch posted this:

Celia Oyler, professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, posted a biting commentary by an anonymous teacher about the flaws of PARCC. She received a letter from PARCC threatening legal action unless she removed the post because it contained copyrighted material —and divulged the name of the author. 

Oyler left the post on her blog but removed anything that might be copyrighted. She has not given up the name of the author. Many people who posted a link to Oyler’s original post or tweeted it received an email warning that they should remove the link or expect legal action. 

Peter Greene posted about the test, based on Oyler’s blog, and flew under the radar. He didn’t receive a threat from PARCC, and I feel badly for him. 

He wrote, in his inimitable fashion (emphasis mine): 

“You know what kind of test needs this sort of heavy security? A crappy test.” 

As Leonie Haimson said in a tweet, it is crazy to give a test to millions of students and expect that no one would write about it or talk about it. 

There is something worse than disclosure of “secure” test items. There is loss of reputation. And that is what PARCC is putting at risk with its heavy-handed tactics.

This teacher is no Edward Snowden. He/she is not giving up state secrets. There is no imminent threat of invasion or terrorist attack. As Diane said, the only 'threat' here is the loss of a reputation built on... well... CCRAP.

Taxpayers have the right to know how their money is being wasted. Parents and students have the right to know how completely inappropriate this test is. And educators have the right to blow the whistle. 

Although I don't want to see this teacher punished in any way, I do look forward to the day that Pearson does take someone to court, and they have to defend this worthless piece of CCRAP.

Hey NJ! #EdReform Big Brother is watching your kids!

I'm coming for your kids' data.

The first time I heard then NJDOE Commissioner Chris Cerf speak at the NJEA Convention he spoke about all the student data the state was collecting. He was giddy with excitement over it; frothing over how it will 'transform' education... Into what exactly? My first thoughts were that Big Brother had indeed landed. 

So, where is all this fabulousness and wonderfulness that Cerf and other 'reformers' literally drool over? Because the only 'transformations' I've seen are the vast numbers of students refusing to take the PARCC and SBAC, massive public school closings, the expansion of segregationist charter schools, and the beaucoup bucks 'reformers', for-profit education services companies and 'non-profit' charter operators are raking in as a result.

But this is how America operates. We're a capitalist society. Money—not people—runs this country. And those with a lot of it and who want more of it have finally managed to crack the code of the last hold out against corporate takeover: public education. And they've got their sites (sic) set on our kids.

Right now it's being used to evaluate students, teachers and schools. It's also an ad hominem judgment on communities of low income and color. But who knows what the future will bring and how this data will be used? It's one thing for the government to have my child's social security and driver's license numbers. It's quite another for them to have her entire educational history at their disposal to use as a marketing tool so education companies can ply their wares. What other data will the government then try to collect? And of course, what proof do they have that any of this is valid?

So, what can you do? Well, thanks to the efforts of Leonie Haimson and the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, you can send this letter to the NJ Department of Education:

To whom it may concern: 

I am the parent and legal guardian of (full name of child), currently (x ) years of age. 

My child attended x school in grades K-x (during what years); x school in grades x-y, (during what years) and x high school (during what years) in [what] school district.
Please provide me with whatever personally identifiable information (PII) that the State Education Department has collected on my child and which of this information is included in the state’s student longitudinal database, including any and all information in the database that has been contributed by other state agencies. 

To access this information, and challenge it if it is incorrect is every parent’s right under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 CFR Part 99), and the state cannot charge me a fee for accessing it. 

This was confirmed by Dale King, Director of the U.S. Department of Education’s Family Policy Compliance Office, in a letter he wrote to the Nevada Education Department on July 28, 2014: 

….educational agencies and institutions, as well as SEAs [State educational agencies] may not charge a fee for search and retrieval of education records. See § 99.ll(b) 

I also demand a list of any and all third parties, and/or governmental agencies, that have been provided with any of my child's PII, which elements of PII they have received, and under what privacy and security agreements these disclosures were made. 

Finally, I would like to know what governmental, citizen or advisory board exists to oversee the collection, use, distribution and eventual destruction of my child’s PII data, and their members. 

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

The letter should be submitted to the NJ Department of Education by clicking here. Select Education, then Chief of Staff. Fill out the requested information at the top, cut and paste the letter in the space at the bottom including your child's information. Although these requests are free, write $1 under payment information, which is the maximum authorized cost. Without an entry in that space, the form won't allow you to submit.

You can submit as many forms as necessary to obtain this information about all of your children.

Keep a copy of what you submitted.

NJDOE must respond within seven days.

Please email info@saveourschoolsnj.org and let them know what you find out.

Thank you to Save Our Schools NJ organizer, Christine McGoey, for sharing this valuable information!