August 1, 2013
There’s an intense debate right now over “Common Core,” an effort to implement a set of education standards in public schools nationwide. The Common Core State Standards thus far have been adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia.
This person is an expert in the field of education. She is thoughtful, serious, and no foe of public education. Her concerns especially hit home given current fears over privacy intrusions by the federal government. Those fears have swirled around the National Security Agency, the Justice Department, and the IRS. But they don’t end there. There are likewise potentially serious privacy problems involving current and proposed education policy, which likewise relate to data collection, dissemination, and use.
To that end, my friend is hoping to at least help kindle some public awareness.
“The portion [of current education policy] that I believe is most important for raising public awareness,” she writes, “is the changes to the FERPA regulations which have greatly expanded who has access to student data.” FERPA is the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974. Changes have been made to FERPA that (some believe) will leave parents uninformed as to how their children’s records are shared. “Parents seem totally unaware of what data is being collected,” she adds. “In Pennsylvania it is collected under something called the PIMS system, but in other states it has different labels.”
There’s more. There’s also the problem of a rise in “outside vendors and providers to manage student data—again, without parental consent.”
How, specifically, would this happen?
For starters, Common Core standards, as was the case with previous standards, lead to much testing, which involves a great deal of data collection on students. Coupled with this heightened collection of student data is the prevalence of so-called “longitudinal state reporting systems.” According to my friend, as part of the “Race to the Top” initiative, a federal educational initiative, states were encouraged to create “robust data collection systems.” These systems were touted as a mechanism to provide school districts, state governments, and federal policymakers with more data to analyze trends in student achievement and improve educational efforts. While this might seem benign, notes my friend, we cannot ignore the sheer volume of data that will be collected and how that data might be misused. For instance, most parents have no idea that their child’s “personal information” includes not just test scores but social security numbers, attendance records, records of interaction with school counselors, identification of learning disabilities, and even disciplinary records.
All of this is being collected.
Read the rest here.
This essay first appeared July 22, 2013 on the Visions and Values website and is reprinted with permission.
By Paul Kengor
Paul Kengor is Professor of Political Science at Grove City College, executive director of The Center for Vision & Values, and author, most recently, of The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor.
Kengor is not the only one concerned about Common Core
Michael Farris, Home School Legal Defense Association, also had some concerns and had the opportunity to speak with the creator of Common Core. Farris' recent letter to HSLDA members follows:
David Coleman, president of the College Board, is the acknowledged principal leader of the effort to create and implement the Common Core. And he wanted to talk with me about Home School Legal Defense Association’s position. I was very willing.
We spent about an hour together on the phone. The conversation was very cordial. Both of us showed that we truly listened to and heard the other person’s position. And both of us stood strongly on our principles and core positions. I was really glad that we talked.
His initial presentation walked me through several features of the Common Core. From a pedagogical perspective, there are clearly some good ideas contained in it. When it came time for me to respond, I began with a story. I once testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee when Senator Joseph Biden was chairing a hearing on a Supreme Court nominee. Before I began, Biden asked me, “I have a question for you. Is it your idea to force everyone to homeschool?”
I told Senator Biden that such an idea would be anathema to HSLDA and to me. We simply want to protect the right to choose homeschooling for those who wish to pursue it.
I told Mr. Coleman that the point of the story was this: Just because you have a good idea (homeschooling in my case, Common Core in his case), it doesn’t mean that it is appropriate to force everyone in the country to follow your idea. And that is my central problem with the Common Core and all forms of centralized educational planning.
To his credit, Mr. Coleman noted that he was not acting in a vacuum. There are centralized mandates for education in play virtually everywhere. And many of them have very marginal educational utility. I agreed with his assessment of many current centralized standards.
However, my response was that the solution is not a national set of standards, but allowing each state to develop its own standards. Competing standards from all 50 states would be likely to create more innovations—although my clear preference is to do away with all forms of centralized government standards. (I believe that public schools should form their own local standards.)
When he asked me why I thought that the Common Core was worse than other standards, I indicated that one of my chief concerns was the creation of the database that would track students throughout their educational career.
His answer surprised me. He didn’t like the database all that well. It was not originally part of the Common Core, but other people have seized the opportunity to make a centralized data collection effort through the implementation of the Common Core.
READ THE REST OF FARRIS' LETTER HERE.
Kengor is not the only one concerned about Common Core
Michael Farris, Home School Legal Defense Association, also had some concerns and had the opportunity to speak with the creator of Common Core. Farris' recent letter to HSLDA members follows:
Dear HSLDA members and friends,
|
David Coleman, president of the College Board, is the acknowledged principal leader of the effort to create and implement the Common Core. And he wanted to talk with me about Home School Legal Defense Association’s position. I was very willing.
We spent about an hour together on the phone. The conversation was very cordial. Both of us showed that we truly listened to and heard the other person’s position. And both of us stood strongly on our principles and core positions. I was really glad that we talked.
His initial presentation walked me through several features of the Common Core. From a pedagogical perspective, there are clearly some good ideas contained in it. When it came time for me to respond, I began with a story. I once testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee when Senator Joseph Biden was chairing a hearing on a Supreme Court nominee. Before I began, Biden asked me, “I have a question for you. Is it your idea to force everyone to homeschool?”
I told Mr. Coleman that the point of the story was this: Just because you have a good idea (homeschooling in my case, Common Core in his case), it doesn’t mean that it is appropriate to force everyone in the country to follow your idea. And that is my central problem with the Common Core and all forms of centralized educational planning.
To his credit, Mr. Coleman noted that he was not acting in a vacuum. There are centralized mandates for education in play virtually everywhere. And many of them have very marginal educational utility. I agreed with his assessment of many current centralized standards.
However, my response was that the solution is not a national set of standards, but allowing each state to develop its own standards. Competing standards from all 50 states would be likely to create more innovations—although my clear preference is to do away with all forms of centralized government standards. (I believe that public schools should form their own local standards.)
When he asked me why I thought that the Common Core was worse than other standards, I indicated that one of my chief concerns was the creation of the database that would track students throughout their educational career.
His answer surprised me. He didn’t like the database all that well. It was not originally part of the Common Core, but other people have seized the opportunity to make a centralized data collection effort through the implementation of the Common Core.
READ THE REST OF FARRIS' LETTER HERE.
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