Posted on 03/04/2013 11:07:07 PM PST by coldphoenix
An education technology conference this week in Austin, Texas, will clang with bells and whistles as startups eagerly show off their latest wares.
But the most influential new product may be the least flashy: a $100 million database built to chart the academic paths of public school students from kindergarten through high school.
In operation just three months, the database already holds files on millions of children identified by name, address and sometimes social security number. Learning disabilities are documented, test scores recorded, attendance noted. In some cases, the database tracks student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school - even homework completion.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Who knew you don’t have a right to keep your math scores between you and your teacher?
Why does a woman have a right to privacy to mutilate herself and her baby in the womb, but a child does not have the right to keep vultures out of his school records? Since when does the state have a right to your brain?
This is the permanent record they always talked about.
Not in FL
The database is a joint project of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which provided most of the funding, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and school officials from several states. Amplify Education, a division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, built the infrastructure over the past 18 months. When it was ready, the Gates Foundation turned the database over to a newly created nonprofit, inBloom Inc, which will run it.
So all this sensitive data is stored by inBloom at https://www.inbloom.org/?
Hackers love a good challenge.
Wanna bet these databases will include whether or not the parents voted Democrat, and whether it is known if they own guns?
In 1975 when I got my TSEC Security Clearance I was able to see the over 1” thick background file. It included not only every grade I ever had, but comments from every teacher all the way back to first grade.
So, the Government has has access to this info for a very long time.
My mother saw this coming in the early ‘60s. She even said someday all that stuff they wrote about kids in school would be in a computer. (Right again, Mom.)
Sh*t in, Sh*t out
A database is only as good as the information fed into it, assuming it is well normalized and tested.
Said info in most cases, especially that from 40 years ago, was never consistently documented. Even when recorded, no criterion presented to document with outside school systems, except at best broadly interpreted results, e.g. he/she retook 4th grade or flunked or passed a grade.
It does however touch upon personal information laws, which even the feds are required to report to Congress if maintained, then must be inspectable. As soon as the SSN is added as a field to the database, numerous laws and regulations may govern.
Major difference you applied for the security clearance, whereas this report is of general dossier tracking.
My sister’s 12 year old g/daughter is being tracked, it’s voluntary. Her G.D. is a high achiever and was told about a possible scholarship at one of the “ivy league” schools. Seems a bit early to dangle that for a 7th. grader.
My sister looks at it as a good thing. This is the first I’ve heard of it except from her.
Ultimately, the database will be used to collect personal and family information. Once each child has a school computer, data will be collected regarding beliefs and behaviors, and then a remediation plan will be developed to disabuse children of their parents archaic (i.e., religious) beliefs.
This bypasses teachers, who generally undermine these kinds of nefarious Department of Education programs, and parents, who will never see anything. No hard copies.
Sam Blumenfeld talked about this over 20 years ago. Look up "School to Work."
Keep your kids in the schools, though. The babysitting is free. And I'm sure your kid's school is different.
Still don't believe me? Then read this letter written on Nov. 11, 1992 by Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), which lays out a plan "to remold the entire American system" into "a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone," coordinated by "a system of labor market boards at the local, state and federal levels" where curriculum and "job matching" will be handled by counselors "accessing the integrated computer-based program."
“Major difference you applied for the security clearance, whereas this report is of general dossier tracking.”
No, you don’t get it. The major difference is that those records are kept around FOREVER, without virtually anyone knowing about it or having a way to clear them. That bothers some of us, who thought our the records of our youth, or certainly early youth was shredded away.
It now appears they weren’t, at least in his case, but rather they are stored, probably scanned by now, and available to whoever.
Next step along the way are very hi-tech License Plate Cameras that, in a few years, will store every movement of every vehicle in the country (and do a lot more) - bypassing the need for those pesky transponders that some of us knew enough to avoid.
As to myself - the info is probably useless, but if I were a mayor (or just about any other politician), I could probably tear apart ANYONE planning to run against me, just by having that access (which used to take an army of spies). Also, read the story about Australian gun rights (or actually lack of them). License plate cameras can watch gun owners that are going to the range with their gun - one detour and it’s a felony.
Anyway, the days of privacy are over - no one seems bothered by it, so I guess we lose.
Eventually, it will permanently become a part of you via the chip in your arm.
Not at the push of a button and not available to anyone with push without oversight.
Well, here is another example of cross-linked databases. Slightly off-topic, but not by much.
In Illinois in order to own firearms you first must apply for and be approved by the State Police for a Firearms Owners ID card. (FOID)
Summer 2004, on my way home from work on the expressway when my trans died. I coast to the shoulder and get on the cell phone for a tow. A State Trooper pulls behind me and first thing calls in my car license plate.
When he gets out he stays at a distance and the first thing he says is “How many guns do you have with you?” The State Police databases linked my car’s license plate to my Driver’s License, and my FOID.
I told him “That would be stupid because it is illegal.”
He insisted I be “secured” in his squad car “for my safety”. And was not happy when I not only refused to allow a search, but locked my car and set the alarm.
Took from 1am to 3:30am to get a tow . . .
*snicker* cop was pissed that I chain smoked in his car the whole time . . . *snicker*
All that hassle because of cross linked files.
Wifey (teacher) says no reason govt needs to know & control about our kids; maybe she just needs another cup of coffee? I mentioned it could document absences, problems, all the lack of parenting issues so prevalent in America. Often, districts refuse to enforce the rules as it upsets parents, even when the parents are facing child abuse charges. I know, I know, what are you talking about? Bigger problem than you can imagine actually. It all starts in the home. Until as a Nation, we correct the breakdown of the family problem; nothing will really improve.
It isn't "my child".
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