John White Withdraws Louisiana Student Data from inBloom

Andrew Ujifusa writes:

In my April 24 blog post on Alabama’s decision to kill anti-Common-Core legislation, I mentioned that opponents have linked the standards, without citing specifics, to technology they allege the federal government is developing to track students’ facial expressions in classroom.

However, others also have voiced concerns about student privacy involving academic data and the common core. One has recently cropped up in Louisiana, and it involves state Superintendent John White’s decision to withdraw student data from inBloom, a nonprofit organization, and to have discussions with parents in the state about privacy concerns about data being stored that included students’ age, sex, and grade level. The Louisiana controversy could also offer some lessons on how states handle privacy in education in the years ahead, with all the emphasis on tracking students’ academic progress.

Read more on State EdWatch.

More states need to have conversations with parents – before they decide whether to turn over data, not after. And they should be required to obtain opt-in informed consent from parents.  In related coverage, Ellis Booker reports:

As increasing amounts of student, class and school data are captured and analyzed, some people have started to sound alarms about potential privacy violations and other kinds of misuse.

“I think it’s totally illegitimate to take kids’ data without parental consent,” said Leonie Haimson, a parent activist and executive director of Class Size Matters, a nonprofit organization that wants smaller classes in New York City’s public schools and the nation as a whole. “If these exact same records were in a doctor’s office or hospital, it would be illegal to collect them without parental consent,” she told InformationWeek in a phone interview.

Read more on InformationWeek.