A social scientist says he wants stronger arguments against big student data systems. (Peer-Reviewed)
For International Women’s Day, high school students testified at the United Nations. (Feminist Teacher)
Critical thinking is a big deal at New Visions Charter HS for the Humanities. (Innovations for Learning)
L.A.’s mayor says he’s glad he got Mike Bloomberg involved in local school politics. (L.A. School Report)
How about a taxonomy of education policy instead of one of the policies’ supporters? (More Thoughtful)
Does having more police in schools make them safer? Los Angeles teens say probably not. (Color Lines)
A new blog, Education by the Numbers, will examine what data can tell us about education. (Hechinger)
An exhibit in D.C. looks at how schools can be designed to foster environmental awareness. (Dot Earth)
A Massachusetts high school lets students devise and run their own semester-long programs. (Jezebel)
A.S.Neill
I find Eric Hurwitz’ article a bit troubling if not biased in its perspective already revealed in its title, “People who don’t want to collect education data should explain why it’s a bad idea”. I don’t think that people who object to the Gates funded InBloom data base collection are objecting in principle to the collection of education data for research purposes. There are all sorts of social data sets including education that social scientists and educators routinely use to research education. That is not the question.
The real question about InBloom is how the right to privacy is protected in its data set. Generally in academic research, a social scientist may request use of a private data set for use in research provided that the researcher does not take advantage of or use the personal information obtained, and which is not publicly disclosed or available to others. I don’t think anyone could legitimately object to InBloom gathering educational data if the students’ specific identifying personal information (name, address, ss #, etc) were replaced by and anonymous identification code before being released to InBloom. . In that case, the students right to privacy would be protected at the same time valuable research could still be undertaken by others to public benefit. This should satisfy everyone.
But that is not what is being proposed by InBloom as I understand it. They want the data so they can specifically release the names of the students and their data to private for profit companies for their own profit motives. In effect, this is just providing confidential data for direct contact sales purposes not research. This
would appear to be not only a violation of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) which restricts how and to whom educational data may be released to third parties (and was not mentioned at all in Hurwitz’ article), but also generally accepted protocols of academic research.
It is disingenuous of Hurwitz to avoid serious discussion of these issues. It he believes detailed personal information should be released to the public for research purposes, no doubt he would be happy to release his personal income taxes to me for my own research into the funding sources of presumably disinterested educational reform journalists. Come on Eric, it’s for the kids.
flerp
AS —
Hurwitz’s piece was glib, but I did appreciate it, because I agree with him that the case against this database is being made very poorly. The very existence of Hutwitz’s piece (and of reaction’s like Russo’s) is evidence of how poorly the case is being made.
But that is not what is being proposed by InBloom as I understand it. They want the data so they can specifically release the names of the students and their data to private for profit companies for their own profit motives.
To be honest, I haven’t seen much in the way of what InBloom is or isn’t proposing. If they’re actually proposing to release student data directly coupled to students’ identifying information like names, addresses, and social security information, that would be outrageous. Frankly it would be so patently outrageous that I would be surprised if InBloom actually were making that proposal. But, perhaps like you, most of the information I’ve seen consists of what critics are saying about it.
I don’t think anyone could legitimately object to InBloom gathering educational data if the students’ specific identifying personal information (name, address, ss #, etc) were replaced by and anonymous identification code before being released to InBloom. . In that case, the students right to privacy would be protected at the same time valuable research could still be undertaken by others to public benefit. This should satisfy everyone.
I’d say two things in response.
First, I very, very much doubt that “everyone” would be satisfied if InBloom came out and said that they were going to de-couple students’ personal information (name, address, ss#) from the rest of the data by means of an anonymous ID marker. The reasoning (and Hurwitz is right that the reasoning isn’t very coherent) by the vocal opponents of the database is based not just on privacy concerns, but also on concerns about private companies making a profit off of student information. Leonie H’s statement below is a good example:
“There are no limitations on the time-frame, or the kind of data. There’s no provision for parental consent or opt-out. The point is to give our kids’ data away for free, and share it as widely as possible with for-profit ventures to help them market and develop their learning products.”
So to the extent the objection is that this plan would “give our kids’ data away for free” for others build and sell products, I don’t see that concern being assuaged by “anonymizing” (my neologism) the data. The data would still be “given away for free.” The data would still be used by companies to build and sell products. And many would still view the data as “our kids’ data,” although perhaps in a public rather than personal or proprietary sense.
In my view, this whole line of argument is unpersuasive. I don’t think it’s a legitimate criticism that the data’s being given away “for free,” because that assumes I’d agree to a price. (How much?) I also don’t think it’s legitimate to object on the basis that private corporations will profit. That’s just an extension of the criticism about parents (or the public) giving away the data “for free.” It says, essentially, that it’s not fair for private corporations to swoop down and profit off something that isn’t theirs, something they got “for free” (or at a bargain). I also don’t think it’s a legitimate criticism to point out that a News Corp. division is involved. To object on the basis that Klein and Murdoch can’t be trusted suggests that you can trust other institutions. A “parental opt-out” will be as meaningless as a Gramm-Leach-Bliley opt-out, but it will make people think the system is rigorous. And I think these are exactly the wrong messages to send.
Which brings me to my second response, which is what I think the better objection is. We can de-couple personal information, but it can and will be re-coupled. This happens all the time in the banking industry. There are legal restrictions on your bank’s ability to disseminate “personal financial information.” The restrictions look strict on paper, and banks take them seriously because the legal liability from disclosures and security breaches can be immense, given the amount of data we’re talking about. But on the other hand, banks are big, big, institutions. They regularly share this information internally, and “internally” is a relative term when you’re talking about Chase Manhattan. So the personal aspect of the data is decoupled, and re-coupled, and de-coupled, and so on. But sooner or later, one way or another, it will get out. And as data systems get more complex, it becomes on more and more difficult to understand as a whole from the perspective of the administrator.
The way I see it, *all* data aggregation is ultimately a bad thing, at least certainly from this point onward. Yes, there will be valuable things to learn from the data, and yes, we have learned a lot from the data collection and computing advances of the last 20 or 30 years. But there’s a cost to making these maps. The cost isn’t so much the risk that one “bad guy” will get hold of your information (although that will happen, and it is horrible). It’s that your information won’t be your information. The universe of what constitutes your information keeps getting more plentiful and sophisticated, and thus more personal. The access points will become ubiquitous as organizations and computing systems continue to grow more complex. One day, possibly in my lifetime (I’m in my early 40s), the computing systems will be so complex that even the smartest engineers won’t understand them. This isn’t sci-fi. This is where things are headed.
But at least we can control the speed at which we get there, and maybe make some good decisions along the way that pay off later. Why, for God’s sake, would we want to hit the fast-forward button on this process? To give an idea of the scale of this stuff, here are some of the data attributes in play:
flerp, thanks for a very interesting and thoughtful reply. I always enjoy GS posts but the responses tend to be on the “thin” side so I always enjoy someone who puts some real meat into their reply (or tofu if you are a veggie). I wish you would post more here.
Your points are all well taken and solid. You are correct here that I have no direct knowledge of InBloom other than this post and a few others I looked at; nor have I thought about it much otherwise. My background is in academic research so that was my angle of approach. Since that research routinely uses large data sets for all sorts of analysis, aside from the privacy issue, I didn’t detect much concern. At least until I read your reply.
I think you changed my mind somewhat or at least given me pause tp rethink this. I believe the reverse engineering of privacy protected data sets for personal information is increasing likely as you suggest but for the moment I’m at a loss what to do about that since just closing off or limiting data research itself would not be beneficial. I hope there are some good ideas out there.
ps. thanks for that data link! looks quite intriguing. Always enjoyable to read what you write.
http://twitter.com/EducationNY Sheila Kaplan
I should have started reading your old comments, come across this post, and not reinvent the wheel as I did responding to your questions on Geoff’s March 15 post. I think we’re on the same page.
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