"Catch-22" author Joseph Heller wrote, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”
It takes some literary algebra to balance Heller’s double negative before realizing his statement relates perfectly to savvy parents of public school students.
“They,” the myriad data miners, really are after as much personal information about our kids as can possibly be obtained. On this topic, I’m solidly among the paranoid. Every parent ought to be, too.
First, some good news. For those of us who educate our kids with the assistance of the Poudre School District, PSD is a great example of a district that expends copious effort to inform parents about how it collects, shares and processes student data.
This is a really good thing. Most American school districts are quite reckless when it comes to student-information security, much less being honest with parents.
With only two clicks at its website (find the “Student Data Transparency” button), PSD furnishes helpful information about student-data security, and lists government and private entities with which information about our children is either shared, or is possibly shared. Fair warning: The list will burn your eyes.
It’s long – really long. For example, PSD lists 82 “School Service Contract Providers.” These are entities that enter into formal, negotiated contracts with PSD to provide school services.
There are another 446 “On-Demand Providers” listed. These are entities providing to PSD school services utilizing standard non-negotiable terms and conditions of service established by the providing entity.
Starting Jan. 1, thanks to a new Colorado law, all school districts are required to post a list of data-sharing vendors, and their contracts so all parents can at least be aware of who’s doing business with our schools either managing student data, or giving students access to various apps, websites, accounts, and portals where student data, passwords, clicks, and keystrokes could be monitored, collected, and shared outside the school.
The law’s sponsor, State Rep. Paul Lundeen, R-Monument, told me he introduced the bill because, “In a digital world, adults can choose what they post online or decide what they’re willing to share with the cyberuniverse.
“Children in schools don’t have the capacity to make prudent decisions about such things, and we need to give children some protective guardrails to protect them from government collecting data, or the private sector collecting data for various commercial or exclusionary purposes,” he said.
Now the bad news. Though the Lundeen law is the nation’s best when it comes to empowering parents through transparency, it falls short of providing additional data security for schoolchildren.
“My bill just exposes the tip of the iceberg,” Lundeen said. "It’s not the concluding salvo in an ongoing war for student-data privacy. There are still many loopholes, and we need to keep working to close them.”
One local leader concerned about how student data is collected and shared outside the school is Cheri Kiesecker, a member of the Parent Coalition for Student Data Privacy. She lobbied heavily for the passage of Lundeen’s Student Data Transparency and Security Act.
Kiesecker and Lundeen agree parents need to know that between state assessments, school contract providers, and on-demand vendors, there are thousands of data points tagged for everything from a student’s race, to discipline records, to family income, to disabilities, despite most parents thinking this information is protected.
Now that the identity of vendors and contracts are transparent in Colorado, Kiesecker told me, “It’s up to parents to know what questions are being asked of my child, who’s collecting it, and how it’s being used. Parents need to understand that student data is not under lock and key.”
The longstanding federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act provides some protections surrounding the privacy of all students’ personally identifiable information.
However, even FERPA allows great amounts of student data to seep into non-school hands, according to Kiesecker.
Insurance companies, product marketers, universities, and government agencies pay big bucks to a massive industry of data miners who collect seemingly innocuous information such as internet clicks, keystrokes, test scores, passwords, school directories, yearbooks, and more.
This information gets reassembled through sophisticated algorithms and data processing to build portfolios that Kiesecker and Lundeen both say can be used years later for things like insurance ratings, credit risk, behavioral sketches – all based upon student data being collected in schools.
“There are so many school-service providers and vendors utilizing differing bits and pieces of student data,” Lundeen said, “it’s a big concern for all parents.”
Bravo to PSD upon launching its new student-data-transparency webpage. From there, it’s up to us paranoid parents to fend off the ravenous data stalkers who really are after our kids.
Bob Schaffer is headmaster at Liberty Common School in Fort Collins. His column appears monthly.