Schools Can Sell Student Data- without parental consent

 

 

My children often use apps at school they rave about such as Raz-Kids and Google Apps for learning on the iPad. As they progress through the grades they will be using a host of other instructional software programs the school has licensed from private companies. I like that my kids move through the learning objectives at their own pace in a hands on interactive style which appears to engage them. I get concerned that maybe the overuse of the computer may keep my kids from developing penmanship and cursive, or that they may begin to rely on sorting out answers in a multiple choice format instead of using investigative and innovative problem solving. At the same time I realize they are also learning to use technology, something they will need to be adept at as older learners and into adulthood.

  As I consider all the pros and cons of interactive learning and how often it is used in schools, one thing that never crossed my mind was the privacy risk to my children and family by using learning apps. Maybe you didn't think about that either. I assumed the school protected my children’s confidential academic and personal information and that any information obtained about my children would be for helping them reach learning objectives, not for marketing to them or our family. Seems like a given right? Well that is what I thought until I read an article in the NY Times which informed me that due to a change in nationwide school policies in 2008, schools have the ability to share children’s information to third party companies not affiliated with the school as well as the companies providing the instructional programs—without parental consent.

 As an Interactive Producer I understand the power technology has to impart knowledge in a variety of ways to a learner, but it should not simultaneously impart marketing metrics to those technology providers outside of ways to provide tailored education to children. It is common practice to use metrics in other industries like healthcare to allow conversations with patients and physicians on things like dietary intake and exercise to see how those are impacting well-being and symptom reduction. This an example of a positive use of metrics as does using student learning data within applications to improve learning and cognition for individual students.

 Customizing health care and education with data can be powerful when used appropriately and privately. The use of data for any purpose other than improvements for health or learning in these sectors needs to be addressed. This article mentions how schools have the power of selling information on what students eat for lunch or how often they miss school. On Monday I'll be making a call to the superintendent of my children’s school district to see how schools in my state safeguard student information. If you are interested in seeing how safe your children's data is you can learn more about this topic by asking your school district what kind of data they collect on students and by researching The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.


FERPA: http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html


Repurposed from: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/technology/concerns-arise-over-privacy-of-schoolchildrens-data.html?ref=education&_r=0