$100 Million Student Database Worries Parents 250
asjk writes "The controversial database includes millions of children and documents their names, addresses, disabilities other statistics and demographics. Federal law allows for the files to be shared with private companies. From the article: '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. Local education officials retain legal control over their students' information. But federal law allows them to share files in their portion of the database with private companies selling educational products and services."
so....there really is a (Score:5, Funny)
permanent record. I thought it was a bluff!
xkcd already has the solution (Score:5, Funny)
I, for one, will be naming my future son Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;-- .
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Re:xkcd already has the solution (Score:4, Funny)
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That's nothing . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently none of these parents have heard of Facebook.
Re:That's nothing . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently none of these parents have heard of Facebook.
Except that users have some measure of control over what is on their Facebook page and participation is with their consent. Neither appear to be the case with this database.
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Not true, and you should know why.
To clarify, by participation I mean joining Facebook. Nobody is forced to have a Facebook page.
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Facebook tracks information on persons with and without accounts based on information provided by other users. For those without accounts, Facebook creates "shadow profiles." [slashdot.org]
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Apparently none of these parents have heard of Facebook.
Most people don't publish their real DOB or their SSN and learning disabilities on their FB page.
There's a big difference between those pieces of information and the typical mundane things I've seen on folks' FB page - like pictures of their dog in a hat.
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really?
so i'm wishing happy birthday to people on the wrong day?
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Possibly. Are you wishing 'happy birthday' to people you never talk to? I used to get those errant happy birthdays from about 5-10 idiots once a year on my myspace and 5-10 more on my facebook on some other random date. (Now, I just don't use those sites.)
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In many cases, they omit or falsify the year which is often the most valuable portion of the birthdate.
Personally, I just leave mine off altogether. Might be why I've only had one person remember my birthday today, which is fine by me.
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Which can be gleaned quite closely by looking at their HS graduation year. Or if they've not provided that, look at their friends. Find a big cluster in one particular year, bingo, that's probably it.
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Do you even use Facebook? Pretty much everyone under forty or so uses their real DOB. So far as disabilities go, people practically brag about them routinely - when they aren't blaming every failure in their lives on them. (OK, these are self-diagnosed disabilities...)
You're right about the SSN though.
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There's no law against providing Facebook with false information...
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Yes, but Facebook parents have (an illusion of at least) control over. This database, well, you couldn't take your child off even if you tried.
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Sure the parents have heard of Facebook by now. And the grandparents, too. That's why some teens are using other things now instead. Teens do not want their parents and grandparents to know what they are up to: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57572154-93/why-teens-are-tiring-of-facebook/ [cnet.com]
No matter what it costs to build... (Score:2, Informative)
... don't build a database of ruin [hbr.org].
So yes, those parents are right to be worried.
Re:No matter what it costs to build... (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed, putting PHI (which is what disabilities should be classified as) into a database open to corporate fishing is just asking for problems. It's not like this data is going to ever go away, so it's likely these children will have their disability brought up during an interview 20 years from now (or not, they'll likely just be dropped into the round file as not worth interviewing). I can't believe that the US doesn't have some type of data privacy law beyond HIPAA, I wonder what type of incident it will take before people will wake up and demand that this kind of idiocy is shut down?
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It would need to be something that affected large numbers of people in most states violently. Even that might not be enough. Some legislators would favor big companies (or even just companies) even if a majority of their voters had written in objecting. (I've got at least one Senator that I feel that describes.)
Re: disabilities in a database (Score:3)
Also that gets into Gattaca grade problems because data "wants to be abused!" (To abuse a phrase!) So what's stopping insurance companies from playing games with it as well as employers?
Uhm, yea. (Score:5, Interesting)
The smarter way to handle it would be to replace personal information with UIDs. School districts alone can map UIDs to actual students. It'd be relatively trivial to implement, on either side. Sure, if someone crouched the numbers hard enough, they might be able to use analysis to collate the data to individuals. But that'd be enough to keep random stalkers, pedos, abusive parent with a restraining order against them, etc at bay.
If I was the non-profit running the DB, I'd be strongly pushing for something like that to absolve me of the liability and risk. Less persistent threats if the data is only useful to the student, school and statistics folks. The data, especially anonymized, would be VERY useful for curriculum research and development.
US needs privacy laws (Score:5, Insightful)
What kind of country allows this kind of information to be tracked "en masse", much less sells it to private companies? It reminds me of the credit-rating agencies:P private companies that somehow are magically authorized to suck up all of your financial information and sell it. At least the US finally added the ability for you to "freeze" your credit data. That's the wrong way around - they ought to have to actively ask for permission, but it's better than nothing.
Now your kids need to be able to "freeze" their school data. Worse, the US is continually trying to force its lack of privacy on the rest of the world, most recently with FATCA.
It's a crying shame that the US Constitution forgot to list privacy as a basic right to be guaranteed by the government, right next to life and liberty. Failing that, you guys really need to get some privacy laws on the books!
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One thing that's amazing to me about this... and continues to amaze me is the discrepancy between what private corporations are allowed to get away with and what researchers at nonprofit universities and organizations have to put up with to get something much smaller and more innocuous done.
For example, if this was a research project at a university, it would probably be dead in the water due to IRB ethical concerns about privacy, etc. In the very least, it would probably require opt-in from parents.
However
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It's a crying shame that the US Constitution forgot to list privacy as a basic right to be guaranteed by the government, right next to life and liberty.
The Constitution doesn't say what government isn't allowed to do, it says what government is allowed to do. And I think anyone other than a lawyer would have a hard time finding authority in there for this kind of boondoggle.
But over the last few decades people have been happy to ignore the Constitution when they're getting things they want, and then act surprised when they're getting unconstitutional things they don't want.
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You'll find that any right not enumerated in the Constitution is quietly trampled upon by anyone seeking authority. As such, that Amendment remains somewhat useless, as does the notion of a piece of paper being the source of our highest laws, without the use of force to back it up. Indeed, those laws are only backed up if those using force agree with the silly words written on those pieces of paper, and wish to enforce those laws as written. Prove me wrong.
What it comes down to is, some people are tied to t
Self-serving project (Score:3)
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.
All it looks like to me is a $100M SQL Server project for Microsoft, secured by the former CEO for his friends back at the home office.
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All it looks like to me is a $100M SQL Server project for Microsoft, secured by the former CEO for his friends back at the home office.
Which is one of many reasons why the team-up between Gates and Buffet to create the largest charitable organization in the world (I believe it is an order of magnitude better funded than the second runner up) is a dangerous thing. Not just because it is a way to funnel money into Microsoft, but mainly because it puts so much control of so much charitable work into the hands of such a small group of people. Even if you like how Gates thinks, it still means that the blindspots of those people become blindsp
Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
attitudes toward school - even homework completion
I'm confused on what this point has to do with the student. I never liked school growing up, I didn't like my teachers and I didn't like doing homework, yet I just graduated with my SECOND engineering degree. I'm pointing this out because what is going to happen from this database is private company's will see that Billy doesn't like going to school and assume incorrectly that Billy wont be a good employee when he grows up.
This database is effectively a big profiling system that is designed to trap kids who don't feel that achieving is the most important thing in the world. How a kid feels about school really doesn't place any bearing on how they do in life overall, a kid that hates school can become an engineer well kids that love school end up drug addicts ( The "school lovers" I knew ). This database will not help kids in the long run, it will be used as a tool to track, record and hinder kids into adult hood, all because this database will track what Billy thinks of school and his teachers.
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Some will say that such a student will magically learn these skills when they are paid to so do, b
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This database is effectively a big profiling system that is designed to trap kids who don't feel that achieving is the most important thing in the world. How a kid feels about school really doesn't place any bearing on how they do in life overall, a kid that hates school can become an engineer well kids that love school end up drug addicts ( The "school lovers" I knew ).
And a lot of kids and teens have huge swings growing up because they spent so much time living up to someone else's expectations and aspirations, particularly their parents or peers. Grades, sports, career, partying, whatever and the longer it goes on the harder the pendulum swings. You're really a B pupil but your parents won't take less than an A pupil so you're forced to study, study, study until you burn out and drop to a D student. Or maybe more relevant to Slashdot, the other kids hate nerds and so yo
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I don't recall seeing "the need to meddle" in Maslow's hierarchy, but I've met too many people over the years who seem to have it; this DB and the tools who'll make the tools to manipulate (whoops, meant 'facilitate', right?) "the educational experience" will be for them a luxurious playground in which to mess people about.
I understand the reasoning that one can't judge the effectiveness of a system, and cannot improve that effectiveness, without measurement. So, what is measured, how, by whom?
Whatever the
Scary outcome (Score:5, Insightful)
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There are a lot of people moving out of the U.S. so their kids start in a different educational system.
Of course, there is the old school defense of "this isn't me, somebody using my identity!"
Therefore we need something like GMI [wikipedia.org] that will allow you to put food on the table or fulfill your parental responsibilities WITHOUT worrying what other people think or kissing asses.
Correction: Not GMI (Score:2)
It has to be unconditional except being a legal citizen or resident.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee [wikipedia.org]
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What planet did you grow up on? It's been like that for decades... if not forever. The only difference today is that it's recorded in a database rather than people's fallible memories.
Isn't it neat.... (Score:3)
Isn't it neat when other people get to decide if they want to share YOUR personal data?
Hackers, get your keyboards ready (Score:2)
Database will be stolen in 5...4...3...
How is this FERPA-compliant? (Score:4, Insightful)
On its face, the proposal to share student data with private companies seems to clearly violate FERPA [ed.gov], the federal law covering privacy of educational data. According to the article linked, the schools are claiming that it's OK, because when FERPA says it's OK for student data to be accessed by "School officials with legitimate educational interest", that really also means third-party contractors working for the schools. Apparently, the Department of Education has signed off on this. WTF? How can this possibly fit the legislative intent? It says "school officials", not "school vendors" or "school contractors". And there's a reason for that: actual school officials are subject to some level of public control and accountability, while private contractors are not.
This plan should be challenged in court as a violation of federal law.
Reminds me of... (Score:2)
http://blogs.ajc.com/bob-barr-blog/2010/02/01/americans-say-%E2%80%9Cno%E2%80%9D-to-medical-database/ [ajc.com]
Obama wants to do the same thing with medical records.
I'm also a bit conflicted on the security aspect of the matter, what would any non-pedo's motive be for stealing / compromising this data? The only thing is it becomes a true permanent record in the sense that it can be easily retrieved 20 years down the line. But, another interesting aspect is, nobody that I know of that employees people actually looks
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Digital medical records are great. You can visit any clinic or hospital that is wired up and they'll be able to access all your x-rays, notes, and prescriptions. Paper is fine though for people who've never moved and have a family doctor or something. I wouldn't be a fan if they sent parts of my record anywhere without my consent though.
Disappointed (Score:2)
From the linked Reuters article:
> 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.
I thought the Bill & Melind
Courtesy of Bill and Melinda (Score:3)
FTFA: The database is a joint project of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
They label it as "personalized learning" but it could just as easily be used for "personalized hiring". Typical M$ spin applies easily here.
Re:Strongly Disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever the situation is, it sure seems like a huge moral hazard for local school administrators. They have an ethical obligation to protect children's data, but they have a self-interest in successful careers, which can be judged by how much money they bring into the district.
My guess is that money and status trumps children's privacy, even among the people you'd presume "think of the children."
Re:money and status trumps children's privacy (Score:2)
This sounds like a card game.
"Money and status trump children's privacy, but Children trump adult privacy in legal filesharing". Or something.
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Moral hazard? You act as though they give on iota of a fuck about the children's data. If there was a nice piece of candy in it for them they would hand it over.
This isn't legal is it? (Score:2)
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Re:Strongly Disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
Any time a person needs permission from the government for any activity, including homeschooling, and such permission is denied for whatever reason, it becomes effectively illegal to do that particular activity, including homeschooling. In Sweden and in other countries, permission is required from a government official. If this permission is denied, there is no appeal in many places. You can look at the article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeschooling_international_status_and_statistics [wikipedia.org]
Re:Strongly Disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree, you entire notion is just loony talk.
Would you say driving is illegal? You need permission to do that and sometimes it is denied.
Homeschooling is often done because people want to keep their children uneducated. That should be prevented, it is simply child abuse.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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So what?
That is one kind of restriction that does not apply to driving, but does to get a concealed carry permit in my state. Niether are illegal, both require permits/licenses.
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I homeschool my kids because I want them to get a better education. They are two grades above public school level. And yes, they understand evolution.
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How did I abandon it?
Purposefully under educating children is abuse. You are making sure they will be unsuited to operate in society and stealing their future. How is that not abuse?
I think both are reasonable. Just because people (which is what the government is/represents) decide to restrict an activity does not mean that activity is illegal. Nor does it mean that it is not abuse to fail in the care of a child.
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That is a pretty nice pointless anecdote you have their.
Judging from them Chemistry PhDs I know, I hope she does not get caught running her clandestine lab. The rest tend not to make that much money.
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No since none of those things apply to the situation at hand.
Driving is generally a legal activity, so is homeschooling as is concealed carry of a handgun. All three are regulated to some degree and society has decided you can lose the privilege of doing them under some circumstances.
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Rare is the private school that doesn't somehow, somewhere get public money, which comes with all those lovely strings attached, including mandatory reporting.
Further, while the school district has at least the hope of public policy exposing a data sell out, a private school has far less oversight and usually a lot greater financial pressure.
Homeschooling is a great idea in principal, it's a tough idea to actually implement in practice and there's also no guarantee you won't want or need services from your
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Yeah, because obviously most parents can teach all the subjects in school as well as specialized school teachers...
Hint: how many teachers do you know that have taught more than 2 subjects?
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So, because most teachers don't have a degree in the subject they are teaching (do you have statistics on that highly precise number?), you think a parent, who most likely hasn't seen a classroom in the last 10 years (at the very least) and hasn't read anything on the subject taught in 20 could do better?
I have had my share of bad teachers, but there were definitely a lot more good teachers than bad ones, and pretty much none that simply "read the textbooks" to me...
I was pretty good in school, I have a hi
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Unless you ask them about evolution or the age of the universe.
Face it homeschooling falls into two camps people who deeply want their kids to get the best education and the religious nutters who want to keep their kids ignorant. One is something no one care about the other is just child abuse.
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It is now bigotry to point out people who are so lost in fairytales that they deprive their kids of education might be unfit parents?
I don't imagine parents in those areas want to raise kids there. I am not sure what those things have to do with political affiliation.
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Bigot: : a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.
Your irrational hatred of religion places you comfortably withing this definition. Your grouping of those who are members of a religion as religious nutters shows that you are ignorant of religion.
Why do you claim it is ignorant or irrational? Does the Catholic Church then have a long history of tolerance, education, and enlightenment? Does commonly practiced Sharia law even allow women to attend school? Does the state of Tennessee teach creationism with evolution in science class because there is equal evidence for both?
There is nothing ignorant or irrational with recognizing religion's long-standing goal of keeping everybody in its dominion ignorant of the world around them.
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If these people educate the kids, which is generally the opposite of what home schooling is about. Most of these people want to indoctrinate their children into some crazy religion. Why should that kind of child abuse be legal? Why should a child be denied the ability to even operate in society later?
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http://www.indiana.edu/~homeeduc/FAQ.html [indiana.edu]
Look at their question about religion.
The biggest single reason people homeschool is that they are religious nutters. I have a friend who's wife quit working to homeschool, every time they bring it up they have to mention they are not religious nutters since that is the most common reason for that arrangement. The wife stays home only because her income was lower than his.
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http://www.indiana.edu/~homeeduc/FAQ.html [indiana.edu]
Look at their question about religion. The biggest single reason people homeschool is that they are religious nutters. I have a friend who's wife quit working to homeschool, every time they bring it up they have to mention they are not religious nutters since that is the most common reason for that arrangement. The wife stays home only because her income was lower than his.
From your link
Q: What are the demographics of the typical homeschooler? As I explain in the third of my Three Key Points About Homeschooling, describing the "typical homeschooler" is about as difficult as defining the "typical public schooler"--the range of demographics, philosophies, and practices make such a generalization practically impossible.
When offering evidence to support your description of a typical homeschooler, don't submit ones that include statements about how it is impossible to describe a "typical homeschooler". :)
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Homeschoolers who would not go to college would never then be tested by your little metric.
Yes, people who deny reproductive education to their kids are also religious nutters. To a lessor degree than those who think their god planted dinosaur bones as a test.
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You also need one parent to be a actual teacher...
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2. Never met a normal home-schooled kid, but I'm sure there must be one out there. In my experience home-school parents are generally terrified of their kids hearing a perspective aside from what ever crazy {$religious | political} views the family has.
And how many have you met? My brother's kids were home schooled. It had nothing to do with religion and everything to do with disappointment with the public school system. These kids are totally normal. They're ahead of their peers in math. They are better read. They play musical instruments. They do Tawkwondo. One completed NaNoWriMo two years ago at the age of 14. I read it, not publishable, but still fairly impressive for a 14 year old.
3. I'd wager that public school is less indoctrinating then 99.5% of homeschooling.
That's because most people do it for extreme religious reaso
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When parents are the ones doing the homeschooling you can.
Even you admit that most of these cases are religious nutters. I am not sure why they don't just test for some knowledge and terminate homeschooling for that family if the kids fail.
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They are better read.
But are they better write?
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The database is designed to be run by an non-profit and will give the school administrators a free service, may be pay in the future, where the administrators can enter the information of the their students. The original cost of this was done by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundatation.
The database can then produce reports for the school and be used for tracking the status of the student.
The thing about the federal law allowing it is fear mongering. Federal law does
Road to Hell Paving Material (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd suggest we look back on the track record of such databases.
I won't go and track down the links (There's a link somewhere to the famous HBR "Database of Ruin" article, and that has a number of good links).
However, when you have potential for profit and money, you have almost certain abuses.
When you have people (humans), administering these types of databases, you have certain (100%) abuses. There are a number of documented cases of cops abusing DMV and arrest report DBs for purposes of harassment, stalki
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You missed a key point regarding the word "abuse". It all sounds legit until you ponder the security issues and how easy it could be to gain access to the database--even legitimately. e.g., I'm writing an app to tutor math students. In fact, I just spent 10 minutes creating an introduction to Algebra, so I'm legit, now please provide access to the database.
Real security has been a joke in my kids' school system. It is hardly fear-mongering to extrapolate what that means for the database described in the
non-profit ! = non-evil (Score:2)
We can't assume a company will be good just because it's non-profit. If access is "limited", how much will it cost to become unlimited? If it's limited, someone is limiting it, and everyone has a price. Don't kid yourself.
Governments are supposed to be non-profit, and look what has happened throughout world history.
When it comes to governments, or any institution that has unrestricted access to all of the information about a population, no amount of suspicion is too much.
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Next step is to tattoo barcodes on every child's forehead as they are born...
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That's absolutely absurd!
They will be tattooed on the inner arm of course. At the same time they get their first dose of required immunizations.
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Well, the dollar sign in front of the "100" kind of confused me. It still does.
The title reads: "Hundred Million dollar Student Database Worries Parents". Makes little sense.
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My bad. Thanks for pointing that out :)
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Federal law allows for the files to be shared with private companies
Federal law - read as Congress person was bri...lobbied into making it legal for big corps to mine children's data.
The people you should be pissed at are in DC. Punish them by voting them out of office.
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Children don't have a choice of where they go to school. The parents send them. If your parents insisted you go to government funded school, would you want a database like that tracking your every move and broadcasting it to anyone and everyone? What if you had learning disabilities? Still no problem?
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Children are affected by parental decisions outside of their control all the time. Parents should know well ahead of time that the consequence of taking a government job, or taking government benefits or entitlements, means an accountability to the taxpayer. Learning disabilities or no, the public has a right to the data generated by its financial largess.
Is it okay for government funded research to remain private? Is it okay for sex offenders to remain private?
Government is an extension of the taxpayer
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There's a difference between able-bodied people living in generational welfare and children going to government funded schools. Our country was set up such that the states had a duty to provide education to the nation's children. I agree with the broader point you're making, but not this specific instance. Regardless of whatever the parents are up to, there should be no interference or surrender of rights by having a child attend one school versus another. This database doesn't get you any accountabilit
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If you're driving on a government funded road, i want to know where you are. Just so that i know you aren't speeding or being dangerous on roads i helped pay for : )
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Criminal records should be public data.
Police reports should be public data.
FDIC insured accounts should be public data (particularly with payouts).
Government cameras and other traffic observations on public roads should be public data.
Individual student records for students in government schools should be public data.
Employment records of all government employees (including salaries, evaluations, etc), should be public data.
If I'm paying for it as a taxpayer, I deserve the data.
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Interesting point - arguably already a reality, since the rich already can pay for additional privacy today :)
However, at the very least, this will make pause for the rich who would be political - that is to say, those rich who wish to be government employees, or take government largess, will have to give up their privacy. I'd even go so far as to assert that any private company that has a government contract must make the terms and performance of that contract public.
As it stands right now, the grand disc
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No. I paid for it, I deserve the raw data. If you don't want your child's school records public, then don't send them to government school on my dime.
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If you have a psychological or medical problem that is being paid for by the taxpayer, the taxpayer deserves the data. Period.