I was reminded a few days ago by a New Hampshire teacher that the psychological profiles that are being formulated are not just on children of parents who have children in the public schools but also on children of teachers who have their kids enrolled too.
She is right; SEL is used to gather massive amounts of mental health data on children enrolled in public schools. It’s important to make sure that parents and teachers, who have their children in the public schools, also realize this.
SEL screenings and assessments are used to gather mental health data on your children in order to build a psychological profile on them. The questions may not seem so offensive, but if this sensitive data is shared, this has the potential to create a big problem for you. Once the information is out on the web, how do you ever retrieve it? You won’t even know where your child’s mental health data ends up.
First, the vendors collect mental health data on your children using PII (Personally Identifiable Information). Then this information can be shared with any organization that calls itself a researcher. That includes the Federal Government.
Parent Coalition for Student Privacy explains how the U.S. Department of Education is amassing personal data from students enrolled in public schools through the Data Quality Campaign.
Since that time, the federal government has mandated every state to collect personal student information in the form of longitudinal databases, called Student Longitudinal Data Systems or SLDS, in which the personal information for each child is compiled and tracked from birth or preschool onwards, including medical information, survey data, and data from many state agencies such as the criminal justice system, child services, and health departments.
Every SLDS has a data dictionary filled with hundreds of common data elements, so that students can be tracked from birth or pre-school through college and beyond, and their data more easily shared with vendors, other governmental agencies, across states, and with organizations or individuals engaged in education-related “research” or evaluation — all without parental knowledge or consent,.
Every SLDS uses the same code to define the data, aligned with the federal CEDS, or Common Education Data Standards, a collaborative effort run by the US Department of Education, “to develop voluntary, common data standards for a key set of education data elements to streamline the exchange, comparison, and understanding of data within and across P-20W institutions and sectors.”
Every few months, more data elements are “defined” and added to the CEDS, so that more information about a child’s life can be easily collected, stored, shared across agencies, and disclosed to third parties. You can check out the CEDS database yourself, including data points recently added, or enter the various terms like “disability,” “homeless” or “income” in the search bar.
Many teachers have no idea about any of this.
Emmet McGroarty, who represented American Principles Project several years ago, presented testimony to the Commission for Evidence-Based Policy on October 21, 2016, regarding student data privacy.
It’s not just our kids who are subjected to this massive amount of data mining. It’s the children of teachers, school board members, and anyone else working in the public schools.
What’s so bad about SEL? Most parents would agree that they want their children learning in a school that considers their child’s social and emotional needs. That isn’t the problem. The problem is the data-mining of all their sensitive mental health information. Where does all of it go? Who has access to these data? Is the data ever destroyed? What happens if the vendor collecting all of this PII sells their company? What happens to the mental health information on your child?
You will never know.
Ed Tech companies include a privacy policy that makes you think the data is protected. That’s simply not truth.
From American University Business Law Review:
Big Tech Makes Big Data Out of Your Child: The FERPA Loophole EdTech Exploits to Monetize Student Data by Amy Rhoades
EXCERPT:
With the increase of technology use in schools, parents, students, and privacy advocates have growing concerns that current regulation is inadequate to meet the rapidly advancing technology EdTech companies employ.6 Commercial companies must abide by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”), which regulates online operators’ collection and use of children’s personally identifiable information (“PII”).7 However, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”), the enforcement agency overseeing COPPA, issued an exception for data disclosed by schools to online operators acting as authorized educational partners.8 The FTC maintains that student PII disclosed as an education record is regulated by the Family Educational Right and Privacy Act (“FERPA”).9 The legislation’s overly broad definition of education records, combined with the 2011 Amendments expanding FERPA to permit schools to disclose data to third parties, creates a loophole for the EdTech industry to avoid COPPA regulation regarding student data.10 As a result, commercial companies can quickly amass large amounts of data and potentially avoid the FTC’s oversight of COPPA compliance by contracting directly with schools.11 This practice runs afoul of legislative intent for both FERPA and COPPA, places student data at risk by creating a vacuum of oversight, and leaves little recourse for violations of data collection or use in the EdTech industry.12
This Comment argues that the EdTech industry is exploiting a loophole in federal regulations to grow the business sector by mining children’s data online at the expense of student privacy.
Not only can this sensitive data be shared with the state and federal government, it can also be shared with other vendors in the EdTech industry.
There are a number of problems associated with SEL surveys and screenings. Nancy Bailey listed them in her article titled: Social and Emotional Learning: The Dark Side. Bailey was a teacher so her focus is on supporting public schools. She’s a voice for many teachers who are limited in their capacity to speak publicly on these important issues. If you are a teacher, you’d be wise to peruse her website and subscribe to her website. She is a wealth of information.
You are also free to contact me at anytime. I keep all of those conversations confidential.
The money that is being made off of your child’s data on SEL, and every other aspect of their life should concern you. The best way to deal with this is to refuse anything SEL related for your children. No screenings, assessments, treatment or program. Unfortunately SEL is embedded into the curriculum, so that could present a challenge.
New Hampshire has a pro-parental rights law in place. It allows you to replace objectionable materials assigned to your children. So let the Teacher, Principal, Superintendent and School Board Members know you are opting your children out of all SEL in the school.
As more parents discover what is going on with SEL, you can expect enrollment to decline. Parents do not sent their children to school for mental health assessments or treatment. This is eroding academic excellence in our public schools.
Children who need specialized care should be able to access that through their family or social services. Turning schools into mental health clinics dumbs down the classroom, and turns every child into a mental health patient by those who are not educated, trained or who understand the importance of data privacy.
For more information:
https://www.education.nh.gov/sites/g/files/ehbemt326/files/inline-documents/surveys-questionaires.pdf