The NH Department of Education (DOE) collects hundreds of data points on every pre-K to 12 grade student in public school, plus 10,000 Education Freedom Account students attending private and home schools. The data is entered into a Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) and then shared with the federal government and other “designated” private researchers without parental consent.
The federal government has no constitutional authority to collect private student information, so they bribe states to collect the data for them.
The NH state government has had no constitutional authority to collect this information since the constitutional amendment protecting our “rights of privacy” against “government intrusion” was adopted in 2018.
The SLDS is unconstitutional on its face.
How did all this start?
It’s a long story, which very few followed.
The NH DOE applies for federal grants without any public hearing or approval by the state Board of Education. The federal government awards grant money, which is then accepted by the Executive Counsel without a public hearing. That’s the game plan: applying for grants with strings attached without public input.
Once the federal funds are in the state, the DOE must meet certain federal requirements, or return the funds. No one wants to return “free” money. So, the legislature writes law to comply with the requirements of these accepted federal grants. They too favor “free” money.
In 2004, SB 333 was submitted to establish a database using only federal funds, to account for student transfers, minimize dropout risks, provide reliable data, and reduce the burden on districts. There was no mention of the amount of funding, indicating that the money was likely part of a separate grant or grants, which in part required the creation of this data base. No one knew enough to object at this point. There was a public hearing, but it seemed benign.
In 2007, the NH DOE was awarded a federal grant for $3,176,272 to collect private individual student academic, physical, social, and personal development data for a P-16 (pre-K through 16) data system. This was the first explicit SLDS grant for the DOE to deploy a Statewide Student Information System (SSIS), implement the Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) data model, and expand its analytic tools for districts to enter private student data using online platforms. This was a data base collecting private individual student data, and objections might have been raised, but there was no public hearing.
Four years later in 2011, the legislature proposed and created an SLDS as a requirement of the previous federal grant of $3,176,272. There was finally a public hearing on the SLDS, but the data base had already existed and been expanding since 2007. The federal government incrementally bribed the DOE, and then required state legislation to formally establish an SLDS after it was already under way.
The SLDS quickly became a P-20W (pre-K through 20 workforce) system in 2009 when the compulsory attendance age was raised from 16 to 18. The feds provided follow up grants of $4,989,391 in 2012; $3,249,980 in 2019; and $4,000,000 in 2023.
Until 2020, parents could opt-out their children from the SLDS, so there was a relief value. But the noose tightened and opt-outs were eliminated. SLDS student data now follows students from pre-K into the workforce.
In a blink of an eye, $15,415,643 has been collected to build and maintain the SLDS. Most parents are unaware that their child’s private information is being collected. Districts submit student information via online platforms, which are unfunded mandates downshifting costs onto districts. Students who accept state Education Freedom Accounts are also included even if they attend private schools. EFAs are the camel’s nose in the tent. Eventually all private school students will be tracked.
The federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) used to protect the rights of a parent to restrict disclosure of private student information without consent, or risk loss federal funding. In 2012 the law was modified so that parental consent was no longer required to share a child’s private information.
In 2007, the SLDS collected over 400 data points per student, but the data base keeps growing so it’s hard to pin down exactly how much data is being collected. You will not be able to find an online data index, which is required by NH law to be published annually. The last data index posted on the NH DOE website is from 2016. Here are some of the data fields:
Demographics: birth date, town of birth, age, gender, race, ethnicity
Academic performance: test scores and assessments
Enrollment in courses and grades
Attendance: tardy, delinquency, graduation, drop outs
Discipline: suspensions, arrests
Behavioral issues
Mental health
Post-secondary programs in colleges or trade schools
Career outcomes: employment status, wages
Credentials, degrees earned
School Choice
Personal healthcare
Foster care records
** If you have time, here are the federal Common Education Data Standards and the 2016 NH Data System Overview.
Students are given a unique pupil identifying number, nominally to protect their identities. But people have demonstrated that student identities can be figured out using just 3 or 4 data points.
In 2018, the situation changed due to a privacy amendment initiated by former Rep. Neal Kurk and adopted by the people.
[Art.] 2-b. [Right of Privacy] An individual’s right to live free from governmental intrusion in private or personal information is natural, essential, and inherent. Dec. 5, 2018
<Sarcasm on> The collection of private student information isn’t a matter of national security. <Sarcasm off> There’s sufficient aggregate data, not individual data, collected through statewide assessments, to determine the overall performance of students within districts and at various grade levels. The government has absolutely no need to engage in individual student data collection.
There is:
No security reason to require the collection of student data.
No probable cause that warrants what amount to searches and seizures of private student information.
No opt-out provision for parents to remove their child from the SLDS.
No timetable for the deletion of student data. It’s saved indefinitely. It’s like Communist East Germany, only with computers instead of index cards.
Our privacy rights have been seriously compromised.
There’s no way to measure the chilling effect that data collection has on free expression or exercise of free speech, when students realize that student risk surveys, online iPad or Chromebook software, and even classroom teachers are quietly collecting private information on an ongoing basis.
Privacy issues may lack sufficient numbers of “dead bodies” to gain national attention and demonstrate physical harm. But there are many instances of data confidentiality breaches, direct stalking, and harm to individuals based upon inappropriate use of data bases.
You can’t calculate, or predict, the privacy harm of potential data breaches in analytic terms. Whether the breach is from the outside, or from inside by those managing the data system, privacy violations impact the lives of living, breathing human beings, well beyond the mere unease or feelings of helplessness in the face of a greater government power. Lack of individual privacy creates a power imbalance between individuals and their government, which causes emotional distress and undermines trust.
There is no reason to overlook harms that embarrass, humiliate, or incrementally damage individuals, even if they appear to fall short in comparison to horrific crimes. Privacy violations are unwarranted and a violation of our rights.
It’s not a utilitarian matter of collective vs. individual benefit. There’s no reason to give a low value to privacy based upon the near impossibility of measuring or providing a predictive analysis of the effect of violating it.
It’s time to dismantle the SLDS surveillance system and realign NH state law with the NH Constitution.
