I called and left a message for two different people at OSPI today to get a comment about OSPI signing an agreement with the Seattle Times for
student and teacher data (it was November 13, 2013 to be exact). No one called back.
I called and talked to Jim Simon, who is the managing editor at the Times. He's very busy, says that KUOW got it wrong on the personally identifiable student or staff-related data and they were preparing a statement. That was about 10 am this morning and yet, the Times remains silent, both in sending anything out via e-mail or at their newspaper.
(
Update: Mr. Simon phoned me late Friday afternoon. He told me that they had talked to KUOW about the inaccuracy of their story in saying that personally identifiable information would be given to the Times via the agreement with OSPI. He said it was a "significant" update. I told him that was his view because, while the update is true, it does not mean that students could not be identified other ways.
He said that they had requested this agreement to get data to have a "richer" analysis for their stories. He said that this was not an "unusual" agreement. I told him in my research I had not found many like it and he said he didn't know what was going on in the rest of the country.
I asked about who would get the data and he said he didn't remember everyone's name on the agreement. I asked if any were researchers and he said no, they were reporters but one, Justin Mayo, is a data analyst. As per my reporting below, Mr. Mayo has requested "demographics" on students and that a rather large amount of data.
I mentioned that the Times got the grant from the Gates Foundation for the Times' Education Lab and now are leveraging it to get the agreement with OSPI. He said the Times had been upfront about the grant and that they would not be told by the Foundation what to write about.
I asked why this story - between the only daily newspaper in the state and the state education department - had not appeared in their newspaper. He said there
would be a blog post. There is and boy, is it buried. There is no
link to it anywhere on the front page, despite it being new. I asked
if, as the editor of a newspaper, that this was not a newsworthy item.
He said they chose to put it on their blog area and that's part of the
newspaper.
An irony here about their blog piece is two-fold. First, the Times itself NEVER reported on this agreement and yet decides the only time they WILL is to bad-mouth KUOW. Two, is that the blog piece says that the Times asked for data from OSPI to "spot trends that might be newsworthy.
The Times is picking and choosing what is "newsworthy" but are choosing to ignore the real story they created. They say that KUOW has been "misleading" but to that I say, "oh pot, meet the kettle.)
End of Update.)
It's almost as if it didn't happen.
But hey, it's the holiday weekend and folks are busy and distracted.
I'm sure that's exactly what they are hoping will happen.
So sure, let's embrace the season (and hopefully, our loved ones) and eat and watch movies and take walks, etc.
But folks,
let's vow that your students' information is not available to anyone and everyone who asked.
Let's vow to get our legislators going on a law to protect student data privacy. They have one already on the books in Oklahoma and I know other states are ramping up to that as well
Let's vow to tell our Superintendent and our School Board that we want to see real teeth to these agreements. Not "may" or "can" audit safety of our service providers who get this information but "shall" and "will." And that there will be no data going out that is not thoroughly vetted as to who is getting it, why and for what use.
And, let's vow that parents get to know each and every time data is released. (I don't know if an parental opt-out will be a viable option - I think it should be - but you should be notified.)
On this subject of parental notification, I want to tell you about the Operations Committee meeting that I attended on October 28, 2013 where data privacy was discussed. I talked about this before but I didn't tell you how disturbing the discussion got.