Monday! Let Senator Murray know you value Student Data Privacy

The Senate HELP (Health Education Labor and Pensions committee) is negotiating over the re-authorization of the Education Sciences Reform Act.  We were told that there are Democrats on the committee who are pushing for relaxing limits on access to personal student data, and are saying that researchers should be able to obtain open-ended access to complete student data sets– and that they shouldn’t have to even specify which specific student level data they want for what purposes.

Please call Senator Patty Murray, who is a senior member of the HELP committee, and let her know strong controls and oversight of student data are important to you.

 It is especially important that parents/advocates who live in the states represented by Dems below call on Monday.

 Senator Murray's D.C. office:  (toll-free) 866-481-9186

Here's a sample of what to say:
(identify yourself as a constituent and a public school parent/community member)

 I'm calling about the Education Sciences Reform Act that the HELP committee is considering.

 I believe that student data used by researchers should be de-identified and anonymized to the extent possible. In NO case should any researcher obtain open-ended access to personally identifiable student data without parental consent. There must be strict oversight and protocols about the use of all student data.

 The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) has said that Fair Information Practices require that only personal information that is directly relevant and necessary for the specified purpose should be collected and/or shared.

 I am also concerned because there have been more than 700 reported breaches of personal data from educational institutions since 2005 according to http://www.privacyrights.org/data-breach .

 I urge Senator Murray to fight to protect student data privacy.

Senate HELP Committee

Republicans by Rank
Lamar Alexander (TN)
Michael B. Enzi (WY)
Richard Burr (NC)
Johnny Isakson (GA)
Rand Paul (KY)
Orrin G. Hatch (UT)
Pat Roberts (KS)
Lisa Murkowski (AK)
Mark Kirk (IL)
Tim Scott (SC)
Fair Information Practices. http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/2011601.pdf
PURPOSE SPECIFICATION—
specifically articulating the authority that permits the
collection of personally identifiable information and specifically articulating the purpose or
purposes for which the personally identifiable information is intended to be used
DATA MINIMIZATION AND RETENTION—
only collecting personally identifiable
information that is directly relevant and necessary to accomplish the specified purpose(s).
Only retaining personally identifiable information for as long as is necessary to fulfill the
specified purpose(s)
USE LIMITATION—
using personally identifiable information solely for the purpose(s)
specified in the public notice. Sharing information should be for a purpose compatible with
the purpose for which the information was collected
__._,_.___
Posted by: HGBF@aol.com
Reply via web post
•
Reply to sender
•
Reply to group
•
Start a New Topic
•
Messages in this topic(1)
Yahoo! Groups
• Privacy • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use


.

__,_._,___

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested.  It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio.  (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Read more

Breaking It Down: Where the District Might Close Schools

Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read).   end of update    Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update   I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board.    To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up.   But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, grief, that is to come fro
Read more

MEETING CANCELED - Hey Kids, A Meeting with Three(!) Seattle Schools Board Directors

 Update 2: So I have seen a message from President Liza Rankin on why she, Director Evan Briggs, and Director Michelle Sarju backed out of this meeting.  In a nutshell: - She says there was no organization to the meeting which is just not true. They had a moderator lined up and naturally the board members could have set parameters for what to discuss, length of meeting, etc. All that was fleshed out. - She also claimed that if the meeting was PTA sponsored, they needed to have liability insurance to use the school space. Hello? PTAs use school space all the time and know they have to have this insurance.  - She seems to be worried about the Open Public Meetings law. Look, if she has a meeting in a school building on a non-personnel topic, it should be an open meeting. It appears that Rankin is trying, over and over, to narrow the window of access that parents have to Board members. She even says in her message - "...with decisions made in public." Hmmm - She also says that th
Read more