Naviance; I Have Some Questions
Update: The Board voted to put this off until further inspection of issues.
Here was the portion of my testimony about Naviance:
Each school or district configures the product in a way they see fit for their students.
Different features are available to to be turned on or off at the sole discretion of the school or district. None are compulsory.
Also, the documentation talks about "parent data." My understanding is that parents will have access to see what their child is doing but any data on them should be restricted to their name and a possible ID number. Are we going to track which parents are using this?
The costs are NOT clearly delinated. We are paying Hobson for their services but staff did not address the costs for an additional FTE at headquarters AND paying a staffer at each school to be the Naviance whisperer. Where is that money coming from and how much is it?
What's odd is that the BAR mentions a couple of alternatives but not the obvious - the Coalition for Access & Affordability. This a coalition group of colleges and universities - including UW - that work together to making applying for college easier for underresourced students. And it's free to districts to use.
Also, the contract with Naviance should clearly state:
- no third-party vendors have access to any data without parent/district permission and Naviance has refused to tell parents in other districts who third-party vendors are and what data they will see.
- parents should be able to opt their kids out of using Naviance without any kind of repercussions to students
- all data on students who leave/graduate from SPS that is in the hands of Naviance will be destroyed within three months.
end of update
On Wednesday night, the Board is to vote on whether to accept a contract with Hobson's Naviance system of college/career supports for over $600K over three years.
I admit I am a bit late to the party but I have finally looked into this and I have mixed feelings. As usual, the devil is in the details and there are very few details in the BAR to go on.
Clearly, a 400-1 student-counselor ratio for high school is terrible. Most of our high school counselors do a lot more scheduling than advising on college/career. And, most high schools no longer even have a college/career counselor. (Those that do either have principals that rearranged money or, more likely, the PTSA is funding.).
While that is a sad state of things, it's one that the district decided to go with, just as they have consistently decided to underfund regular maintenance. And, this BAR for the contract states that they need at least one FTE - at JSCEE - to oversee this implementation and, as well, someone at each high school to run it there. (I would assume there are costs to both things but that isn't mentioned in the BAR so the $600+K contract is much higher.)
Meaning, the district got itself to this place and their answer is...technology.
What's odd - and thanks to a reader for much of this help - is that the BAR mentions a couple of alternatives but not the one that seems most obvious - the Coalition for Access & Affordability. This a coalition group of colleges and universities - including UW - that work together to making applying for college easier for underresourced students. And, did I mention, it's free to districts to use.
So what is my recommendation?
First, I urge you to write to the Board - spsdirectors@seattleschools.org - and include some of my suggestions. Tell the Board that student data privacy is important and parents' rights to control that data must be respected.
I think the Board should ask for many other alternatives to Naviance. Or, use Naviance for some things but use the Coalition for Access & Affordability for others.
Also, the contract with Naviance should clearly state:
- no third-party vendors have access to any data without parent/district permission
- that FERPA gets suspended with some uses of Naviance (apparently in using the Common Application) and parents will receive notification when this happens
- parents should be able to opt their kids out of using Naviance without any kind of repercussions to students
- parents be notified that they can have access to their child's account
- maybe have proxy IDs for students so Naviance doesn't have anyone's name or birthdate
- make sure that the system the district uses for student information will indeed matchup with Naviance's platform
- that the district will CLEARLY tell parents what aspects of Naviance are being used and the district will NOT turn on any new ones without early notification to parents
- all data on students who leave/graduate from SPS that is in the hands of Naviance will be destroyed within three months.
The Board should be very clear on what any contract with Naviance will look like.
Analysis
As usual, it will really boil down to what is in the contract between Naviance and SPS. What is attached to the BAR is just the RFP.
One reader said that his daughter was at Holy Names Academy and they use it. So I gave them a call and boy, are they nice.
Turns out they have been using it, happily, for 14 years. However, they ONLY use it as method to help for college applications. Each student gets a school e-mail and then, in early 10th grade, they all bring their laptops to school and everyone registers at once. It helps the school send letters of recommendation (except for a few schools that still want a hard-copy letter mailed), transcripts and all school reports.
They also can see stats from all the colleges where students apply and create a scattergraph to track applications. However,
"We don't use the career option piece."
Basically, Holy Names uses it to streamline college applications and not much else.
So one key to all of this is that the district is in control of what different aspects of the platform they wish to use (some things are part included and others cost more). AND this:
Each school or district configures the product in a way they see fit for their students.
Different features are available to to be turned on or off at the sole discretion of the school or district. None are compulsory.
Parents can have an account and see their their child's activity.
Also to note, Naviance "retains data at the discretion of clients." So even if your student graduates, Naviance will have that data until the district tells them to destroy it.
I note that Naviance did NOT sign the SIIA pledge on privacy until they were practically shamed into it. Not good.
Here's a Q&A with one Colorado school district parent about privacy issues. Not inspiring.
"What to do when a vendor wants to know everything about your child but won't tell you what they are doing with the data?"
For example:
I always get suspicious when companies - even "non-profits" - say different things about themselves.
To wit:
Naviance by Hobson is a college and career readiness platform that helps connect academic achievement to post-secondary goals.
But then there is also:
Naviance is a college and career readiness solution that helps districts and schools align student strengths and interests to postsecondary goals, improving student outcomes and connecting learning to life.
I'm wondering which is the real goal - to help students or help districts?
They have a number of "partners" including Common Application, Pearson, Sallie Mae, the School Superintendents Association and the American Association of Community Colleges.
As well, they are aligned with - I'm not kidding - The Data Cookbook's PAR Framework.
The PAR framework is a learner analytics-as-a-service provider. We are (sic) non-profit, multi-institutional data-sharing cooperative , compromised of two and four year public, proprietary, traditional and progressive institutions.
Basically, it's a lot of institutions contributing what might be called "big data" in order to learn more about students and outcomes. How this all happens is a little vague. Again, not good.
Here was the portion of my testimony about Naviance:
- Why did this pass out of Ops five months ago and yet is just getting here for a vote? Then, it was at Ops in September and yet still is just getting here?
- Why is there no list of other vendors to compare to?
- The student privacy info is minimal and lacking. There are NO penalities to Naviance/Hobson if the data is breached and in all cases with student data, there should be penalities.
- Documentation was NOT available to the public until yesterday. That is not transparency and it is unacceptable.
Each school or district configures the product in a way they see fit for their students.
Different features are available to to be turned on or off at the sole discretion of the school or district. None are compulsory.
Also, the documentation talks about "parent data." My understanding is that parents will have access to see what their child is doing but any data on them should be restricted to their name and a possible ID number. Are we going to track which parents are using this?
The costs are NOT clearly delinated. We are paying Hobson for their services but staff did not address the costs for an additional FTE at headquarters AND paying a staffer at each school to be the Naviance whisperer. Where is that money coming from and how much is it?
What's odd is that the BAR mentions a couple of alternatives but not the obvious - the Coalition for Access & Affordability. This a coalition group of colleges and universities - including UW - that work together to making applying for college easier for underresourced students. And it's free to districts to use.
Also, the contract with Naviance should clearly state:
- no third-party vendors have access to any data without parent/district permission and Naviance has refused to tell parents in other districts who third-party vendors are and what data they will see.
- parents should be able to opt their kids out of using Naviance without any kind of repercussions to students
- all data on students who leave/graduate from SPS that is in the hands of Naviance will be destroyed within three months.
end of update
On Wednesday night, the Board is to vote on whether to accept a contract with Hobson's Naviance system of college/career supports for over $600K over three years.
I admit I am a bit late to the party but I have finally looked into this and I have mixed feelings. As usual, the devil is in the details and there are very few details in the BAR to go on.
Clearly, a 400-1 student-counselor ratio for high school is terrible. Most of our high school counselors do a lot more scheduling than advising on college/career. And, most high schools no longer even have a college/career counselor. (Those that do either have principals that rearranged money or, more likely, the PTSA is funding.).
While that is a sad state of things, it's one that the district decided to go with, just as they have consistently decided to underfund regular maintenance. And, this BAR for the contract states that they need at least one FTE - at JSCEE - to oversee this implementation and, as well, someone at each high school to run it there. (I would assume there are costs to both things but that isn't mentioned in the BAR so the $600+K contract is much higher.)
Meaning, the district got itself to this place and their answer is...technology.
What's odd - and thanks to a reader for much of this help - is that the BAR mentions a couple of alternatives but not the one that seems most obvious - the Coalition for Access & Affordability. This a coalition group of colleges and universities - including UW - that work together to making applying for college easier for underresourced students. And, did I mention, it's free to districts to use.
So what is my recommendation?
First, I urge you to write to the Board - spsdirectors@seattleschools.org - and include some of my suggestions. Tell the Board that student data privacy is important and parents' rights to control that data must be respected.
I think the Board should ask for many other alternatives to Naviance. Or, use Naviance for some things but use the Coalition for Access & Affordability for others.
Also, the contract with Naviance should clearly state:
- no third-party vendors have access to any data without parent/district permission
- that FERPA gets suspended with some uses of Naviance (apparently in using the Common Application) and parents will receive notification when this happens
- parents should be able to opt their kids out of using Naviance without any kind of repercussions to students
- parents be notified that they can have access to their child's account
- maybe have proxy IDs for students so Naviance doesn't have anyone's name or birthdate
- make sure that the system the district uses for student information will indeed matchup with Naviance's platform
- that the district will CLEARLY tell parents what aspects of Naviance are being used and the district will NOT turn on any new ones without early notification to parents
- all data on students who leave/graduate from SPS that is in the hands of Naviance will be destroyed within three months.
The Board should be very clear on what any contract with Naviance will look like.
Analysis
As usual, it will really boil down to what is in the contract between Naviance and SPS. What is attached to the BAR is just the RFP.
One reader said that his daughter was at Holy Names Academy and they use it. So I gave them a call and boy, are they nice.
Turns out they have been using it, happily, for 14 years. However, they ONLY use it as method to help for college applications. Each student gets a school e-mail and then, in early 10th grade, they all bring their laptops to school and everyone registers at once. It helps the school send letters of recommendation (except for a few schools that still want a hard-copy letter mailed), transcripts and all school reports.
They also can see stats from all the colleges where students apply and create a scattergraph to track applications. However,
"We don't use the career option piece."
Basically, Holy Names uses it to streamline college applications and not much else.
So one key to all of this is that the district is in control of what different aspects of the platform they wish to use (some things are part included and others cost more). AND this:
Each school or district configures the product in a way they see fit for their students.
Different features are available to to be turned on or off at the sole discretion of the school or district. None are compulsory.
Parents can have an account and see their their child's activity.
Also to note, Naviance "retains data at the discretion of clients." So even if your student graduates, Naviance will have that data until the district tells them to destroy it.
I note that Naviance did NOT sign the SIIA pledge on privacy until they were practically shamed into it. Not good.
Here's a Q&A with one Colorado school district parent about privacy issues. Not inspiring.
Basically, Naviance only asks for about four personal items from your child. However, the district is likely to give much, much more in order to get more analytics from using Naviance. And that's where it gets very personal.As the Missouri Education Watchdog says,
"What to do when a vendor wants to know everything about your child but won't tell you what they are doing with the data?"
For example:
You will remember we wrote about Naviance who gathers personal information about school children, including personality surveys, hobbies, likes and dislikes, employment history, and family information and financial, income information via grant applications, scholarship applications, college applications. We also explained that during the Naviance process, there are many third party vendors who access the data. In fact, students were asked to waive their FERPA rights while using the Common App through Naviance. You can read about it here.
We asked Naviance if we could see a list of their third party vendor contracts, what data they get, how they share it. Here is what Naviance said,“We are legally bound by confidentiality agreements with our third party providers and may not release these contracts.” – Hobsons VP of Policy and Advocacy (see full letter here)
* 2017 Update* Thanks to a new Colorado law, vendors who collect pii student data must provide names of subcontractors and a copy of the data sharing contract. Hobsons Naviance still has NOT provided contracts, or cited data elements that are shared, but has provided a list of subcontractors. Please see their March 2017 letter and subcontractor list here.
Hmmm. So much for transparency and advocacy. As for asking the school district, they didn’t know either, and actually gave us the contact information to ask Naviance ourselves (who pointed us back to the school district.) Rinse, Repeat.About Naviance
I always get suspicious when companies - even "non-profits" - say different things about themselves.
To wit:
Naviance by Hobson is a college and career readiness platform that helps connect academic achievement to post-secondary goals.
But then there is also:
Naviance is a college and career readiness solution that helps districts and schools align student strengths and interests to postsecondary goals, improving student outcomes and connecting learning to life.
I'm wondering which is the real goal - to help students or help districts?
They have a number of "partners" including Common Application, Pearson, Sallie Mae, the School Superintendents Association and the American Association of Community Colleges.
As well, they are aligned with - I'm not kidding - The Data Cookbook's PAR Framework.
The PAR framework is a learner analytics-as-a-service provider. We are (sic) non-profit, multi-institutional data-sharing cooperative , compromised of two and four year public, proprietary, traditional and progressive institutions.
Basically, it's a lot of institutions contributing what might be called "big data" in order to learn more about students and outcomes. How this all happens is a little vague. Again, not good.
Comments
Reader
The reality is that in the Naviance proposal there is not only the requirement to have one permanent, dedicated, full-time resource (1.0 FTE staff) downtown dedicated to Naviance support, but to have at least one or more staff in each building who have been trained as "solutions experts" to "ensure end user adoption". This last part sounds a little ominous, but in any case, they are very likely to be counselors. So there may or may not be efficiencies to be gained from a package like Naviance, but there's also going to be a good deal of overhead as well. It's unclear what, if any, actual benefit in the way of student-to-counselor time might materialize.
As a tool to help guide (push) students to their life path starting at age 12 or 13, this is tracking at it's worst. Kids who are well supported and well prepared will take advantage of a tool like this in order to keep or increase their edge in applying to top schools, while other kids will be nudged toward "more appropriate" paths. Most of what I've found online is tales of how Naviance helps higher SES families (mostly in private schools) in their "race to the top", not how it helps borderline students or traditionally underserved populations.
Not all kids are in a good place when they're in 8th grade. I've seen my share of kids that struggled in middle school and even much of high school, but managed to turn it around eventually. Tools like Naviance will only exacerbate the entrenched attitudes that make it hard to change course. Remember, when a student is nudged toward a path, they are unquestionably also being nudged away from other paths.
Related: the amount of psychological profiling data that the company will get on thousands of individual students through this module is dangerous from the get-go. Students don't understand how that kind of data can be used against them as much as it can be used to help them. This is separate from all the issues of data security, which is crap these days. NO ONE can truly protect personal data online. One word: Equifax. If SPS encourages students to actively engage with Naviance, especially the surveys/career options, then we are allowing a third party for-profit corporation to build psychological profiles of our children. At the very, very least, there MUST be a way for students/families to opt out of this, just as you can opt out of those types of questions when you sign up for the SAT/ACT.
The problem is, if the Board authorizes Naviance, they lose control (in a practical sense) of what modules will be enabled in the future. It's completely up to the "client" (district) to enable or disable any of the various modules, and they can do so at will.
Loved it
Loved it
"The reality is that in the Naviance proposal there is not only the requirement to have one permanent, dedicated, full-time resource (1.0 FTE staff) downtown dedicated to Naviance support, but to have at least one or more staff in each building who have been trained as "solutions experts" to "ensure end user adoption". This last part sounds a little ominous, but in any case, they are very likely to be counselors."
Thanks bulldoggie. I can't imagine a counselor- with 400 students- has the bandwidth to take on another project. Some may find this tool helpful, but others may not.
Have counselors and principals responded to this proposal? Or, are we looking at sales people selling a product to the district.
FWIW Holy Names spends ALOT of time with college bound students. College support is one of their strong points.
But that's not how SPS is planning on using it.
There just isn't anything that's going to take the place of an actual human providing actual guidance to students. Buying it (and paying for the FTE downtown) when there aren't enough counselors in the schools is an absurd waste of money.
-Real Support
Fiscal Realities
I really don't want this to sound overly critical because your experience was your own, but I think you're missing my point (and kind of reinforcing it). If your kids went to private school they are indeed well-resourced, and they were already very likely to go to a good college regardless of whether or not they used Naviance. Right? This is true whether or not you got scholarships, etc., because it's not all about monetary wealth. The fact that you've taken enough interest and care to apply to private school, be accepted, pay attention to issues like this on a school blog, etc., means that you work hard to provide great opportunities for your kids. I couldn't afford to send my kids to private school, but with 2 very active and involved parents, they are relatively privileged and have a lot of advantages.
The other thing to remember is that private schools generally have much lower student-to-counselor ratios, and are therefore able to provide much better and more personalized help for their students regardless of whether or not they use tools like this. In general though, these tools help those who already have a leg up on struggling or underserved families.
This is just one aspect to tools like this, but I'm frustrated that the district constantly thinks they're going to fix the opportunity gap by buying more technology. This is not going to help close that gap, it's expensive, and it will distract from better solutions like actually hiring more counselors to bring down the student ratios, which is what the task force and ASCA recommended.
HP
Thus far I haven't heard a lot of support for those tools, even from private school parents that have appreciated some of what the overall package provides.
If what we really want is a tool that helps with all the nitty-gritty of preparing for college applications, why on earth are we not looking at Coalition, which provides those tools, is 100% free, opt-in, doesn't require the district to send student data to various commercial companies, it's managed by (135+) colleges themselves, and is already required for applying to UW?? It would be easy enough (and free!) to try, and if it didn't work out for some reason, we could revisit Naviance or other tools.
It's been awhile, but I think one could fill out career stuff if you wanted to on Naviance, but I don't know anyone who did that. The purpose of Naviance seemed to be more for college than career guidance. My son wasn't into filling out any more forms than he needed to fill in.
The reason I bring up the folks between under-resourced and greatly-resourced is because of my son's friends at the time in public schools. They were basically on their own and didn't even know what the possibilities were. Naviance groups schools so you can find similar types of schools at your academic level. There are lots of scholarships out there. Sometimes it is cheaper or the same price to go to a small, liberal arts college than to go to the UW. I saw kids who ended up at schools that were a bad fit for them (academically and financially)just because the parents didn't know about various options and couldn't afford to pay someone to help them.
I feel for students/parents who don't have the time or energy to do all that college research on their own. I think Naviance could be helpful, but a live person would also be great.
I think Melissa's suggestions are 100 percent spot-on with one exception: I would hope some sort of carve-out in the contract would allow that GPA-SAT data to be retained, perhaps without any residual student info. Naviance has an enormously useful feature that my daughter used heavily: It displays a scatter plot for each university, displaying GPA on one axis and SAT score on the other. It shows (with X's and O's, not with names) which students from her school were / weren't accepted to any given university. It would be a shame if that functionality is lost.
My son received minimal help from the counselors at Roosevelt. They work hard, but they are hopelessly overburdened. So parents in my son's graduating class held a series of fundraisers for the senior prom, where parents could pay to hear a presentation from a professional college counselor. These professional counselors offer services -- often costing thousands of dollars -- that help families navigate the college process. They help kids figure out what they're interested in studying, and which colleges they should apply to, based on school size, town size, physical environment, political environment, party atmosphere, Greek life, etc. (The pro counselors also help with test prep and essay writing.)
Naviance is a software tool that helps with the selection and application process. Naviance helps the student identify potential schools, and when the student narrows her list, Naviance tracks application deadlines and status, helps coordinate and submit letters of recommendation, test scores and transcripts, and helps find and applying for scholarships.
I hope this tool (or one like it) is made available to public school kids -- not just kids whose parents pay for private counselors or prom fundraisers or private school tuition.
HNA has deliberately built a culture where the kids view college as an expectation. The school effectively leverages Naviance to take an overwhelming process and reduce it to chunks that a 16- and 17-year-olds can digest. Last year 100 percent of the graduating seniors at HNA advanced to college. The resources are different from a public school for sure, but one third of the girls at HNA receive financial assistance.
I am not one of these ed reformers who thinks human teachers should be replaced by Kahn Academy videos. I hope that eventually the McCleary decision creates funding for more counselors. They are vital. But I suspect (don't know, but suspect -- I am no expert on school finance) that the cost of Naviance is small relative to the cost of adequately funding counselors. In other words, please don't make perfect the enemy of good.
I understand the resistance toward putting another chair at JSCEE, where the prevailing sentiment is "do a tiny bit of fake engagement and then wait until the last minute and ram through whatever we want." I understand the desire to move personnel spending out to the schools. And if Naviance is purchased, it will create substantial expense in time and talent at the individual school level. Heck, maybe there are better ways to spend money. I'm under-informed about SpEd issues, addressing the achievement gap, the battle over the academic focus and boundaries for Lincoln, HCC pathways, the way elementary and middle schools are staffed through open enrollment, etc. But I think this tool (or one like it) could help a lot of students with the potential to go (or not go) to college.
But it's not just one more FTE. It's paying (someone) at each school to be the expert. And, I suspect more to follow.
There are other, cheaper tool that the district could try before committing to this expense. But they're not.
You also leave out the issue of student data which is huge.
Money would be much better spent adding another counselor at each high school to lessen the burden.
HS Mom
http://www.bellevueschoolsfoundation.org/sitepages/collegeandcareer.aspx
The Foundation tax and charity info.
http://www.bellevueschoolsfoundation.org/sitepages/annualreport.aspx
Bellevue SD site:
http://www.bsd405.org/about/initiatives/college/naviance/
-parent
Chris S.
I don't actually have a problem with this idea but I believe there should be ironclad structures around the data, what this software is used for (not tracking kids and their interests and hobbies and trying to funnel them into a career) and I see zero reason that there could not be a proxy ID.
Anything else in Naviance, not useful. Ask any private school. No we don’t need career advice. Tracking. Not useful. Also the tool is not useful before 11th grade.
reader
All students are unique. They all have strengths and weaknesses and potential. Admitting that should be the first step.
It's about tracking kids and their patterns of likes/dislikes, etc. to help/track them into career paths. That's where the data comes in.
- $620k payment to Naviance
- AT LEAST one full time, dedicated staff downtown to manage Naviance. So likely a tech-knowledgeable person, which means >$100k/year including benefits, so we're up to about $1million so far.
- 1 point person in each building that will need to both: be trained, and train others, on how to effectively use the tools. It's difficult to estimate this cost, but it will be ongoing, because staff changes over time, and because software gets updated and these kinds of companies like to keep billing for training sessions.
- About 1 full year of requirements design, specifications, building software APIs to access SPS's student data, testing of all the above, and rollout (see the BAR for the schedule and details). This involves countless staff hours, many different people, many meetings, most of which will be executives and tech staff, both of which are very expensive.
This last item is not getting any attention, it might very well be the biggest (hidden) cost of all, AND every hour spent by staff working on this is an hour NOT spent working on other stuff.
By the time ALL the costs for a system like this are added up, it would probably fund several counselors. I'm not saying that a system like this is of no value, but having more real counselors should be a higher priority if we really want effective help for students. Especially students who need a bit more assistance with their post-high school planning. Tools like Naviance are mostly designed for students and families who are already on a college path; let's consider the best ways to help those who are not, for whatever reasons.
This is a great point. Unfortunately, our district's plans DO include the "career advice" and "tracking". And the intent is to start in 8th grade.
Look carefully at the BAR attachment on page 67. Note the lines describing AchieveWorks and CareerKey. Those are the personality profiling tools. The district clearly plans to use them because they're paying over $100,000 for these tools!
This is a really important point for people who think the SPS plan is a good idea just because "my private school used Naviance and we liked it". Please understand that SPS plan looks nothing like the way private schools around here use this tool.
The PAR Framework isn't just associated with Hobsons (Naviance's parent), Hobsons OWNS PAR Framework! see: Hobsons Acquires PAR Framework. Hobsons, in turn, is owned by an international conglomerate DMGT. Hobsons bought PAR for an undisclosed sum in January of 2016. Also of note, PAR was yet another business venture originally funded by the Gates Foundation in 2011.
Read here: Hobsons Acquires PAR Framework to Improve Student Retention and Educational Outcomes to understand how all the data they gather from various channels is combined and leveraged. If you read between the lines, part of what they're doing is steering kids away from colleges if they are at a higher risk of not completing their degree, which counts against colleges' "retention rates".
“Higher education is struggling to make sense of its abundance of data – to help either individual students or the institution as a whole. This acquisition allows us to respond to our customers’ requests that we combine the best of PAR analytics and the best of Hobsons’ products to make an integrated impact on student outcomes,”
These connections are not benign.
-NP
As a taxpayer who is a product of K-12 public schools, I believe the spending on Naviance is absolutely a waste of $$. It will NOT take the place of involved, motivated, educated students/parents/families who together can make the best decision for their students future. Technology will NEVER replace one on one personal relationships. I know extremely (economically) poor families whose students are headed to Ivy league schools and extremely well off families whose students are drug dealers. SPS, STOP the spending on shiny gadgets and invest in PEOPLE and personal relationships!
!!!! Leanne Hust