Data Walls in Classrooms (Coming to a School Near You?)
Read this article by Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post. It should cause you to consider what is coming. Following on the heels of that article is her next one where one privacy expert says this could violate FERPA. Really, the photo, from Caledwell County Schools in North Carolina, says it all. In some places, parents and teachers are getting tired of embarrassing kids. New England Public Radio reported earlier this month that teachers and parents have banded together in Holyoke, Mass. to petition schools officials to stop publicly displaying student achievements on classroom data walls. District superintendent Sergio Paez, who has been pushing schools to use more data, said that students are not supposed to be identified, but teachers said they feel pressure to do so. The In These Times reported that Agustin Morales, an English teacher at Maurice A. Donahue Elementary School in Holyoke, said she thinks data walls are mean, but she has felt pressure to cr...