Proposed Data Privacy Bill does nothing to protect students data.

Sen. Flanagan, the chairman of the New York State Committee on Education issued a report and four pieces of legislation today regarding the recent changes to our schools. The first piece of legislation I read through was the Data Privacy Bill (S6007-2013).

On its face it seems to be a bill that could be quite helpful. It creates a Chief Privacy Officer appointed by the Commissioner of Education who will help; create a Parental Bill of Rights for Student’s Data, handle complaints, set penalties for violators and other related processes. The bill also sets forth the penalties for the unauthorized release of information.

The Bill lays out the penalties the Chief Privacy Officer can impose upon third-party vendors. If there is a data breach, the third party vendor, can be precluded from accessing data up to five years, can be denied the ability to enter into new contracts, or may just have to do some retraining with their staff. Most importantly, if the Chief Privacy Officer decides a data breach was inadvertent or done without intent or gross negligence the commissioner may decide that no penalty be imposed upon the third part vendor.

So in the end, the state is free to allow a third party vender who has a data breech to suffer NO PENALTY. That’s right. I’ll say it again. NO PENALTY.

This piece of legislation does not address the concerns of parents and educators across the state who don't want their children’s information shared with third parties. It does not address the fact that New York State is one of only two states using inBloom and the only state that uploading the data is mandatory. This is the bare minimum, created to show that “something is being done” when in reality is does nothing to protect student data.

My take on the forum with Commissioner King at Ward Melville High School.

I attended the forum at Ward Melville High School with Commissioner King and regent Merryl Tisch. It went about how I thought it would go. Many impassioned speeches by superintendents, heads of teachers associations, respected teachers and parents. They made statements strongly opposing the implementation of the common core, high stakes testing, teacher evals and data collecting. They stated these initiatives were all implemented without being sufficiently vetted and are not educationally appropriate for our children.

Mr. King did not address any of these issues directly. He tried to explain why these new rules would help students and teachers. He backed up his statements with no facts. Just a lot of nonsense statements like saying it is hard but this is best for everyone.

The fact is, what else could he say. He is not the architect of these new rules. He has no real say about what is implemented and what is not. He is a mouthpiece (and not a very good one) pushing the agenda of the Governor and state legislature. He has no real power to effectuate change.

What I believe  these meetings did accomplish are the following

1. Those who were in attendance are more  galvanized than ever. Listening to the wonderful speakers who made many valid points was very encouraging.

2. The forums got a fair amount of media attention locally. Most local news channels did a story and Newsday has been writing articles asking the state to rethink their education policies.

3. Because of this media attention, more parents are starting to understand the challenges facing their children. Many people I have spoken to don't think it's a big deal if their kids are tested. They think it's great that the teachers are evaluated. They like that the standards are more rigorous. They are finally starting to understand that while new initiatives may be reasonable in theory, the reality is that they are destroying the learning experience for our children.