Yesterday I read an
opinion piece in the Denver Post by Kerrie Dallman, teacher and president of the
Colorado Education Association, the state affiliate of the NEA. I am a Colorado public school teacher, a parent
with a child in the public schools and finally, I am a member of the NEA.
Ms. Dallman is a fan of inBloom and believes it is efficient
and will personalize student learning. She states, “I know inBloom will be a
great asset to every teacher and student, and I'm disappointed to hear that
such a promising service has been mischaracterized, misinterpreted and
undervalued by some.”
She fails to mention that inBloom can share student data with for-profit
vendors to allow them an opportunity to tailor their educational products to
students’ needs. She fails to mention
that “personalized learning” too often means hooking children up to computers
with software programs – which is really depersonalized learning.
She fails to mention that federal privacy laws were weakened
to allow for-profit companies access to student data without parental consent,
and that Jefferson County schools are not allowing parents to opt out of inBloom. This despite the fact that inBloom has said
they will not be responsible if the information leaks out either in storage or
transmission.
She fails to mention that inBloom is collecting 400 data
points on each child – including the most sensitive information: names,
addresses, test scores, grades, economic and racial status, as well as detailed
special education, immigration and disciplinary records. These data points could
create a detailed profile and follow your child throughout his/her educational
career; this could indeed narrow your child’s opportunities within school and
after graduation.
One must ask, why do
they need all these data points about our children? inBloom has also said that
starting in 2015, states and districts will have to pay from two to five
dollars per student for putting their most sensitive data on an insecure data cloud
and offered up to vendors. inBloom is also
considering charging the vendors for access to the data – which is comparable
to selling children’s data or renting it out.
And why, are those
that helped fund inBloom, such as Bill Gates, or those profiting off of it,
like Rupert Murdoch, not sending their children to schools where such data
collection occurs? Why aren’t the teachers from Sidwell, where Obama’s children
attend, begging to use inBloom…I’ll answer that – they don’t take these
corporate high stakes tests, they don’t put children on computers and provide
teaching via digital “learning tools”.
These schools have small classes, with plenty of discussion and debate
and engage in authentic assessment such as portfolios and projects. Let’s face facts – treating students as data
points and commercializing their most sensitive information is only for OUR
children.
Ms. Dallman fails to mention that inBloom - and others like
inBloom - are the next big thing in corporate education reform because NOW that
Race to the Top has mandated more testing - testing online, testing attached to
longitudinal databases, all in sync with the same set of standards via common
core standards – now gathering DATA will be the name of the game like never
before.
She fails to mention that inBloom is also collecting teacher
data which violates teacher privacy and may risk their future job
opportunities.
She fails to mention that assessment and instruction is best
created via authentic learning experiences with face-to-face interaction
between students and teachers. Most data
being gathered and entered online in public schools today is data that is based
on assessments created by corporations – corporations who know NOTHING about
our children – most of this data is worthless.
In this brave new world assessment is more important than
learning. Assessment creates immediate profit, and the results of the assessment - gathered by the likes of inBloom -
create more profit. It is a cash cow that just keeps giving - using our
children, our tax dollars and our communities.
In this brave new world where data-mining rules, we will be
required to spend massive amounts of money so that children will be hooked up to the internet in order to take the
tests - which are necessary to get the
data – so that the data can be plugged into software that will prep children
for the next test. We haven’t even
discussed the continual updates needed to update technology, nor the testing
fees for purchase, administration, and grading of these assessments, nor the data
gathering fees required by the software that is supposed to gain access to the
data through the inBloom cloud. It is costing New York schools more than $1
billion to simply get hooked up to
the internet – imagine the costs to our nation?
In this brave new world, poverty is ignored, teachers are
laid off, and schools do not have budgets for janitorial supplies, libraries,
librarians, music, art, PE, bus service and more, yet we all have funding for
testing and the databases necessary to keep the cycle of privatization
churning.
In this brave new world, unions take money from corporate
education reformers and then remain silent on issues that could save public
schools and promote issues that harm public schools. The Colorado Education
Association recently received $300,000 from the Gates Foundation.
In this brave new world our children are being sold to the
highest bidder with the assistance and/or silence from politicians,
corporations, unions, and sadly, citizens who walk on by and merely protect
their own.
As a parent, I will
refuse to allow my own son to
participate in any corporate testing – for many reasons – but in regard to Ms.
Dallman’s opinion piece,
to avoid the
chance that it might end up in a database such as inBloom. As an educator,
I will continue to speak out against corporate education reform.
As a member of NEA, I will push forward
NEA’s
commitment to share opt out information with parents via NBI 24. As a citizen, it’s
one more day of realizing that this fight will be long, hard and full of
pushback. Carry on.
Meanwhile, teachers and parents should express their concerns about inBloom
to the Colorado Board of Education at state.board@cde.state.co.us – and Ms. Dallman by emailing her at
kdallman@coloradoea.org
For more information on
inBloom:
For more information on CEA
and following the money:
