New Group Asks Congress to Protect Student Privacy

I was asked to join a new student privacy coalition yesterday, which I did. Diane Ravitch posted their press release on her site.

Enclosed is my statement of support:

Jason France
Privacy Activist, Louisiana

“Information is proving to be the most valuable commodity of the 21st Century. We must all fight to keep ourselves and our society safe from the information prospectors that see us and our children as little more than their next Klondike while they conspire to chain us inextricably to their Big Data mines.”

Diane Ravitch's blog

In this era of Big Data, many organizations want to collect and use personal student data for their own ends. In recent years, the U.S Department of Education has weakened the privacy protections embedded in FERPA (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act). Parent activists wants Congress to take action to protect their children’s privacy rights.

PRESS RELEASE

July 23, 2014

For more information contact:

Leonie Haimson: leonie@classsizematters.org; 401-466-2262; 917-435-9329

Rachael Stickland: info@studentprivacymatters.org; 303-204-1272

New Coalition Urges Congress to Listen to Parents and Strengthen Student Privacy Protections

A new coalition called the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy released a letter today to the leaders of the committees of the House and Senate Education Committees, urging Congress to strengthen FERPA and involve parents in the decision-making process to ensure that their children’s privacy is protected.

Many of the groups and individuals in the Coalition were involved in the battle over inBloom…

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BESE member Jay Guillot’s company paid $1.5 million for work for RSD, South Louisiana school boards in 2013-2014

Unethical behavior appears to be the norm, not the exception, for BESE. I would most certainly be out of place if I got elected.

Louisiana Voice

One of the most frustrating things in writing about this administration is obvious wrongdoing is reported and nothing is done.

In Bobby Jindal we have a governor who is constantly bitching about Washington in general and the Obama administration in particular while turning a blind eye to corruption, profiteering and ethical violations within his own administration.

You would think that the man who, upon taking office in 2008, said, “We have zero tolerance for corruption” would make at least a token effort to keep his house in order.

Instead, he gutted the enforcement authority of the State Ethics Board, ran off members of the board, and commenced to allow his political pals to run unchecked.

The sordid episode of State Police Superintendent Mike Edmonson and the manner in which he was allowed to increase his state pension by nearly 70 percent is just the latest in a sorry laundry list…

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