Amidst growing concerns
from
parents and teachers surrounding the Common Core State Standards and
the Federal government’s control of classroom curriculum, the Thomas
More Law Center (TMLC) has prepared a Student Privacy Protection Request
form for use by parents who wish to protect their children by
opting-out of Common Core aligned curricula, data mining and the release
of information concerning their children’s personal beliefs.
The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law
firm based in Ann Arbor, MI, designed the comprehensive opt-out form for
parents concerned about Common Core and who want to protect their
children’s privacy from educational data mining. The form allows parents
to choose which Common Core State Standards and data driven practices
they do not want their children to be a part of, including standardized
testing.
Click here to download a copy of the Student Privacy Protection Request form
The form allows parents to opt-out of sharing their child’s
information with the federal government, as well as outside agencies and
private contractors. Information which parents can opt-out of sharing
ranges from test scores and religious and political beliefs, to
biographic, biometric, and psychometric data, such as fingerprints, DNA
and information related to children’s personality and aptitude.
Richard Thompson, TMLC President and Chief Counsel, commented, “The
opt-out form is based on the constitutionally recognized fundamental
right of parents to direct the education of their children and on
federal statutes which were designed to protect student privacy. Our
Founding Fathers recognized the dangers to our freedoms posed by
centralized
control over public education. However, today, all but a handful of
state governments, enticed by millions of dollars in federal grants,
are voluntarily inviting
the federal government to take control of our public schools, imposing
untested educational standards and obtaining personal information on
children and their parents which would make any totalitarian government
blush with envy. We must ever keep in mind, ‘The philosophy of the
classroom in one generation will become the philosophy of the government
in the next.’ Clearly, Common Core is a threat to individual privacy
and liberty, and to our Constitutional Republic.”
Religious and private school educators have also criticized Common
Core. In a statement the Cardinal Newman Society, an organization
dedicated to the defense and promotion of faithful Catholic education
said, “This school reform effort is nothing short of a revolution in how
education is provided, relying on a technocratic, top-down approach to
setting national standards that, despite claims to the contrary, will
drive curricula, teaching texts, and the content of standardized tests.
At its heart, the Common Core is a woefully inadequate set of standards
in that it limits the understanding of education to a utilitarian
‘readiness for work’ mentality.”
Political Commentators Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin have repeatedly
reported on the dangers and horrors of Common Core, with Malkin
saying, “It’s about control, control and more control.”
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) were developed under the
supervision of the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council
of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), with funding from the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, to ensure that education and educational
outcomes were consistent across the United States. The CCSS provides a
set of standards they claim are “essential, rigorous, clear and
specific, coherent, and internationally benchmarked.”
However, the CCSS
have come under heavy fire since the beginning for a variety of
grievances including:
incomprehensible, political and inappropriate assignments; costly ties
to big corporations; in-test advertising; the elimination of locally
appropriate standards; and the emphasis placed on standardized testing.
In addition, with the implementation of the Common Core State
Standards, whose educational value has not been demonstrated, also comes
an alarming explosion of data mining within the classroom. Student
data are stored in databases designed to follow students from their
entry into schools in pre-Kindergarten up through their entry into the
workforce. These databases, through a complicated network of contracts
and agreements, can then be shared with the federal government,
contractors, researchers and other outside agencies. Testing
corporations can then analyze the test data, produce recommendations for
how to “
remediate” student weaknesses, and then sell that information back to states and school districts.
These state databases, often referred to as P-20 systems, like Common
Core are tied to federal funding, through the 2009 Federal Stimulus
package and Race to the Top waivers, and in some instances can contain
over 400 individual data points per
student including health-care
histories, income information, religious affiliations, voting status,
blood type, likes and dislikes and homework completion. The data is then
available to numerous public agencies. Despite federal student privacy
protections guaranteed by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act,
the administration is paving the way for private entities to buy
the data while the U.S. Department of Education is encouraging the shift
from aggregate data collection to individual student data collection.
As a result of concerns expressed by a Michigan member of the TMLC
regarding Common Core in March 2014, the Law Center began its study of
the issues regarding the Common Core Standards. The Student Privacy
Protection Opt-Out Request was designed by the Thomas More Law Center as
a result of that study. It is available as a general reference and
guide for all concerned parents. However, each state has different laws
that may impact educational issues differently. Therefore, if parents
are dealing with schools outside of the state of Michigan, it is
important that they consult with a licensed attorney in their state for
additional review and modifications of the opt-out form to comport with
the laws of their respective states.
Additional Resources
The Common Core: A Poor Choice for States – The Heartland Institute
Common Core Issues – Home School Legal Defense Association
Common Core: What’s Behind the Language – Rachel Alexander
Common Core – The Eagle Forum
10 Facts Every Catholic Should Know About the Common Core – Cardinal Newman Society
