FERPA Explained to Parents. A Crystal Ball Moment?

The Federal Government believes data is king and wants to track school children from birth through their lives for workforce development.  It’s shrouded as education reform, but it is really for the establishment of state longitudinal data systems to connect with various federal agencies and approved private firms to collect data on your child to establish a managed workforce.

Data will set your child’s educational/career path and the Federal government believes this data will dictate your child’s future.  Don’t worry yourself that you/your child will be faced with choices, responsibilities, teenage angst, etc.  By setting up these data systems, the future will be clear and the Federal government will direct your child.

To accomplish this data gathering, FERPA regulations have been relaxed so more entities have access to your student’s information.  Worried about data being shared on your child with agencies/companies without your knowledge?  Never fear, taxpayer.  FERPA is soothing your fears and explaining how this data sharing is advantageous and necessary for educational success.  The government has created a document for parents to assure them this data will equip the government to ensure students receive a quality education:

It is important to ensure that all students have access to a quality education. Parents should be able to take an active role in their child’s education and know answers to some basic questions about their child’s likely future success.

We take exception to the last sentence when it states “parents should be able to take an active role in their child’s education”.  It should read “parents have the primary and ultimate responsibility in directing their child’s education”.  This is the difference between government taking responsibility for your child’s learning via data gathering vs parents/children holding themselves responsible for their educational progress or lack of progress.  Since when did it become the prevailing thought that parents “should be able” to take an active role in their child’s education?  When did parents need permission to have the primary responsiblity for their child’s educational direction?

The document contains questions parents might theoretically ask about their child’s future success. The answers (according to the government) ostensibly can be obtained by computing the data gathered on children from birth.  MEW’s editors (Gretchen in red; Anngie in blue) have answered these questions from a  parental/student directed view of education, not a data driven pronouncement of failure or success:

• When my son leaves his early childhood program, will he be prepared for kindergarten? We
guess that depends on how willing he is and how able he is to learn.  A
more important question is why is he in early childhood in the first
place?  Do you want your child tracked from birth for the
government’s/workforce’s interests? Do
you even know what being prepared for kindergarten means? Your own
past, where begin prepared meant you had on matching shoes  and knew not
to eat paste, is not a good starting place. If you want to go on blind
faith that some government sponsored program is giving him all he needs
you can, but if he turns out to be unprepared, do you think you might
have had a role in his unpreparedness?

• Does my daughter’s school have large achievement gaps between subgroups of students? Are the gaps closing?  That’s
a good question.  We (the Federal government) are solely concerned
about achievement gaps between subgroups.  If your daughter is in a
lower subgroup, we will have standards/assessments that will help her
perform better.   

In fact, if your daughter is in Florida and is in a lower performing subgroup, she will not have to attain a high percentage of achievement. 

If your daughter is Asian or Caucasian, we really
don’t care about her.  Those achievement scores are high enough, we want
to spend our resources on the lower groups.  And dear reader, notice we
don’t really care about individual achievement.  We are only concerned
about tracking students as subgroups.  That’s imperative for the data. 
Forget about individualism.  It’s all about the “community” and subgroups now.

• What are my daughter’s chances of graduating from high school?  As long
as she keeps her grades up, doesn’t get pregnant or become a
drug/alcohol addict, she’ll have a good chance.  And oh, by the
way, strong parenting and sense of responsibility might just be a factor
in her chances of graduating.Didn’t
we address this back in kindergarten? Whether she graduates or
not depends on how high YOUR motivation for her to graduate is. Seeing
as you haven’t figured this out in 12 years we must say we have our
doubts about your daughter’s chances. Still expecting a government
bureaucracy to guarantee this for you tells us she is fighting an uphill
battle.