Lakeland Could Join Districts Opposing State's Data Demands

Alarm continues to grow among local parents and school officials about the student data New York state is collecting and analyzing as part of its multi-million dollar Race to the Top project.

The Lakeland school district is the latest to consider opting out of Race to the Top because of privacy concerns.

"The Board of Education will take up the question of whether to withdraw at its Nov. 21 meeting," district spokesman James VanDevelde said yesterday.

Lakeland joins a swelling list of Hudson Valley districts. Pearl River, Pleasantville, Rye Neck, Pelham, Pocantico Hills, Hastings-on-Hudson, South Orangetown, Dobbs Ferry and Mount Pleasant are among those who have taken official action to either withdraw from Race to the Top, refused to connect with EngageNY, the state's portal to a vast database, or voiced strong concerns about privacy issues. 

To cope with this growing opposition, the New York State Education Department has updated its EngageNY Portal: Data Security and Privacy Fact Sheet. 

SED spokesman Tom Dunn said the objections do not accurately reflect the portal content, and steered Patch to the state's updated "data dictionary" that describes every piece of information requested or mandated, and the category it fits in. 

Part of the problem is the amount of information on students that the state collects: test scores, of course, but also disciplinary records, economic and social data.

The other part of the problem is the $100 million database. Called inBloom, it's a national project—funded largely by the Gates Foundation—aimed at helping educators improve student performance. New York's Race to the Top program will be storing all its student data in inBloom and making it accessible through a "dashboard" so that information can be more easily accessed by educators and parents and compared across schools and communities.

School officials who've been sending mounds of data to the state for years are balking at inBloom. It's being built to be used by other states too, and because the data will be shared with other groups that work to help students, such as social services agencies, companies that create standardized tests, or law enforcement agencies. And the data is shared with third-party vendors who work with schools on information management. Officials worry that the student information will not stay private and could be misused.

"The data dashboard required by the State Education Department is both redundant and, through inclusion of personally identifiable information such as discipline flags, immunization shots, attendance, and more, could violate students’ privacy rights," Pleasantville Superintendent Mary Fox-Alter said last month when her school board withdrew.

A growing number of parents are also pushing for change. They're gathering on a Facebook page called NY Parents Opposed to Data Sharing without Consent!

A blog called NoDataNY published a post Nov. 3 summing up their position:

"This is positively Orwellian!  When little Johnny gets suspended for fighting in 7th grade (regardless of whether or not he was simply defending himself), his suspension will follow him for the rest of his adult life? – College admissions reps, potential employers (“workforce development organizations”), criminal justice agencies – etc…  The potential for abuse is too risky."

Opting out of New York's Race to the Top program does not remove a district's obligation to provide student data to the state. Much of the reporting requirements are federal. Moreover, most of the data is already stored by the state: Whether a student is an English language learner; a student's racial or ethnic background—educators have parsed this data for decades to ensure equity and opportunity. "Third-party vendors" are used by school districts every day to deal with data—attendance, for example. 

Opting out does mean the district won't get the fourth year of the federal Race to the Top grant money. But losing money is not an issue for the wealthier suburban districts in this region, which didn't receive a lot under Race to the Top. Hastings-on-Hudson, for example, has received $1,189, money that has gone directly to the network at the Southern Westchester Board of Cooperative Education Services.

“I do not see any real benefit to Hastings, but I do have concerns with the risks to our student data," said Roy Montesano, Hastings superintendent. The Hastings school trustees voted Nov. 6 to scrap a memorandum of understanding the Board of Education signed with the state Department of Education on May 27, 2010. 

What withdrawing does do is deny parent and educator access to the EngageNY Portal through one of the "dashboards" set up to parse and present the data. 

"Currently, students and their families do not have the ability to review a student’s complete educational records stored by the State. The EngageNY Portal will provide students and their families with the ability to review this statewide information and ensure its accuracy," according to SED's data privacy fact sheet for parents. 

Pearl River Superintendent John Morgano said he was concerned that the state could choose a dashboard for districts that waited till after the Oct. 31 deadline to opt out of Race to the Top.

Harry Philips, a member of the Board of Regents, which oversees education in the state, said he thought some of the concerns were based on misinformation or misunderstanding. "I recommend everyone read the privacy rules," said Philips, who represents the lower Hudson Valley. 

While districts upstate and on Long Island are also increasingly confronting state officials on this issue, Westchester and Rockland counties are at the forefront, said David Albert, director of communications and research at the New York State School Boards Association. 

"Most of the activity we've seen is in the Hudson Valley at this point," Albert said. "But that doesn't mean there won't be more districts down the road that will pass these resolutions."