The Student Achievement Backpack Act.

The Student Achievement Backpack Act.

Yes. That’s actually what they named it.

Its data collection and tracking ALEC style. I hope Tea Party advocates against the Common Core and testing are reading this. Even in the absence of Obama or the “progressive” agenda—here’s a conservative- led free- market loving entity promoting the collection of private data to data collection agencies. I’ve been saying it all along. It’s the ideology of greed and control-from BOTH sides of aisle.

The Act reads: “This bill provides access by a student’s parent or guardian or an authorized LEA user to the learning profile of a student from kindergarten through grade 12 in an electronic format known as a Student Achievement Backpack.”

Ok…..so who the hell is the LEA????

(A)   “Authorized LEA user” means a teacher or other person who is: (1) employed by an LEA that provides instruction to a student; and (2) authorized to access data in a Student Achievement Backpack through the {insert state} Student Record Store. (B) “LEA” means a school district, charter school, or the {schooling options in the state specific to the deaf and blind}

Honestly I have no issue with my child’s records or data being shared with his school or teachers. BUT…when you get to the next round of ALEC legislation remember this phrasing “or employed by the LEA to provide instruction.” Corporations and other private entities will also have full access to your child’s records once they’ve become employed by the school district through the “Choice” Act (see next section).

The Backpack legislation adds:

“The State Board of Education shall use the robust, comprehensive data collection system maintained by the {insert state} State Office of Education, which collects longitudinal student transcript data from LEAs and the unique student identifiers as described in {insert applicable state code}, to allow the following to access a student’s Student Achievement Backpack: (1) the student’s parent or guardian; and (2) each LEA that provides instruction to the student.”

ALEC seems to have no qualms about storing student data in the “cloud” despite massive threats to data security (not to mention abuses of such information). Their model legislation varies very little from the massive data collection we are currently seeing under the federal imposition of Race to the Top. This legislation promises to collect “a complete learner history for postsecondary planning.”

ALEC’s legislation will be able to collect data on and track as much if not more than Race to the Top legislation (and we didn’t imagine it could get any worse…that is until ALEC takes a crack at it..)

Section 8. Access to Student Data

(A) No later than {insert date}, an authorized LEA user shall be able to access student data  in a Student Achievement Backpack, which shall include the data listed in Section 7 (A) (1) through (4) and the following data, or request the data be transferred from one LEA to another:  (1) section attendance; (2) the name of a student’s teacher for classes or courses the student takes;  (3) teacher qualifications for a student’s teacher, including years of experience, degree, license, and endorsement; (4) results of formative, interim, and summative computer adaptive assessments administered pursuant to {insert applicable state code};  (5) detailed data demonstrating a student’s mastery of core standards and objectives as measured by computer adaptive assessments administered pursuant to {insert  applicable state code}; (6) a student’s writing sample written for an online writing assessment administered pursuant to {insert applicable state code}; (7) student growth scores for {insert state} performance assessment; (8) a school’s grade assigned pursuant to {insert applicable state code}; (9) results of benchmark assessments of reading administered pursuant to {insert applicable state code}; and  (10) a student’s reading level at the end of grade 3.

Whether it’s federally, state, or privately managed—it all goes to the same place and for the same dubious reasons. Thanks Gates. Thanks Murdoch.