Remember when you were a kid and you were warned that if you did something wrong in school it would “go on your permanent record”? That was a scary thought. It just got scarier:
Parents and privacy experts are blasting a new national database that compiles personal student information for educational companies that contract with public schools.
New York State officials, working with the city, have already uploaded students’ names, addresses, test scores, learning disabilities, attendance and disciplinary records into the inBloom database, according to the Daily News.
Educational companies can use the data to create teaching tools for students.
Parents told the News they were furious.
“I’m outraged,” said Karen Sprowal, 52, who has a 9-year-old son. “I send my child to school to be educated. I never agreed to have his information shared with private companies or stored in a database.”
New York Department of Education officials tried to calm the uproar by saying they’d never sell any info, but only would make it available to contractors the DOE hires. Boy, that must make these parents feel better.
The inBloom database is a collaboration between the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Corp. As you would expect, educational administrators see it as a “god send,” parents not so much, as evidenced by the reaction to the news of its use in New York.
Question: Are any Triangle-area schools using the inBloom database?
