"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Keeping Your Children's Data Out of the Corporate Government Cloud

As the death worshippers of Washington and Wall Street move us closer to the end of civilization in order to grow profits for the oligarchs, resistance will be organized at every level to disrupt and shut down the institutional data systems that will be used to rationalize which of the spreading pockets of individual and collective deprivation and genocide will be allowed.  

Test scores and "character" grading will be central to the barbaric calculus imposed by mercenary techno-drones seeking to maintain the social and economic choke hold on civilization by the gilded scum.

It is necessary, then, to make the opt-out movement focused enough and powerful enough to attack the spinal column of the data monster.  It must be brought to earth so that its ugly head can be lopped off.  

Every act of resistance adds power to the laser beam. Story by reporter Ann Work:

Veteran teacher Mary Bowen does not worry that her high school-aged son will fail his STAAR tests. But she is opting him out of the end-of-course tests anyway.
"It is not my son's role to provide data for the school district, data by which they're rated. It isn't his role in life. He's just a freshman kid trying to learn algebra, or whatever," she said. It is the only solution she sees for STAAR testing frenzy gone amok.
But one courageous Texas superintendent has decided the true solution to STAAR testing is for school districts to opt out of "testing on steroids" — so that parents don't have to.
She decided to reduce the emphasis on STAAR and use it for the diagnostic tool it was created to be. Her decision has brought excitement for learning back to her teachers and students.
Opt-out Caution
Until legislation changes, parents must be cautious about opting out of the STAAR test because, legally, they can't, Bowen said.
But she so opposes the data collection on children that undergirds STAAR, she won't submit her son to the process while waiting for legislation to fix it. Information about children generated by STAAR migrates far beyond the school, Texas, and a parent's watchful eye.
"Now it's loaded onto iCloud up in the sky. You can never delete it. The child can't control a record that's being created on their behalf."
Her son's school administrators justified the STAAR requirement, saying "The district uses this information to evaluate the effectiveness of our instructional programs."

"But that's not my son's job," Bowen told the Times Record News. . . .

1 comment:

  1. If the courageous supt. you are referring to is Mary Ann Whitaker I'd like to inform you if her lips are moving she's lying.

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