Scholarchip IDs: Convenience but at what cost?

from Wrench in the Gears
June 9, 2017

I’m grateful to the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools for keeping tabs on the Philadelphia’s School Reform Commission’s monthly meeting agendas. They recently alerted me to a resolution about student ID cards, that in turn started me thinking about ubiquitous computing, digital classrooms as nodes within Smart Cities, and the role big data, payment systems, public-private partnerships, and Blockchain ledger-based finance could play in Ed Reform 2.0.

The SRC passed the Philadelphia School District’s 2017-18 budget last month, and the upcoming meeting on June 15 is packed with resolutions for new contracted services. Among these is a 5-year, $6.5 million contract with Scholarchip, the company that manages the district’s student ID and automated attendance system. Philadelphia is transitioning to a new student information system, Infinite Campus. A perfect name for the learning ecosystem age; no need to restrict learning to schools when the entire city can be your “campus.” One reason the district gave for deciding to extend Scholarchip’s contract was their use of smart card technology.

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Scholarchip handles student ID cards for private schools, and their payment gateway system is set up for tuition payment plans. The learning ecosystem of the future will have different requirements than the traditional voucher. There will be no up-front, lump-sum tuition payment, because the plan will be for students to chart their own educational pathways as they go along, cobbling together a combination of online and community project-based options. For that reason the industry needs a mechanism, like a card (or at some point even a chip in your finger? See Eggers The Circle) that can handle micropayments to multiple providers. In all likelihood those money transfers will be linked to meeting academic or non-cognitive student performance measures through a Blockchain or smart contract process. I’m sure those pushing ledger-based educational finance will say that it offers security, transparency and accountability, but at that point the process of education simply becomes transactional. Students’ lives are digitally transferred to the ledger, and the money follows the child and his or her performance in a very public way.

Even more concerning is the resolution’s off-hand reference to putting student health conditions onto a smart card, especially given the push to gather social-emotional data on children through gamified classroom behavior management apps and surveys.

Click here to read the rest of the article. 

Also see:

The Silicon Valley Billionaires Remaking America's Schools

The New York Times - June 6, 2017

 

Facebook Wants to Transform Education: What Could Go Wrong?

After turning Newark schools into charter cesspools of corruption, billionaire sociopath, Mark Zuckerberg, has a new plan underway out West to deprofessionalize teaching and to accelerate roboticized online learning. 

What could go wrong with the Facebook crew in charge of your child's privacy?

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook, which transformed communication with its social networking service, now wants to make a similar impact on education.

The Silicon Valley company announced on Thursday that it was working with a local charter school network, Summit Public Schools, to develop software that schools can use to help children learn at their own pace. The project has been championed by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive, and one of his top lieutenants, Chris Cox.

“We’ve seen that there’s an opportunity to help apply our skills to the future of education, and we all wanted to find a way to help make an impact by doing what we do best — building software,” Mr. Cox wrote in a blog post announcing the initiative....

Corporate Congress Turns Blind Eye to High Tech Predators in Schools

The do nothing bill is called the Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act.

Clip from NYTimes:

. . . some privacy experts said the draft bill had major loopholes that would allow school services to use student information in ways students and parents might not expect or find acceptable.

For example, it allows school services to make unilateral changes to their contracts and privacy policies. It permits them to disclose student information for purposes like preparing for “employment opportunities.” And it would not prohibit sites like ConnectEDU from selling student records as part of a merger or acquisition.

The bill is also unlikely to prohibit companies like Pearson from monitoring the social media posts of students if those activities are performed on behalf of state educational agencies.

“Although this bill has some promising features,” said Khaliah Barnes, director of the student privacy project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a research center in Washington, “it ultimately fails to uphold President Obama’s promise that the data collected in an educational context can be used only for educational purposes.”

Student Privacy and Opting Out

from Peggy Robertson:

Student Privacy Matters has recently posted information to support parents in understanding how they can exercise their rights to protect their children’s privacy under federal law.  As we have reviewed the documents there are a couple things that stand out as absolutely urgent for all parents to know. First, for parents of children under age 13, you have the right to review and REFUSE any online programs and online testing that your child is using – programs in which your child is entering the data (this does NOT include online programs the teacher is using to enter student data). The Children’s Online Privacy Protecting Act (COPPA) allows parents to control what information is collected online from their children twelve and under. Therefore, as a parent, you have a right to find out what information is being collected, you can review what information is being collected, and you can REFUSE to allow your child to participate in the online program.  You can simply opt your child out of the program – or the online test. . . .

Read the rest here.