Sheldon Silver, Speaker of the NYS Assembly, has called for an immediate delay in the State Education's plan to share personal student data with inBloom; the press release is here.
"It is our job to protect New York's children. In this case, that means protecting their personally identifiable information from falling into the wrong hands," said Silver. "Until we are confident that this information can remain protected, the plan to share student data with InBloom must be put on hold."
Fifty Assemblymembers signed a letter to Commissioner King, expressing their continuing concern with the the state's plan: "We do not believe the State Education Department should share this information with inBloom, especially at this time." Our press release about this latest development and the Assembly letter is below.
"It is our job to protect New York's children. In this case, that means protecting their personally identifiable information from falling into the wrong hands," said Silver. "Until we are confident that this information can remain protected, the plan to share student data with InBloom must be put on hold."
Fifty Assemblymembers signed a letter to Commissioner King, expressing their continuing concern with the the state's plan: "We do not believe the State Education Department should share this information with inBloom, especially at this time." Our press release about this latest development and the Assembly letter is below.
For immediate release: December 19, 2013
For information contact: Leonie Haimson:
917-435-9329, leonie@classssizematters.org
Donald Nesbit:
646-373-0779
Parents and
Community members thank Speaker Silver and the Assembly
calling
for a halt to data-sharing with inBloom and hope that Commissioner King and the
Regents will listen
Today, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Assembly Education
chair Cathy Nolan, and forty nine other members of the Assembly expressed their
deep concerns about student privacy and asked Commissioner King to
immediately suspend his plan to share personal student data with inBloom Inc.
Their press release with a link to the letter is here: http://assembly.state.ny.us/Press/20131219/
Said Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size
Matters, “We deeply thank the Speaker, Assembly Education chair Nolan and the
other legislators who signed onto this letter, and all others who have spoken
out against this devastating plan. They have listened to the protests of
parents, and the overwhelming consensus that the sharing of children’s personal
data with inBloom is an unprecedented violation of student privacy and basic
parental rights. I hope the Commissioner and the Regents listen to the
Speaker and our other elected officials, and pull out of inBloom immediately,
as they have so far refused to do.”
InBloom is a non-profit corporation, funded with $100
million from the Gates and Carnegie Foundations, with an operating system built
by Wireless Generation, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.
The data is being uploaded on a cloud run by Amazon.com, despite the fact that
most technology professionals do not trust data clouds for their sensitive
data. Last month, NYC parents sued to block the uploading of this
data, with arguments to be heard in state court on January 10. Two bills
passed the Assembly last session unanimously that would halt the state from
sharing data with inBloom without consent or give parents the right to opt
out.
Last week, Senator John Flanagan, chair of the Senate
Education Committee, called for an immediate moratorium for any data-sharing on
the part of the State Education Department. Yet as of yesterday, State
Education Department officials said they would not hold off uploading a student
names and other personal data past January 22.
According to Tricia Joyce, chair of the Youth and Education
Committee of Community Board 1 in Lower Manhattan, “We all have much for to be
grateful to Assembly Speaker Silver. He listens to his constituency and
consistently advocates for them, visibly bettering the lives of all of our New
York City and State families. InBloom posed an immediate and significant threat
to our New York State student’s privacy, and also served as a dangerous
precedent in how we handle data of this kind in the internet age.”
Over the course of the last year, eight out of the nine
states originally identified as inBloom’s “partners” have severed all ties with
the company or put their data-sharing plans on indefinite hold,. In a
recent survey, 75% of elected school board members in New York opposed this
plan, and 78% say parents should be allowed to opt out. More than forty
Superintendents have returned federal Race to the Top funds in hope of
protecting student privacy, but the Commissioner says he will ignore their
wishes and upload their student data to the inBloom cloud anyway.
Karen Sprowal, a parent with a child in a NYC public school
and a plaintiff in the lawsuit to block inBloom, said: “Elected officials from
both parties, school board members, parents and educators throughout the state
have been appalled at the Commissioner’s plan to share intimate and
confidential student data without parental notification or consent with inBloom
and for-profit vendors. This data would include my child’s name, address,
phone number, test scores, grades, economic and racial status, any disability
or health problem he might have, as well as highly sensitive disciplinary
records. I have been outraged as has every parent I have spoken to about
this. In fact, there is no parent in the world who wants their child’s
confidential information uploaded on a data cloud vulnerable to breaches, or
disclosed to vendors. The fact that Commissioner King has continued to
ignore the objections of parents and elected officials is an abomination and
must end.”
Paul Hovitz, a retired teacher and co-chair of the
Community Board 1 Youth and Education Committee commented, “On behalf of our
children, parents, and community, I wish to commend Speaker Silver and Assembly
Democrats for recognizing the hazards caused by releasing students’ personal
statistics into an internet cloud. Their action today in calling for an
immediate suspension of this plan is in the best tradition of our elected
officials.”
Donald Nesbit, a parent
plaintiff in the lawsuit and Local 372-AFSCME Executive Board Member,
concluded: “We pray that the Speaker’s statement will finally pierce the bubble
that Commissioner King and the Regents have been inhabiting over more than a
year, since the news first broke about their plan to share our student’s
personal data with inBloom. It would be the best holiday present that any
parent with a child in the public schools could receive, to learn that the
state finally halted this reckless and outrageous plan. Even though New
York would still be the last state to withdraw, better late than never I always
say.”
Mona Davids, a parent
plaintiff in the lawsuit and President, New York City Parents Union said:
"We are relieved that our legislators are putting our children first
and taking action to protect student data. We hope our legislators move quickly
and pass legislation requiring parents be respected and given the ability to
opt out of any data sharing."
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