It’s not about what Johnny can learn from his e-tablet; it’s about what the e-tablet can learn about Johnny.

Early in October (2014) the federal agency, the National Science Foundation (NSF),  awarded $4.8 million to a consortium of universities whose task it will be to develop an extensive data collection, storage, and sharing system. The purported goal? To collect massive amounts of data on students to improve instruction.

The data project is called LearnSphere–a typically ambiguous name.  What is being learned? It appears that faceless bureaucrats and researchers will learn information about the students that the students and parents have no idea is being collected–and without parents’ or  students’ permission. Data will be collected on teachers as well. Will they have the option of refusing? Most likely not.

A senior advisor at the NSF states, “”We’re now able to collect massive amounts of information on individual students we weren’t able to collect 10 years ago.”

Education Week writer Benjamin Herold  writes that the data “would likely include, for example, records of every mouse click a student makes when using a software program and information demonstrating a student’s thought process..”  and quotes the lead researcher as saying,  “we have shown some pretty interesting results in being able to detect different [emotional] states from keystroke data.”  (emphasis added)

This grant is only one of several NSF grants dedicated to data-collection.

Read the article.

Although data collection is not found within the Common Core Standards themselves, other federal initiatives mandate the extensive collection of personal student information, and the two Common Core Assessment Consortia must allow the federal government access to the data. In addition, there are many other data-collection initiatives, some of the begun many years ago before the Obama Administration. Jane Robbins of the American Principles Project explains data collection under the Common Core.

The data tech company inBloom was started with seed money from the Gates Foundation. The company’s plan was to collect student data from various sources, store them in the “cloud” and allow the data to be accessed for various educational purposes. Faced with parent concerns and with recent data protection legislation from the New York […]

The Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has produced an excellent video explaining the Common Core. Featured in the video are James Millgram and Sandra Stotsky, the only two content experts on the Common Core Validation Committee. Along with three others validation committee members, they did not sign off on the Common Core State Standards.

Watch the movie.

For more information about the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, see their website.

FERPA is the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. On 12/02/2011, this administration published the final report on the changes it made to the Act. Educational and governmental agencies may now authorize more people and agencies to handle private student information, and those agencies, in turn, may authorize others to handle the information. The agencies […]

This report almost sounds like science fiction, and some of the educational plans described are unbelievable. Published in January 1970, this 417 page report was written over 40 years ago when the technology it mentions was not yet developed. Now, in 2013, some of these projects are almost ready to be realized. (It’s a big file, so it may take a few minutes to load.)

See the report for yourself.

Some highlights: The first two pages are introductory notes, and the report starts on the third page. Some of the alarming pages that sound like unbelievable science fiction are:

pg 238-second paragraph,

pg 247-categories of changes,

page 251-changes by biological means,

pg 261-ID numbers and control,

pg 270-general plan for implementation. starting at bottom of page.

And we thought education was about reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic!

(Click on the report and scroll down to the desired page.)

Find out more about the federal data collection in this article by Emmett McGroarty and Jane robbins of the American Principles Project. The plan is to collect children’s personal information from their first early learning experience to adulthood. This article is from a few months ago, but it is still relevant now because, with the inauguration behind us, the federal government will feel free to move boldly ahead.

Imagine a future world in which every aspect of each citizen is compiled in a data base. Oh, wait, it’s already happening….starting with the early learning data base that is being implemented. Watch this video . Although it mentions Oklahoma, it applies to us in Washington as well.

Have you been hearing about the “Common Core State Standards”? Here is a video which explains the frightening concept and which explains that this is just one component of a larger agenda. The speaker, Jane Robbins of the American Principles Project, begins the explanation with the Race to the Top program, but the roots of transformation of education began decades ago. A significant year was 1965 when federal moneys were first given to states bringing federal mandates to local districts, and another critical year was 1994 when Goals 2000 and the School-to-Work Opportunities Act were passed. President Obama’s Race to the Top program is the most recent step in the destruction of American education. Local control has been systematically destroyed. Please watch all five parts of this video.

“In the ‘you-can’t-make-up-this-stuff’ category, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is spending about $1.1 million to develop a way to physiologically measure how engaged students are by their teachers’ lessons.”