So who’s concerned about TikTok giving away your teen’s home videos to the Chinese government today? Welp never fear, the Tik Tok Ban is here and ready to protect your data from being in the hands of nefarious actors. Not really but this is the storyline weaponized for political theater and to scare parents who already have no clue what’s going on with their children’s data in the nebulous internet world. But sadly, while the country is paying attention to big tech and demanding more transparency around their child’s data, K-12 schools are begrudgingly compliant, yet silent on how they access, share and disseminate student data to parents. Yes, parents may sign some type of form or something at the beginning of the year, with boilerplate notification that student data is protected and blah- blah-blah. However, what happens to the mounds of it that is collected everyday beyond just protecting it? I mean I am a teacher and in modern teaching everything we do from taking attendance, a class warmup, to formative assessments we are collecting data. Yet, in highly transient populations ( poorer communities especially) this data stays with the teacher and rarely is disseminated or transferred to parents, students or even new schools in meaningful ways outside of a report card, or if you are lucky, a parent-teacher conference. So I am more concerned about what schools are doing with all this information for 13 years of my child’s life than with the newest social media tech platform’s data uses. IJS.
So what happens? Specifically in Georgia, along with 36 other states, the state invested millions since 2003 to develop the State Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) to connect district-level student information systems to the statewide system, ensuring that student records, state and local testing records, and achievement data goes with them when they change districts and all stakeholders have immediate access to this important data. In theory, this is brilliant because kids change a lot over 13 years and move a lot too so it makes sense to have systems talking to each other and tracking their growth for policy makers and parents to make data-informed decisions. However, over the past 3 months I have engaged several different stakeholders, parents, teachers, school and district leaders and the answer is clear, in our urban district most have no clue or have no interest in using the SLDS system but instead focus on their local data platforms. What’s wrong with this strategy? Well, these local data platforms that districts invest millions to maintain leaves the information siloed and far-removed from the very people who need it. Unfortunately, the information gets stuck in a system and really does not reach stakeholders (including students and parents) in meaningful and relevant ways that show them how it impacts their lives and their children. This is terrible. Who needs data stuck in a computer? No one. Everyone wants to use the buzzwords “data-driven decisions” but WHO has the data to drive decisions is a crucial question our schools need to truly reflect on in this season where we are remote learning at home. If schools have the data about kids and parents don’t as they help them navigate the online learning then what good is this data protected and stored in a fancy data platform. Lots of schools have fancy data platforms and data dives, but I say it all doesn’t matter if it is not integrated into a larger context ( like a SLDS) and disseminated to parents and students in relevant and meaningful ways. Like Georgia’s SLDS has a parent portal for parents to review important domain-specific growth areas, but most data platforms that district- level Chief Information Officers (CIO) purchase are teacher-centered, clunky and hard to understand for parents and students. It’s like we invest in data tools to benefit schools when the end user should be students and parents to build more autonomy and agency with them. This practice is backwards. So what should we do instead? I understand every district has different needs and should definitely invest in technology that supports your students and teachers. However, there must be more coordination and integration of this local data with the more comprehensive SLDS tool as well. Students grow a lot and this fuller picture of student growth and learning is vital. Also, schools must design student data systems and strategies with clear training for parents and students to understand, and engage all stakeholders to build awareness around data tools and how they are relevant for our student’s lives. I do understand that even teachers have apprehension about data. But we have to do the hard work to empower our kids and parents to understand too. Of course, this is a pretty heavy lift, but as we see in Covid, a very necessary one. But I would be remiss if I did not say that the state also has to continue to engage local districts with how they use their platform and ways to make their platform more user-friendly to integrate with local systems as well. This is a two-way street, but meaningful data sharing to better understand our children’s needs between all stakeholders is vital to our future success. I mean if big tech has not shown us already, data is not on sheets of paper any more. It is in a big digital world now. We need to know what’s happening with our data, who has it AND how it is or CAN be used for better or worse.This is not only the essential question for big tech companies like TikTok and Facebook but also for K-12 education if we really want to be better on the other side of this pandemic.
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AuthorEducator, student advocate and community activists. Archives
October 2021
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