Leonie spoke with Jasmine Gripper, Executive Director of the Alliance for Quality Education, about Gov. Cuomo’s proposed cuts to schools and how parents and others can advocate against them and for increased education funding. Then she talked with Cheri Kiesecker, Co-Chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, about how the rapid expansion and adoption of ed-tech apps and programs in schools throughout the country have put children’s privacy and their personal data at increased risk of breach and abuse.
Resources on state education aid:
Resources on student data privacy and security:
Fighting For School Budgets and Student Privacy With Jasmine Gripper and Cheri Kiesecker
Transcript of “Talk Out of School” podcast on Feb, 3, 2021
Leonie Haimson with Jasmine Gripper, Executive Director of the Alliance for Quality Education, and Cheri Kiesecker, Co-Chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy.
Leonie Haimson
Welcome to our show, Talk Out of School on WBAI Radio 99.5 FM and wbai.org, where we focus on issues affecting public schools here in New York City, the state level, and nationally. Our show is also available for download as a podcast. Today I'll talk to Jasmine Gripper, Executive Director of the Alliance for Quality Education about Governor Cuomo's proposed cuts to schools, and what parents and advocates want to see instead in terms of state education. Then I'll speak to Cheri Kiesecker, Co-Chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, about how the rapid expansion to remote learning and the adoption of ed-tech apps and programs in schools throughout the country have put children's privacy and personal data at increased risk of breach and abuse.
But first, a little local news. Last week the Panel for Educational Policy composed of a supermajority of mayoral appointees voted down a contract with Pearson to extend the testing for gifted programs for another year because of concerns about how to give this exam safely during the pandemic and larger issues concerning its racially and economically biased results. This was the first time in the panel's history that they had ever voted down a DOE contract since this authority was given to them in 2009.
The repercussions were swift. The Daily News ran an editorial saying all the mayoral appointees who voted against the contract should be immediately fired, and the Staten Island borough appointee was removed from his seat. The Mayor says he intends to go ahead with some screening process for gifted students anyway. How he will do this isn't yet known. This controversy has reignited the debate over mayoral control, and whether the system needs to be altered to ensure more independence of the panel, which is legally called the New York City Board of Education, especially protecting appointees from being fired at-will.
It was also announced that enrollment has dropped in New York City public schools about 4% of students from the previous year, according to preliminary data. Approximately 60% of schools have lost a significant number of students, but whether this is permanent or temporary due to the pandemic no one knows. Schools that lost students will have to return hundreds of thousands of dollars next fall to the city as a result if the DOE goes through with its current plans, since their school budgets are linked to their enrollment from the year before. If the Mayor insists that schools cut millions of dollars from their budgets, based on enrollment decline, this will likely lead to larger classes, and even fewer services next year, just when kids will need more in-person support than ever before.
At the same time, Governor Cuomo issued his executive budget, which proposes even more cuts to City schools. So now I'd like to bring in Jasmine Gripper, Executive Director of Alliance for Quality Education. Jasmine, thank you so much for being with us today.
Jasmine Gripper
Thank you for having me.
Leonie Haimson
Thank you and congratulations for being number 15 on the City and State's list of the most powerful education leaders in the state. I don't know if you noticed, but you took the place of Eva Moskowitz, the CEO of Success Charter Schools, who was 15 last year and this year was demoted to number 24.
Jasmine Gripper
That's amazing.
Leonie Haimson
So Jasmine you recently testified before the state legislature on the education budget with a critique of the governor's proposed cuts for next year. First, could you briefly describe what those cuts include and what they might mean for schools throughout the state, but especially here in New York City?
Jasmine Gripper
Yeah, so we are now in the midst of the state budget process, and New York State is going to decide how much money our schools are going to get across the state. And many school districts, especially the big school districts, are heavily reliant on aid from New York State. We were fortunate enough that the federal government, through Chuck Schumer, in the last aid package passed in December, earmarked a large amount of money for K-12 education. Actually about $4 billion. But our schools are not seeing a $4 billion increase, and that is because Governor Cuomo is doing what he did last year. He's taking away state aid and replacing it with federal dollars.
And so for New York City, for example, which is slated to get a $2 billion increase is only going to get half of that amount, which is about $1 billion. And so the governor is really setting up our schools for a big fiscal cliff, which means they're not going to get the full amount they should get next year. This year and then next year, there's a billion dollar hole in the state budget that will need to be filled and there's no plan to fill that, and that would mean, even more cuts the following year.
Leonie Haimson
So you mentioned that last year, the Governor put something through called the 'pandemic adjustment' which meant that schools that had gotten additional money from the federal government to deal with a COVID pandemic got their budgets cut by the exact same amount as the feds put forward, which wasn't supposed to happen, and New York City got most of those cuts, I think about $800 million. Is that right?
Jasmine Gripper
That's about right. I want to make it clear that since the pandemic has hit New York's schools have received zero additional dollars to manage this pandemic. They have gotten no new money for buying personal protective equipment, or for buying technology. They have gotten no aid or support from the state, and what they should have gotten from the federal government didn't actually make it down to the schools because of Governor Cuomo's cuts.
Leonie Haimson
And there are some additional cuts that the governor has proposed in his executive budget. Could you take us through some of them?
Jasmine Gripper
Yeah, so there's something we call in the education funding call expense-based aids. And the way that works is that districts pay for those costs upfront, knowing that they will be reimbursed a certain percentage that's guaranteed by the State. And that goes from transportation to special needs services, and it's a gamut of about 11 different aid categories that are there. And the Governor is saying let's consolidate those 11 aid categories into one. And he says we should fund that using a foundation aid formula, which would sound right, but it's actually not a good thing for school districts, it takes away reliable funding.
And so if you look at the expense-based aid or the service aids for school districts, New York City alone is getting a $600 million cut. And so it's like a back-door way of pushing responsibility from the State to the locality, and giving the financial burden to New York City, who's also in a financial crisis. And so we need Governor Cuomo, and the legislature, to reject of Governor Cuomo's proposal, reinstate the expense-based aids at the current reimbursement rate, reject the Governor's proposal to consolidate the formula, and make sure our schools have a reliable and predictable formula for being reimbursed for these expenses in the future.
Leonie Haimson
There's also a bunch of cuts that they're making to New York City and other districts, on the aid that we get to reimburse us for the expensive charter school growth. Can you explain those as well?
Jasmine Gripper
Yeah This again is another cost shift right again how the state shifting costs of the state wouldn't typically pay for enforcing New York City to pick up the tab. And so for example, a few years ago the state legislature required that New York City had to pay for a space for charter schools. Either you put a charter school in a DOE building for free, or you pay their rent for another building, and that rent cost was actually reimbursed by the State. The state is saying we will no longer-
Leonie Haimson
60% was reimbursed by the state.
Jasmine Gripper
Yeah, so it's about it's about $50 million for New York City, or yeah $49 or $50 million for New York City that will now have to pick up the tab if the State agrees for this to happen. So that's one cost shift on charters that Governor Cuomo is trying to make New York City to take up. The other is in the tuition rate. And so charters have a set tuition. So, not that parents pay, but the school district pays for it, so New York City DOE would pay that tuition rate, and the state is attempting to lower it, which would seem like a good thing, but they're just offsetting the cost, and again it's just shifting costs from the State to the City.
And this is really bad for New York City. It's literally saying New York City has to pick up the tab more and more for charter schools from what the state was putting in. And the city doesn't have the money. Look at what the City did in the City budget just last year. The City cut education funding. This is going to make our schools, even more strained. It's going to lead to even more cuts. It's going to lead to even more reduced services for children. We cannot allow this executive budget to go through as proposed.
Leonie Haimson
Do we have an estimate about how much that cut would affect the New York City? A supplemental tuition cut?
Jasmine Gripper
he supplemental tuition I do not have an estimate for off the top of my head. The other ones I know by heart, but that when I can get back to you.
Leonie Haimson
Okay, great. A couple things. First of all, I just wanted to point out that New York City is the only district in the State, and the entire country, which is responsible for paying for private space for charter schools. We put out a report on this last year. It costs about $100 million a year. As Jasmine just said, the State has currently reimbursed for about 60% of that cost, but now Cuomo says he's not going to pay for any of it, in order to push more charter schools into public school buildings, many of which are already severely overcrowded. Another program which New York City is exempt from getting funding for is something called transitional aid, which I just found out about last year and many state legislators from New York City didn't even know about, which also is a separate funding stream that also reimburses districts in New York State for part of the cost of the growth of charter schools in their district.
New York City, again, is the only district in the State that doesn't get this money at all. And we've lost more than $1.3. billion in the last few years in terms of state funding for that reason so New York City is really treated very unfairly all along the way, by the Governor in terms of funding and, as we know, we've also never gotten our full foundation upon that, which is what the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit was all about, and AQE has been fighting for for years. So how much of that should we be getting that we're not even getting in terms of additional funding?
Jasmine Gripper
Yes, statewide, the State owes schools about $4 billion, of that about $2 billion is owed to New York City alone, so New York City is definitely getting the short end of the stick here.
Leonie Haimson
Now can you tell us what AQE is looking for in terms of the budget and increase state aid to schools for next year.
Jasmine Gripper
Yeah, so I want to say this is a budget negotiation process. The Governor puts forward his proposal, and it's seen as the floor of negotiations. And what's going to happen next is the Assembly and the Senate are going to put forward their proposals, and then three way negotiations will start from there. And so we still have time to influence the outcome to get more money for our schools. And so the first thing that AQE is calling for is that we acknowledge the State is in a fiscal crisis. New York State has a projected budget deficit of more than $30 billion projected over the next four years. It's not a one-year deficit it's a multi-year deficit, and the State needs to close that deficit.
What we're saying is that we're not going to close the deficit by balancing the budget on the backs of children by taking state aid from schools to fill the gaps in the state budget. That is absolutely wrong and immoral. We need to leave all of the state aid that's been promised to schools to be maintained at the full levels, and the current funding levels, at least as a bare minimum. But the state needs to raise revenue. How can the state close this budget gap? New York's millionaires and billionaires the ultra rich in New York have not been hurting during this COVID-19 pandemic. They have seen their wealth multiplied. And we're asking them to pay just a little bit more, and we can increase personal taxes, taxes on wealth, intergenerational wealth, and taxes on big corporations and Wall Street.
We can actually raise this with a proposal called Invest in Our New York. The website is investinourny.org, where you can see these six different bills that can raise about $50 billion. $50 billion in annual revenue for New York state. That is the first thing the state has to do, raise significant revenue. And once we raise revenue, we need to make strategic investments in our schools and our communities. And what AQE is saying is that it's been 14 years since the Campaign for Fiscal Equity. We're no longer saying let's do a two year phase in or a three year phase in. Our kids need this money now. Stop playing with our children. Stop making them wait another year. Fully fund the foundation aid formula. If you can raise $50 billion, we can give $4 billion to our schools. That is nothing. And New York State is, I just want to put it in context, New York State is one of the strongest economies in the world. We ranked in the top 10, when you compare to other countries. We can do this. We can fund our schools.
Budgets are about priorities, so we want to see a full investment and foundation aid for K-12 education. We want to see truly universal pre-K for three and four year olds, not just for New York City, but across the state. We want to see a strategic investment in community schools in adult literacy, programs that are proven to work. We want to get on track to reducing class sizes, things that were required in the Contract for Excellence right. All of the things that the state has been dragging its feet on, it's time to do it, and it's time to do it now. And we believe in this moment it is all possible. Again, we just need the ultra-rich to pay a little bit more. It's really just a fraction of their wealth can generate billions of dollars for our state, and it can close the state gaps. It can fund our schools, it can fund our hospitals, it can fund housing for the homeless, we can finally get on track for protecting New Yorkers the way we should.
Leonie Haimson
So New York State as you mentioned is one of the wealthiest economies in the world. We also have one of the largest income disparities, inequities of any state in the country. And I guess one of the points of this is that the wealthy have become wealthier during the pandemic. The middle class and the working class have fallen far behind. And it's time for the wealthiest to stand up for and protect and strengthen not only the economy, but the social services that the rest of us depend on, and so it makes sense.
I just wondered if you can quickly take us through some of these tax proposals that Invest in New York Act are proposing. I will also put a link in the resources section so people can learn more about this. Many different advocacy groups are working together in coalition to get these revenue proposals passed, but can you quickly take us through some of them.
Jasmine Gripper
Yeah, the Invest in Our New York Act is a coalition of statewide groups. About 150 groups have already signed on to the campaign. So for example, one of the taxes is a personal income tax. So, on the income of the ultra-wealthy, we want to raise the tax on those who are making as an individual filer actually $300,000 and more and add new brackets. So if you make $300,000, your tax bill will go up by $600. That's it for the whole year. But if you're making a million, then your tax bill goes up by about one or 2%. Again for people making 5 million, 10 million, 100 million, New York literally has people who are earning 5 million, 10 million, and 100 million as their annual income and just a really small tax on those ultra-wealthy would bring in a lot of revenue for the state. That personal income tax bill alone can generate nearly about $20 billion for the state alone. It's a big deal.
A lot of people have heard of the stock transfer tax. It's something that is on the books. It existed fully a few years ago, and then Wall Street rebelled against it. And so we collect the tax, and then we reimburse it. So we actually know how much it generates, but the financial advocates were like listen that tax was created 20 years ago, how do we update it? And it's a financial transaction tax. So, stocks, bonds, derivatives, futures, whatever you trade in, it's just, again, a small tax. It's not meant to get the people who are using RobinHood, the small traders who were buying small volumes. It's really aimed at those who are moving big shares in the market rapidly, making big profits, and again it's a really small, like two cents tax on a trade. Again, it generates billions of dollars for the State.
And so the bills are really targeted at the ultra-wealthy. It's targeted at those who are hoarding wealth, and we're just asking them to say hey you've been doing great, how can you just give a little bit more to protect the rest of New Yorkers, to prevent what Governor Cuomo is trying to do, to cut services to education, to cut services for hospitals in the middle of a pandemic. We can't do those things like that is immoral and unjust. And so the way we get a New York that works for all of us is that we actually just tax the ultra-wealthy, a little bit more. We're not trying to tax them crazy. Just a little bit more can actually just raise so much more money for the State, and really close our budget gaps and protect all New Yorkers.
Leonie Haimson
This is great. I just wanted to ask you about the new bills that are in front of Congress or that President Biden is promoting or planning. Do they have the sort of provisions in there that we need to make sure that our schools don't get more money than the Governor cuts back by the same amount once again?
Jasmine Gripper
Yeah, I think it's, I do want to point out the Governor's budget is absolutely contingent on a third relief package from the federal government. He's saying worst case scenario, he's still expecting about $6 billion in federal aid. Best case scenario is about $15 billion in federal aid for New York State, and so no matter what the state does going forward, we need a boost in dollars from the federal government.
And we all agree that the federal government should step in and really help New York, but we also know the federal government is not going to be enough to save New York. All the projections or estimates show that the federal aid will not close our budget gaps completely, it will not help us for the years to come in the future when the federal aid is no longer available. New York has to figure out a way to protect ourselves and that's why we also have the plan to tax the ultra-wealthy. And so yes, we're doing lots of advocacy at the federal level, Chuck Schumer, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, is more important now than ever before.
Our congressional and senate representatives and are absolutely important to advocate with around getting a strong federal package of aid for state and local governments, as well as money earmarked for things like schools with what we call a strong maintenance of effort, so that the Governor is not allowed to take away education dollars when federal money comes.
Leonie Haimson
So that's great. How can people help with the AQE campaign and Invest in New York campaign to make sure that the budget is not cut and that we actually get increased funding via these revenue proposals?
Jasmine Gripper
Yeah, so when, please follow AQE on social media to stay up to date on what we're doing, Alliance for Quality Education. AQENY is our handle on all of the platforms. We're hoping to do a statewide teach-in pretty soon. We also are available to come and do some local meetings. We help CEC do advocacy, who your local representatives are, and get you engaged in doing meetings with your representatives and the toolkits you need in order for those to be successful. You can also go to investinourny.org and sign up to be a part of that campaign for campaign updates.
We're actually doing a lobby visit training tonight with Invest in Our New York coalition, so if you want to sign up for how to talk to your representative and you want to learn more about the six bills, you can still sign up for that, but definitely stay in touch with AQE. Social media is the best way to get the latest updates on what we're doing. Our advocacy is going to continue but local voice is so important. Letting your elected officials know that education is a top priority for you and they need to fully fund the schools is what's going to help us carry this over the line and get an enacted budget that works for our children.
Leonie Haimson
Thank you so much for being here Jasmine. I'll put links to the AQE testimony on the budget, as well as information on the campaign to raise revenue called Invest in Our New York in the resources section of the podcast, and on the WBAI site. Thank you again for your work, and congratulations for being number 15, I hope that propels us to victory in the budget fight that that's coming on now. Thank you so much.
Jasmine Gripper
Thank you for having me, Leonie, and congrats you were also on the list, number 16.
Leonie Haimson
Well I wish that you could combine 15 and 16 would mean that we would win this fight for more resources for our schools and hopefully smaller classes in the future as well thank you again. Now I'd like to bring on Cheri Kiesecker, who Co-Chairs the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy with me. Thank you, Cheri for joining us today.
Cheri Kiesecker
Hey good morning Leonie, thanks for having me.
Leonie Haimson
So with the move towards remote learning, there's been a surge in schools and districts horridly adopting ed-tech programs and assigning them to students to use, many of them with unclear security and privacy protections. There were two recent articles in the news that identified specific programs here in New York City that students were using or DOE was using that violate privacy. First YouTube, with no ability for parents to install any parental or privacy controls, and we know that YouTube is well known for collecting student data for advertising and marketing purposes.
And then second, DOE employs a translation company that records confidential conversations with parents about their children, recordings that apparently are stored on an unsecured cloud without encryption and that any staff member can listen in on. This clearly violate state law, but so far there's been no action of the State to make sure that this doesn't happen. Cheri, we know that this sort of thing is happening in states all over the country. Can you describe the warning that recently went out to districts from the US Cyber Security Infrastructure and Security Agency and the FBI talking about the increased number of breaches of student personal data because of ransomware and hackers.
Cheri Kiesecker
Yeah, it's definitely on the rise as far as how many schools are being targeted for ransomware and being hacked. The FBI released this morning, in the beginning of the year and it said as of December 2020, they continue continued to receive more reports about K-12 institutions being hacked and ransomware being involved. And as far as I think August and September, they said that 57% of their reports came from K-12 cases on ransomware, so the increase is definitely paralleled with the increase in ed-tech use because schools are seen as easy targets.
Leonie Haimson
Can you explain to our listeners what ransomware means?
Cheri Kiesecker
Yeah, ransomware is malware. It's a cyber actor getting into your technology, your device or your database, and using that software to either prevent you from accessing it anymore, so it just shuts it down. And a lot of times what these ransomware people do is then hold it for ransom so you can't get back into your system until you give them money. And a lot of times if you don't give them money, they leak the the student information on the dark web. And there have been many instances where the hackers are contacting parents and students and threatening them directly.
Cheri Kiesecker
A lot of times if you don't give them money, they leak the student information from where the hackers are contacting parents and citizens are threatening them directly.
Leonie Haimson
So when you have a huge rash ransomware attacks from school districts a couple years ago, and a school district actually paid the hackers $100,000 to regain control of their data system. The FBI warning follows another in 2018, that was a warning directly to parents, which told them that they should be more aware of the sort of ed-tech tools that were being used in schools, and that they could often be used to contact, extort, and threaten students with physical violence and/or the release of their personal information.
And as Cheri just said these ransomware attacks and breaches have been have affected the education sector more than any other sector of our economy in recent years. Now last week, January 28 was Data Privacy Day, and our organization, the one that I co-chair was sharing called the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy posted a parent survey for parents to let us know which apps their kids are being assigned, and whether they've been informed of their district privacy and security policies. Can you talk a little bit about that survey?
Cheri Kiesecker
Yeah, I think that's a really important piece of information for parents to have and a lot of times parents aren't aware of what apps are even being used in schools because unfortunately, especially with the rise of ed-tech and reliance on ed-tech through remote learning, schools don't have to get parents permission to use ed-tech apps. A lot of times we don't even know what's being used, or what the contracts say, so this survey is a helpful tool for parents to reach out to their schools and their district and ask what ed-tech apps are in use, and if they are privacy protective as far as what does the contract say, what personal information is being sent out the door, and who's it shared with, and is it ever sold for marketing purposes.
And we're wondering different states have different transparency and privacy laws, and of course we need a federal law that would be more protective, but I think it's a good way to highlight, and let schools be aware, that they are our first defense, and they need to not be signing up for these ed-tech apps unless they're certain that they can audit how the data is being used.
Leonie Haimson
I'll put a link to the survey in the resources section of the podcast, but it's also now linked to from the homepage of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy website, which is also called Student Privacy Matters, so parents, you should check it out. And please respond to our survey. It's really also an exercise for you to reach out to your schools in your districts as Cheri said to ask the right questions to make them aware that this is of concern to parents.
The reality is that parents email us all the time, asking about the various apps their kids have been assigned and asking us how much they protect privacy and security, and it's hard for us to know without seeing the contracts and the privacy policies that the school district has agreed to. And much of this is shrouded in mystery, even in states like Cheri's state, Colorado, and our state in New York, which requires a degree of transparency. There was a really interesting op-ed, and I wondered whether you read it Cheri, in the New York Times over the weekend, about the power of the ed-tech industry that engages in data mining and surveillance. And it was called epistemic inequity because essentially these companies want to know everything they can about us, but they want to keep hidden everything that they're doing with data in general.
And this was also something that I found reflected in this project of the Gates Foundation called InBloom which is how we got started in the fight for student privacy in the first place in New York State. It was a $100 million database that was spun off into a separate corporation called InBloom by the Gates Foundation, and after InBloom collapsed because of the protests of parents across the country, I foiled, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request for all the communications between the State Education Department and the Gates Foundation, and InBloom, Inc. And what I found was that the Gates Foundation had asked our commissioner of education not to say anything about InBloom and not to reveal anything about it or what data was being collected unless he cleared every single statement with them first. And he resisted, he said look I we have a board of education called the Board of Regents, I work for them. I cannot be reliant on you giving okays for everything I can talk to them about what you're doing with student data that we're agreeing to.
There were townhall meetings, there were hearings at the City Council, InBloom and the Gates Foundation refuse to answer questions, and the State Education Department refused to answer questions at a lot of these meetings about it as well. So there is this secrecy that they are counting on because they know the more information that gets out about this the more parents will resist the growth of the industry and the growth of data mining.
Another concern that we have, and many parents and students have as well, is the use of the surveillance systems that have been adopted by many schools and colleges that are being uploaded to the devices that students are using at home. Some are specifically designed to guard against cheating, others to pick up threats or bullying of students against each other. Many of them use algorithms that are unreliable and biased. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Cheri Kiesecker
Absolutely. I think that with the remote learning a lot of schools are relying on proctoring technology, like you mentioned, and it is turning into a surveillance system, which is opaque. We don't know how the data is being used. And I would say that it's also, even in K-12, a lot of times there is no option. There's no alternative if you don't agree to this invasive technology, whether it's in school or in your home, the surveillance of keystroke behavior collection, where your eyes are focusing, how many times your head bobs, how that data is being extracted and packaged and reused and repurposed outside of the system is a big problem. And, as you said, there's a lot of secrecy around this. Proctorio was in the news a lot for doing it.
Students and professors have questioned whether this is too invasive and whether it's how that data is actually being used, whether it's FERPA compliant, and I think there are a lot of other...I'm trying to not say names, a lot of other apps that do similar, where everything that's on your screen, even the camera, can be turned on to see what's inside of your home. And it's an invasion of privacy.
Leonie Haimson
So one of the issues with Proctorio is there were students that were organizing protests against the use of the this app. And the CEO of Proctorio was monitoring the private chats of one of the students protesting, and then posted the private chat on Reddit, so they were literally spying on the opponents of the use of this app, and using their private communications against them. And this is really very scary, and it needs to be opposed, their ability to really permeate all aspects of your life. There was another student who was identified falsely as having cheated because she was talking to herself, which is something that she was doing while taking a test to sort of try to analyze the material better. And then there's also a lot of evidence that these facial recognition tools are biased against students of color because they do not necessarily recognize faces to the same degree of accuracy.
So one of the issues that we have with standardized testing, and the possible mandate of the federal government to require the state tests for third through eighth grade and once in high school this spring, is the, likelihood that states will require these apps, these surveillance spyware apps, be put on all the computers have kids at home taking the test. And this was brought up at a forum actually last week that was sponsored by FairTest. Right now a lot of states are asking for a waiver from the federal government for having to give these tests, but even if they don't get the waiver we really believe that parents should be opting out in the spring for a lot of reasons: the tests are very stressful, often used in punitive ways, they're the last thing our students need in the middle of a pandemic, but we're also concerned about the privacy implications.
Cheri Kiesecker
I would say that the algorithms used to flag students can also be discriminatory towards disabilities, and it increases the anxiety of all the students, and then you give them a high stakes test like that, I think is unfair.
Leonie Haimson
So, unlike other privacy laws that have been more recently adopted by the federal government, there are no security provisions, or requirements for encryption. In FERPA because it literally has not been strengthened since it was originally passed nearly 50 years ago. And in fact, instead of being strengthened, it's being weakened, not so much by Congress, but by the US Department of Education, both under George W. Bush and under Obama, to allow for the increased disclosure of personal student data without parental knowledge or consent. And we learned about this during the InBloom struggle, but there are a lot of parents who still don't understand why this is legal at all. Can you explain some of the exemptions that were created in the past decade or more?
Cheri Kiesecker
Right. I think that the biggest concern is if you take away parent consent, so when you send your children to school, not that your student's information, their education record, is locked up in the cabinet with the school and only you and the counselors that need to see it have access to that. Now through beginning of FERPA, there are several exemptions. Anybody that the school approves. So, that means companies and researchers are now kind of an undefined school official, and as long as they use it for another undefined educational purpose, which parents don't have to be informed of, and they can't opt out of. So I think FERPA, in that sense, is not helpful at all for protecting students.
Leonie Haimson
Can you talk a little bit about the five principles that we put out a number of years ago that we believe that FERPA should incorporate in any strengthening of the Act at the federal level?
Cheri Kiesecker
Sure. For one, I think that there needs to be transparency and that's one of our five principles is parents must be notified by the school district in advance, so they need to be told what information is going out the door. And then any disclosure to third-parties because that's a big problem. You think that it's only being given to this one company, but then most times they can repurpose it, combine it, and/or sell it to third-parties. And we very strongly believe that there shouldn't be a commercial use for this data so there should be no reason to make money off of children who go to school and use that personal information for advertising. There should be no advertising related to student data. There should be security protections. Schools should not work with companies who don't secure the data, and schools themselves should secure the data. If you're going to collect it, you must protect it. Were you going to say something, Leonie?
Leonie Haimson
I was just going to say that one of the biggest problems we've had is also enforcement. Right now, in state law and federal law there is no private action on the part of parents to be able to sue if their child's data has been breached through negligence or misused for commercial purposes or for other purposes, which the company had not already told the district they we're going to use it for. And the state is supposed to step in, but both Cheri and I have had problems getting the state to enforce their own laws. Either the the attorney general's office, or the state education department.
So one of the things that we think needs to be implemented and incorporated in federal law is both a private right of action so that parents can sue, and strict and really strong enforcement mechanisms such as fines. When companies do not follow their own privacy policy and misuse the data or do not store it securely. So far, we've seen very little progress, even though a more than 100 student privacy laws, state student privacy laws, I believe, have been passed in recent years as a result of the InBloom controversy. We don't really see a lot of improvement in how data is being handled by schools.
We also need much more training of teachers. I think the New York State student student privacy law, and I believe I might be wrong about this, the Colorado law requires annual training by school staff in keeping student data secure. It's not happening in New York, is it happening in Colorado, Cheri?
Cheri Kiesecker
You know I don't know how well districts adhere to that because I think during the pandemic it's been so chaotic that I think they were in survival mode more, but I don't think it's really been a priority, no.
Leonie Haimson
So is it okay with you if we take some calls? I'd like to bring in people and our listeners. Callers if you have any questions for Cheri, or thoughts about the issue of student data privacy, please call us at 212-209-2877. That's 212-209-2877. In general, what advice would you give parents who are concerned about this issue, who want to find out more about what's happening with their student data?
Cheri Kiesecker
I would say the most important thing is to be active and not afraid to the school. Ask what data is being collected as not only from ed-tech apps, but from the school as well, and what's being shared with the state and partners and ask if you can see the contracts. And ask if there's any way you can opt out and get an alternative, or to not have screen time which is also a very big concern for parents. Ask if there's a book or paper alternative.
Leonie Haimson
Absolutely. We have a parent toolkit for student privacy and it has a number of tips about what questions you should first ask your school or district about what apps are being used, and what data is being collected from those apps. In, I think every state, there's Freedom of Information laws, which allow you to actually ask to see the contracts that your district has with these companies to look at the privacy policies and the terms of service. You can also email us once you've acquired these contracts, so that we can take a look.
One of the biggest problems that we see are something called clickwrap agreements that often teachers and schools are adopting that provide these apps for free, and often do not have contracts or official contracts with the, with the district. Do you want to talk a little bit about those those three clickwrap agreements in the freemium, and how they make their money?
Cheri Kiesecker
Right, so it's not free because your data is product, and it's being pulled in forms of, if it's not direct targeted advertising, it's email advertising and, you know, there are studies that show nobody clicks on the agreement and reads the entire agreement, but in the case of the students, the schools are deciding for the students who oftentimes don't even see those clickwraps and they're not negotiated contracts, so it's off the shelf and the terms are already decided. And most teachers don't even think twice about using it.
Leonie Haimson
And you know in our state they are considered legal contracts. They are supposed to include something called a Parent Bill of Rights with every clickwrap agreement which sets out New York State law, and requirements about transparency and security, but again the state is not enforcing the laws, so these freemium products are still being used. And as Cheri said, essentially they are getting paid by use of the data in all sorts of commercial profit making ways. There was also a piece on 60 Minutes this week, I don't know whether you saw it Cheri, about these genetic companies Ancestry, etc., that tell you about your genes and your inheritance, and where your family comes from, etc. And it turns out they're making much of their money not in the amount that you pay for the product, but by then repackaging the data, and essentially selling it to drug companies, either to be used for marketing purposes or the development of new drugs. So it's in some ways it's similar to this freemium where they really want to use your data to develop new products and market to you products that they're selling at a profit.
There are other advocacy tools that we suggest in our parent toolkit that we really recommend that you use by talking to other parents about concerns, going to school board meetings, hopefully more than one parent in a group, to talk about this, posting your concerns on social media, and following up with school administrators to talk about the need for stronger security and privacy protections. We also on our website have a US state report card grading every state on the strength of their student privacy laws. Most states have them now, none of them are strong enough. But we look at all the different elements in your state's student privacy law. We also have links to those laws and grade them on five different issues. Right now, Washington State, which doesn't have a state student privacy law, is debating on whether to adopt them, and Cheri has been working with advocates in Washington on this. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Cheri Kiesecker
Yeah they have an existing student privacy law, but it's weak, and of course there's never private right of action, and has the typical loopholes that we see in other states, and there's a general Washington Privacy Act that's being heard right now that also takes the same approach that we have across the nation, rather than making it opt-in consent where we do not process your data, we will not sell your data without your explicit. That's what we mean, like they do in Europe, with the GDPR, but the Washington Privacy Act says it will collect the data and allow you to opt out of certain sharing of data, they'll still have the data and the problem is, as you pointed out, there's really no way to know how that data is being used, or processed or sold once they have it and the best way to protect it is just don't let them collect it.
So an alternative to this Washington Privacy Act that doesn't really have a strong private right of action is something called the People's Privacy Act, and it's a group of grassroots and privacy advocates who have a very strong alternative bill, which probably isn't even going to be allowed to be heard in the state of Washington because it does have private right of action and it prevents collection, it is an opt-in consent bill. And what we see in many states is when these types of really strong bills get to the legislature, they often are not heard, and they're not even given a chance, and the New York Times piece in the newspaper this weekend kind of covers this when they say you're choosing surveillance over democracy, and we're giving power to the big tech companies who, the majority of contribute to our legislators, so you've got this joint lobbying system that's the people who are deciding your bills it's a real problem.
Leonie Haimson
So we have a caller on the line. Caller, could you give your name, where you're from, and what your question or concern is about student privacy?
Caller 1
I wanted to know if the students or the parents have to sign some type of consent form in order to have that data released to a third-party. And also I would like to know how is it that charter schools are being being mandated to go into public schools and taxpayers have to pay their rent. I mean, there's something wrong there and maybe you can explain it to me.
Leonie Haimson
Alright, so this is another issue that we talked about earlier but it's actually connected with with student privacy as well. So the governor, Governor Cuomo, and the state legislature, the State Senate when it was controlled by Republicans, pushed through a law requiring New York City to provide space for charter schools, either in our public school buildings or pay for their private space. This happens nowhere else in the country. We're spending about $100 million dollars a year on this. And as our previous guest said the state, the governor now says they're not going to reimburse us for it.
So it's incredibly inequitable and unfair. The reason it's connected with student privacy is our mayor has allowed charter schools to access family information indirectly through mailing houses to recruit more students. And of course, the more students they recruit, the more space they need, the more money that comes out of DOE budget for our public schools. And we are the only district in the entire country that does this voluntarily. We had a protest about this, we wanted it to be consent, instead of opt-out. Originally there was no consent or opt-out and the Mayor finally said okay you can opt out of having your family's information and address shared with charter schools for the purpose of recruiting more students.
However, no one knows how to opt out. It has to be done online and several parents who say they have opted out are still getting mailers from charter schools to this day that are spending millions of dollars on recruiting more students. So all of this goes against the interest of our public school students. I think we might have time for one more call.
Caller 2
Hi, I'm in the Bronx. I was thinking that the main concern here is to protect the children from advertising. That can be easy from watching YouTube. If we paid YouTube a certain amount of money per month, they won't interrupt any of the programs by their advertising.
Leonie Haimson
I wonder if that's true if they're logging in with their school devices that and we also don't want to make parents pay extra. Many YouTube videos are being assigned to kids through their school devices, or their Gmail programs, their G Suite programs. And, at a minimum, we should be requiring that no advertising be allowed, but it's a really difficult and complicated issue. Cheri's written about this on our website and I will put a link to that as well on how parents can try to configure the browser so that they don't get advertising, but it is a very complex issue.
Unfortunately, we have to sign off now. Again, I will put a link to our parent poll, and a lot of the other materials parents can use to try to protect their kid's data. Thank you so much for being here Cheri, I hope that you might be able to be on again.
Cheri Kiesecker
Of course, thanks a lot!
Leonie Haimson
So, this is Leonie Haimson, host of Talk Out of School on WBAI 99.5 FM Pacifica Radio. Our show is available as a podcast if you miss the live version. If you hear it through Apple podcasts, please do leave a review. Also please consider becoming a WBAI buddy to Talk Out of School by logging into give to wbai.org or calling 516-620-3602. I'll be back soon with another episode of Talk Out of School. Until then, be careful and be safe and thanks so much for listening.