(January 5th, 2010)
Private & Home Educators of California
Roy Hanson, Jr. – Director
There are many reasons to avoid involvement in public education programs. One of those reasons is to protect our children’s privacy. And one thing that will set up our children to have their privacy violated is to enroll them in a system that will record, track, and report personal information about them.
On July 24, 2009, the U.S. Department of Education and President Obama announced that all states will be eligible to compete for $4.35 billion in “Race to the Top” competitive grants to support education reform.
A core component of “Race to the Top” is a system for tracking students from preschool through college, implementing the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems program.
Governor Schwarzenegger has called a Special Session of the state Legislature to make sure California will be eligible to receive as much federal money as possible under “Race to the Top.” Succumbing to the lure of this federal money, one of the bills introduced in this special session is SB 2e, which applies only to public schools. This bill states in part, …the Legislature declares its intent to create a Preschool through Higher Education (P-20) statewide longitudinal educational data system….
This means that every person enrolled in a public preschool, kindergarten, any of 1st through 12th grades, junior college, college, or post-graduate school will be irrevocably tracked in this invasive data system.
Regardless of any claims to the contrary, parents should not expect the privacy of their children to be protected whenever needs of the state and nation might change in the future. Personal privacy will become subservient to the “needs of the state”.
One way to protect your children’s privacy is to not involve them in any public education program, where their personal information can be irrevocably captured.