DATA-MINING OUR KIDS: As if 24/7 electronic government surveillance of adults weren’t enough, a private equity firm is gobbling up private companies that collect data about our kids in school, and no one knows why.
“Over the past six years, a little-known private equity firm, Vista Equity Partners, has built an educational software empire that wields unseen influence over the educational journeys of tens of millions of children. Along the way, The Markup found, the companies the firm controls have scooped up a massive amount of very personal data on kids, which they use to fuel a suite of predictive analytics products that push the boundaries of technology’s role in education and, in some cases, raise discrimination concerns…
PowerSchool alone claims to hold data on more than 45 million children, including 75 percent of North American K-12 students. Ellucian, a recent Vista acquisition, says it serves 26 million students. And EAB’s products are used by thousands of colleges and universities. But parents of those students say they’ve largely been left in the dark about what data the companies collect and how they use it.”
Read the whole thing. If everything else wrong with K12 in America hasn’t inspired you yet, maybe this will persuade you to #justwalkaway.