Private Schools want to data mine you and your kids personal information

Tea party "stand with Walker" followers of the governor better start paying attention, or they're likely to wake up one day to find their kids have become government controlled commodities with limited rights and freedoms.

We already know Republicans represent the corporate and wealthy, positively packaged as "job creators." Well, the tentacles of private business are now about to burrow deeply into your child's most personal information, creating a private free market national database. What will they do with that information?  Maybe a little economic blackmail?

Remember when the tea party Republicans couldn't stop whining about Common Core's "data mining?"

Dozens of tea party supporters sent lawmakers a letter this week raising concerns about a loss of local control, lowered educational standards and an invasion of student privacy.    

Implementing Common Core will lead to "data mining" — the federal government collecting student and family information and sharing it with employers and others. Duke Pesta, an assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, also a guy who spoke at a “packed into a Republican gathering at an American Legion hall in Cedarburg,” contends that in accepting common assessments aligned to the national standards, states agreed to share data they collect with the federal government.

DPI said no new data collection is required as part of the Common Core State Standards. The data are owned by the districts, and in no case would the data ever be sold to anyone, according to the DPI. 

Private Schools want You and your Kids personal information...NOW! Don't expect any blowback on this latest leap into fascism, since deep down inside this has always been the end game whether they knew it or not:

jsonline: School choice advocates have requested the names, addresses, phone numbers and grade levels of every student enrolled in 30 different public school districts, gearing up for a marketing campaign should lawmakers lift the enrollment cap on Wisconsin's statewide voucher program.

But what School Choice Wisconsin sees as a legal way to augment its mailing list, public school supporters see as a legal affront on personal privacy. The issue is prompting some district leaders to revisit options for limiting the release of student data, including reminding parents of their ability to opt out. "We're trying to augment our mailing list."

Tea Party for Data Mining? 

The organization (School Choice Wis) is particularly keen on connecting with public school parents ... Directory information includes information such as students' names, addresses, telephone numbers, date and place of birth, major field of study, height, weight, athletic team participation, awards achieved, and schools attended.  

Oshkosk School District Superintendent Stan Mack, "That information getting into the wrong hands could create significant danger," he said. "...that information floating about seems to not to be the best idea." Scot Ross, executive director of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now, said there's no way to predict what School Choice Wisconsin will do with the data. "We're not saying what they did was illegal, we're saying it's sleazy, and given the voucher industry's record on accountability, there are legitimate concerns about how this data is used, resold and transmitted," Ross said Friday.

Trust us, misusing the information is not our intention....

Bender countered that they've stated that they don't intend to sell or use the data for commercial purposes.

That's reassuring. 

While our own government stores a lot of our personal information, it also has safeguards against sharing that data, or using it against us. There would be political hell to pay if that trust were ever broken. But the private sector has no limits. Headlines about data breaches in the private sector over charge cards and personal information are so common now, even tea party Republicans don't give a rats ass. They fear their own government more. But what happens when government and business are one and the same?