Vote for privacy & against data-mining, the deplorable news from Charlottesville & NY, and more DOE crony contracts

August 16, 2017

1.       Each March, thousands of entrepreneurs and advocates for online learning funded by the edtech industry descend upon Austin’s SXSW Edu conference to promote their products and publicize their point of view. For example, it’s where Bill Gates chose to launch inBloom Inc. in 2013.  Please help us fight the onslaught of data-mining software in our schools by voting for our panel proposal “Shielding data privacy and resisting online learning.” Our panelists include attorney and privacy activist Bradley Shear, creator of the annual National Student Data Deletion Day, researcher Faith Boninger, who has just co-authored a terrific new report on student privacy for the National Education Policy Center, Marla Kilfoyle, the Executive Director of Badass Teachers Association (BATS) and me, the co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy.

To submit your vote:

·       Fill out this form.

·       Sign in and select “PANELPICKER.”

·       Search for our panel name “Shielding data privacy and resisting online learning.” Or click here: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/72014

·       Click on “Vote Up.”

Please ask your friends to vote too! The voting ends Friday, August 25th. More on conference here.

2.       The news out of Charlottesville has been appalling; as is the President’s reprehensible reaction to the white supremacist thugs and three tragic deaths. Unfortunately, their bullying tactics and racist attitudes are not an isolated phenomenon. Right before the protests, hedge-funder Daniel Loeb, board chair of the Success Academy charter network, attacked Sen. Andrea Cousins, the progressive, African-American leader of the Democratic caucus in the NY Senate, and said she was worse than the Ku Klux Klan for her opposition to the privatization of our public schools. Meanwhile, support for charter schools has fallen sharply, as revealed in the EdNext national poll.

Daniel Loeb has a history of offensive and racist comments. He has given millions of dollars to Gov. Cuomo and to keep the GOP in control of the NY Senate—who have obediently done his bidding by pushing charter expansion and increased charter funding; which will cost NYC $1.8 billion next year alone. Please sign the AQE petition and let Gov. Cuomo know he should return the hundreds of thousands of dollars he has received from this racist bully.

3.       Finally, more crony contracts have been proposed by DOE, including a $670,000 contract to be voted on Aug. 23, for New Classrooms, a company whose “blended” learning program was developed with millions of dollars of city funds when its CEO Joel Rose was at DOE. As a result of this conflict of interest, it was originally promised that NYC would never be charged a cent for this program, which has also been shown to lead to no significant learning gains in a recent randomized study. Meanwhile, the Comptroller Stringer released a scathing audit, showing that DOE’s irresponsible contracting process has repeatedly violated the City Charter and state law. More on these discouraging developments on the blog here and here.

Hope you’re enjoying the summer, Leonie