Looking Ahead: 4 Predictions for Education Policy in 2018

Happy New Year! Here is a brief update on federal education issues we were following before Christmas and some predictions as 2018 begins. As always, the contrast between policies that uphold the Constitution, academic excellence, parental rights, and data privacy versus those that expand big government control and corporate interests, using student as mere widgets in the labor supply pipeline, is stark. Data and Psychological Privacy Thanks to you raising your voices amidst the rush to complete work before the Christmas break, the Senate, after completing the tax bill, did not, as some had feared, take up the Orwellian, de

Will Congress Spend Big on This Failed Education Program in 2018?

The corporations, foundations, investors, and politicians funded by them have been working hard this year to promote competency-based education (CBE), also called personalized learning, as well as its evil sibling, social emotional learning (SEL). CBE, although poorly defined by proponents, is essentially machine-based learning with constant assessment, including SEL assessment and profiling, to track students into higher education and workforce futures by inaccurate and inhuman computer-generated algorithms. Unfortunately, that also includes the Higher Education Act, now called the PROSPER Act, discussed in last week’s article. Here is the promised review of the CBE aspects of that bill. The term “competency”

Grading the GOP’s Latest Education Bill: Needs Improvement (on Data Privacy)

The House Education and Workforce Committee completed their mark-up last week of HR 4508, which they have named the Promoting Real Opportunity, Success, and Prosperity through Education Reform (PROSPER) Act. Here is an update on the data privacy implications of this bill. The good news is that the ban on a student unit-record system is still in place. The previously proposed College Transparency Act would have allowed non-consensual tracking of personally identifiable information from college through the workforce by monitoring individual data from the colleges and universities, the IRS, and the military. (See also here and here for more details.) Committee