Feds Propose Vast College Student Database
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The government never met a database it didn't like:
Hogwash. Does anyone truly believe that some fourth-tier bureaucrat from a third-tier branch of a second-tier cabinet office is going to defy a judge's subpoena or an inquiry from Homeland Security? Please.
As I recall, you have the "ability" (or is it a de facto requirement?) to opt out of education privacy protections when applying to college or graduate school. Will "optional" NCES waivers permitting the disclosure of one's educational data to, say, prospective employers, be as inconceivable as the bureaucrats claim? As with all bureaucratic promises, I'm skeptical.
In the good old days, "federalism" meant that certain government functions were the exclusive, or near-exclusive, domain of the states. Education policy was often at the top of the list. Now we have every level of government involved in every aspect of public policy, complete with taxing, spending, regulating and, perhaps most ominously, data gathering. Federal education funding, federal education regulation, federal education monitoring, and now federal education databases. Remind me again why No Child Left Behind was a good idea, and why it was passed by conservatives?
Some privacy-apathetic commentators like to point to the fact that there has never been a breach of privacy by the Census Bureau, so what's all the panic? That may be so (and I could say much about the Census regardless), but that impressive record owes to an express federal statute (and perhaps also from the Constitutional solemnity of the Census Bureau's function) rather than an intrinsic bureaucratic trait. Would the NCES take its responsibilities as seriously as the Census Bureau does? I doubt it.
And what lessons does comprehensive data gathering send to impressionable young college minds about the proper scope of government and their rights in a supposedly "free" society?
Tracking school performance can be easily accomplished by sampling, or alternatively by anonymous tracking (or here's a radical idea: pay students to participate in the tracking studies voluntarily). It's simply not as difficult to identify bad schools or bad teachers as the educrats claim. But more tracking, more studies and more research mean bigger budgets, bigger staffs, bigger influence -- and bigger headaches when the system gets abused, as it almost certainly would.
Without drawing the obvious analogies to the Solomon Amendments that were in the news yesterday, clearly a college student who receives federal student aid can be expected to abide by certain conditions and restrictions. But a student who takes nothing from the government should be free from government's curious eyes regarding his course selection, grades, post-collegiate plans, employment, extracurricular activities, etc.
Related Posts:
"Secure Flight" Revisited
Why Subsidize Law School, Especially Bad Law School?
Why Subsidize Student Loans?
The Ghost of Dale Continues to Haunt
(Cross-linked at Outside the Beltway.)
A proposal by the federal government to create a vast new database of enrollment records on all college and university students is raising concerns that the move will erode the privacy rights of students.
Until now, universities have provided individual student information to the federal government only in connection with federally financed student aid. Otherwise, colleges and universities submit information about overall enrollment, graduation, prices and financial aid without identifying particular students.
For the first time, however, colleges and universities would have to give the government data on all students individually, whether or not they received financial assistance, with their Social Security numbers.
The bid arises from efforts in Congress and elsewhere to extend the growing emphasis on school accountability in elementary and high schools to postsecondary education. Supporters say that government oversight of individual student data will make it easier for taxpayers and policy makers to judge the quality of colleges and universities through more reliable statistics on graduation, transfers and retention.
...
Under the proposal, the National Center for Education Statistics at the Department of Education would receive, analyze and guard the data. In making its case for the change, the center points to a history of working with student information and says it has never been forced to share it with law enforcement or other agencies.
...
A department overview of the proposal insisted that data would not be shared with other agencies and that outsiders could not gain access. By law, the summary says in capitals, "Information about individuals may NEVER leave N.C.E.S."
Hogwash. Does anyone truly believe that some fourth-tier bureaucrat from a third-tier branch of a second-tier cabinet office is going to defy a judge's subpoena or an inquiry from Homeland Security? Please.
As I recall, you have the "ability" (or is it a de facto requirement?) to opt out of education privacy protections when applying to college or graduate school. Will "optional" NCES waivers permitting the disclosure of one's educational data to, say, prospective employers, be as inconceivable as the bureaucrats claim? As with all bureaucratic promises, I'm skeptical.
In the good old days, "federalism" meant that certain government functions were the exclusive, or near-exclusive, domain of the states. Education policy was often at the top of the list. Now we have every level of government involved in every aspect of public policy, complete with taxing, spending, regulating and, perhaps most ominously, data gathering. Federal education funding, federal education regulation, federal education monitoring, and now federal education databases. Remind me again why No Child Left Behind was a good idea, and why it was passed by conservatives?
Some privacy-apathetic commentators like to point to the fact that there has never been a breach of privacy by the Census Bureau, so what's all the panic? That may be so (and I could say much about the Census regardless), but that impressive record owes to an express federal statute (and perhaps also from the Constitutional solemnity of the Census Bureau's function) rather than an intrinsic bureaucratic trait. Would the NCES take its responsibilities as seriously as the Census Bureau does? I doubt it.
And what lessons does comprehensive data gathering send to impressionable young college minds about the proper scope of government and their rights in a supposedly "free" society?
Tracking school performance can be easily accomplished by sampling, or alternatively by anonymous tracking (or here's a radical idea: pay students to participate in the tracking studies voluntarily). It's simply not as difficult to identify bad schools or bad teachers as the educrats claim. But more tracking, more studies and more research mean bigger budgets, bigger staffs, bigger influence -- and bigger headaches when the system gets abused, as it almost certainly would.
Without drawing the obvious analogies to the Solomon Amendments that were in the news yesterday, clearly a college student who receives federal student aid can be expected to abide by certain conditions and restrictions. But a student who takes nothing from the government should be free from government's curious eyes regarding his course selection, grades, post-collegiate plans, employment, extracurricular activities, etc.
Related Posts:
"Secure Flight" Revisited
Why Subsidize Law School, Especially Bad Law School?
Why Subsidize Student Loans?
The Ghost of Dale Continues to Haunt
(Cross-linked at Outside the Beltway.)
Related Posts (on one page):
Posted by KipEsquire on
30 November 2004
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