9486 in the collection  

Company gets kindergartners' Social Security numbers, data

Ohanian Comment: Here's the subhead: Permission not needed to hand over Social Security info; TEA says it's safe. How safe to Texas parents feel when they receive assurance from the Texas Education Agency? And note: millions spent on data bases of pre-K and K test scores. Data, data, data.

In addition to the outrage of handing over social security numbers to private companies, take a look at what this data is and does. It is reporting on how children do in Pre-K. Pre-K becomes preparation for kindergarten, which has become preparation for the Graduate Record Exam.

Keep your eye on Susan Landry, a developmental psychologist who is upending developmentally appropriate practice. Enter her name in a 'search' on the homepage of this site and you will see that Edward Zigler, who is referred to as the "father of Head Start" for his role in creating and sustaining the program, has questioned the Landry panel's independence from the Bush administration while it conducted its work.

As reported in the Washington Post, Landry worked for Bush when he was governor. And there's more:


• Susan Landry was a featured speaker at Laura Bush's White House Summit and mini White House Summits held across the United States discussing cognitive development in young children.
• In 2006, Michael Eisner and his company The Tornante Co. purchased Team Baby Entertainment and appointed Landry to an advisory board.
And here you get the profit component
• Landry is the Chief of the Division of Developmental Pediatrics and the Director of the Center for Improving the Readiness of Children for Learning and Education (CIRCLE), funded by the U. S. government, the TEA, and foundation money including $10 million from Texas oil billionaire Dan L. Duncan.


By Staci Hupp

Texas school districts are handing over Social Security numbers, dates of birth and other sensitive information about the state's kindergarten students to a private software company without permission from the children's parents.

State education officials who set up the unusual arrangement insist that the information is safe. But some educators and parents worry about sending student Social Security numbers to a private company hired to store kindergarten reading test scores.

A privacy expert says thousands of 5- and 6-year-olds are vulnerable to identity theft as a result.

"I would hope that any company that had the financial future of every single kindergartner in Texas would be put through the mill as far as security," said David Holtzman, a former security analyst who wrote the book Privacy Lost.

"This is more valuable than a million dollars in gold coins in the bank."

OZ Systems, an Arlington software company, has received at least $2.3 million in state money to create databases of preschool and kindergarten student records.

The new database for kindergarten test scores also includes sections for children's names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, gender, school identification numbers and parents' names and addresses, educators say.

OZ Systems was hired by a University of Texas research group that describes itself as the early childhood arm of the Texas Education Agency, which regulates public schools.

"It's quite amazing the security that OZ has in place for this information," said Susan Landry, director of the UT group, known as the State Center for Early Childhood Development. "You are overemphasizing the Social Security number."

More than 350,000 children attend public school kindergarten in Texas.

Dr. Landry's group uses their scores on the Texas Primary Reading Index and its Spanish equivalent, the Tejas LEE, as part of a new "school ready" ratings system that gauges the quality of preschools in Texas.

The UT-developed ratings system hopes to judge public and private preschool classrooms by how children fare on reading and behavior tests that they take as kindergarteners the following school year. <

A new state law requires school districts to report the kindergarten reading scores to UT. But it doesn't require the behavior test or the reporting of a child's personal information.

Tracking from preschool

TEA officials said Social Security numbers help UT researchers track children from preschool, when they're too young to have a state-assigned school identification number.

"We have a great deal of experience in keeping that information secure," said Gina Day, deputy associate commissioner at TEA.

;Dr. Landry said elementary school teachers are not required to enter student Social Security numbers into the OZ database. But some school officials dispute that.

"It won't let you do anything until you put the Social Security number in," said Mark Lukert, principal of Lakeside Elementary School in Coppell.

"Social Security numbers and dates of birth are key ingredients for cooking up a fake identity," said Mr. Holtzman, the privacy expert. "Just think about when you have to identify yourself to a credit card company," he said. "These are the questions they ask."

In recent years, government agencies have moved away from using Social Security numbers to identify people and now use random numbers instead.

Pearson Educational Measurement officials, who develop or administer standardized tests in Texas and 22 other states, say they use ID numbers to link students to their test data.

"I don't think in the testing side of it that we ever encounter Social Security numbers," said David Hakensen, vice president of public relations.

Last month, TEA told elementary school principals in a letter that they have until Feb. 22 to enter the student records in the OZ database. Some educators said they didn't question the database security because they believed the information goes to TEA and not a private vendor.

"As adults you don't even put your Social Security card in your wallet," said Mr. Lukert, an officer with the Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association. "And yet here we are required to give that information out. It doesn't make sense."

TEA officials said OZ Systems' contract requires the company to comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, a federal law that protects student educational records.

OZ Systems executives compare their security levels to that of a bank.

Steve Montgomery, the company's vice president of operations, said software hasn't fallen prey to hackers in OZ Systems' 22-year history.

"Nothing to worry about. The company also has a proven track record in Texas and worldwide," Mr. Montgomery said.

Parents "have nothing to worry about," he said. "If you think about the state maintaining the information, your best and brightest in technology don't work for state departments. They're in the private sector."

Laura Jordan isn't convinced. The Richardson mother of three doesn't like putting her own Social Security number on secure Web sites, let alone her children's.

"I don't feel comfortable with my son's Social Security number being out there," said Mrs. Jordan, whose son is a kindergartener at Yale Elementary School. "Certainly, I would like to be asked for permission."

Mari McGowan, a McKinney attorney who represents Dallas-area school districts, said releasing student Social Security numbers to OZ probably doesn't break federal privacy laws that require parent consent.

One exemption to FERPA appears to allow schools to send private student information to organizations working on behalf of state education agencies.

Kyle Ward, a Texas Parent Teacher Association spokesman, says he trusts UT and TEA officials to safeguard children's identities as closely as they safeguard them in the classroom.

"We have no reason to believe there is a problem," Mr. Ward said.

But problems have cropped up in the past.

Personal data for millions of U.S. veterans fell into the hands of thieves who stole a laptop computer from a Department of Veterans Affairs computer analyst in 2006.

"People have a hard time getting worked up because they don't see the cause and effect" Mr. Holtzman said. "You've got to stop it when they're collecting it because by the time they've lost it, it's too late."

— Staci Hupp
Dallas Morning News
2008-01-12


---

INDEX OF OUTRAGES

Pages: 380   
[1] 2 3 4 5 6  Next >>    Last >>