Last week, the Commissioner King revealed that, despite the calls for an indefinite delay by legislators of both parties, he intends to start uploading student data to inBloom in July, with the full launch of the data dashboards in September. We are the only state in the country in which the State Commissioner has been impervious to the objections of parents, educators, school board members and administrators, and has refused to pull out of this egregious project.
Not to mention inBloom and the data dashboards will start charging for their “services” in January, and all districts will be able to cancel the inBloom-linked data dashboards at that time. Many will likely do so. So why does inBloom need to have all this student data for three or four months of data dashboards?
On Friday the NYS Assembly will be resuming its hearings on privacy, and reps from inBloom are expected to testify. Their refusal to show up last time really backfired and angered the legislators.
The hearings will take place Friday, Feb. 28 at 10:30 AM at 250 Broadway in Lower Manhattan; livestream here. More info and a form you can fill out if you want to testify is here. See also the RT video interview from NYC parent activist Karen Sprowal on why she opposes inBloom and feels it will put at risk her child’s privacy and security on our blog below; please also sign the MoveOn petition to stop inBloom in New York state here.
See the video below and also the discussion/debate on NPR today between Aimee Guidera of the Gates-funded Data Quality Campaign and Superintendent Mary-Fox Alter of Pleasantville NY.
