Ties That Bind

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) here, Jessica Zummo, founder of the Revered Review, talked about  the development of the national student database – an ironic product of Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) that would allow states to collect categorical data on students and then share this information across government agencies. She explained that with the use of certain devices it has become easy for the government to track nearly 400 categories of data on each individual student. Devices such as polar monitors are measuring everything from students’ cholesterol levels to heart rates. They’re even attempting to classify a student’s social well-being.

She takes great issue with this calling it an invasion of privacy. Zummo drew connections to the education system saying that schools that use such devices are monitoring their students and grading them on specific physical performance. In some cases, she says, that this has led to bullying.

Zummo also pointed out that because these bands many students now wear to track their movements are supplied by the Federal Government from grant money, somehow rights are being stripped from parents and doctors. “It’s a voluntary program,” she said, “but the schools aren’t telling the parents.” According to the Revered Review, nearly 10,000 schools have used these monitors in K-12 physical education programs.

She fears that once this information has been sent to the unit record database, it will eventually be used by politicians. With FERPA, that sharing of information just got a whole lot easier.

Jocelyn Grecko is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia. Jocelyn has spent the past four years in the nation’s capital as a Media Studies undergraduate student at The Catholic University of America. She will graduate in May 2012.

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