You hand John­ny his packed lunch, give him a kiss, and smile as you see him run off to school.  Once in the class­room, his teacher tells him that today is the big day to take the state test for Com­mon Core.

John­ny sits down in front of a com­put­er and avails him­self to the “four par­al­lel streams of affec­tive sensors.”

1. A “facial expres­sion cam­era” detects emo­tion, cap­tur­ing facial expressions.
2. The “pos­ture analy­sis seat” ana­lyzes the mood of John­ny based on how he sits.
3. The “pres­sure mouse” ana­lyzes how John­ny uses the com­put­er mouse.
4. The “wire­less skin con­duc­tance sen­sor” (a wide, black bracelet) col­lects “phys­i­o­log­i­cal response data from a biofeed­back appa­ra­tus that mea­sures blood vol­ume, pulse, and gal­van­ic skin response to exam­ine stu­dent frustration.”

This infor­ma­tion from John­ny will be col­lect­ed every year, from K‑12 edu­ca­tion, on into col­lege, and into the work­force.  It is all part of the State Longti­tu­di­nal Data­base Sys­tem (SLDS) that states are adopt­ing to be in com­pli­ance with the Com­mon Core Standards.

Why am I against Com­mon Core Data Min­ing?  I went into teach­ing because of my love of chil­dren and my joy of being a part of ignit­ing the spark of intel­lec­tu­al curios­i­ty in young stu­dents.  The Com­mon Core Stan­dards is a nation­al pol­i­cy designed to man­age the entire nation’s pop­u­la­tion, treats indi­vid­u­als as cogs, and destroys what lit­tle remains of a pos­i­tive edu­ca­tion­al envi­ron­ment.  Sad­ly, it is just anoth­er depress­ing gov­ern­men­tal, top-down pro­gram dic­tat­ed to teach­ers and fam­i­lies.  Hor­ri­fy­ing­ly, it will use mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy to make deci­sions for the mass­es, and thus destroy the diver­si­ty and indi­vid­u­al­i­ty of edu­ca­tion and our country.

On Com­mon Core tests, along with answer­ing ques­tions about aca­d­e­mics, stu­dents will pro­vide “Per­son­al­ly Iden­ti­fi­able Infor­ma­tion.”  And, sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion will be extract­ed, as well, such as:

1. Polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions or beliefs of the stu­dent or parent;
2. Men­tal and psy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lems of the stu­dent or the stu­den­t’s family;
3. Sex behav­ior or attitudes;
4. Ille­gal, anti-social, self-incrim­i­nat­ing, and demean­ing behavior;
5. Crit­i­cal appraisals of oth­er indi­vid­u­als with whom respon­dents have close fam­i­ly relationships;
6. Legal­ly rec­og­nized priv­i­leged or anal­o­gous rela­tion­ships, such as those of lawyers, physi­cians, and ministers;
7. Reli­gious prac­tices, affil­i­a­tions, or beliefs of the stu­dent or the stu­den­t’s par­ent; or
8. Income (oth­er than that required by law to deter­mine eli­gi­bil­i­ty for par­tic­i­pa­tion in a pro­gram or for receiv­ing finan­cial assis­tance under such program).

This infor­ma­tion will then be man­aged by inBloom, Inc., a pri­vate orga­ni­za­tion fund­ed by the Bill and Melin­da Gates Foun­da­tion.  It is pre­pos­ter­ous to imag­ine any fam­i­ly want­i­ng a pri­vate orga­ni­za­tion to col­lect and use pri­vate infor­ma­tion over the child­hood and young adult­hood of fam­i­ly members. 

There are many rea­sons why I do not like the Com­mon Core Stan­dards, but the strongest one involves data min­ing.  Using tech­nol­o­gy to make edu­ca­tion more effi­cient and com­mer­cial scares me because it treats indi­vid­ual stu­dents like data and it is open to cor­rup­tion and abuse.

Ref­er­ences:

Her­itage Foun­da­tion Con­fer­ence (pan­el dis­cus­sion) on Com­mon Core: “Putting the Brakes on Com­mon Core” — http://youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P40GaKlIwb8 (Pan­elists includ­ed Lind­sey Burke of the Her­itage Foun­da­tion, Jim Ster­gios of Pio­neer Insti­tute, Ted Rebar­ber of Account­abil­i­ty Works, Heather Crossin of Hoosiers Against Com­mon Core, and Chris­tel Swasey. Michele Malkin was a guest speaker)

Bob Lue­bke, “Com­mon Core Will Impose an Unproven One-Size-Fits-All Cur­ricu­lum on North Car­oli­na,” Civ­i­tas Insti­tute, March 18, 2013. Ref­er­enced at: http://nccivitas.org/2013/common-core-imposes-one-size-fits-all-curriculum/

Bob Lue­bke, “Com­mon Core: Worse Than You Think,” Civ­i­tas Insti­tute, April 11, 2013. Ref­er­enced at: http://nccivitas.org/2013/common-core-worse-than-you-think/

Dean Kala­har, “Com­mon Core: Nation­al­ized State-Run Edu­ca­tion,” Amer­i­can Thinker, April 12, 2013. Ref­er­enced at: http://americanthinker.com/2013/04/common_core_nationalized_state-run_education.html

Mal­lo­ry Sauer, “Data Min­ing Stu­dents Through Com­mon Core, New Amer­i­can, April 25, 2013. Ref­er­enced at: http://thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/15213-data-mining-students-through-common-core

Rachel Alexan­der, “Com­mon Core Cur­ricu­lum: A Look Behind the Cur­tain of Hid­den Lan­guage,” Chris­t­ian Post, April 18, 2013. Ref­er­enced at: http://christianpost.com/news/common-core-cirriculum-a-look-behind-the-curtain-of-hidden-language-92070/

Rufi­no, Diane, “For Love of God and Coun­try,”  http://beaufortobserver.net/Articles-NEWS-and-COMMENTARY-c-2013–05-13–266807.112112-COMMON-CORE-Common-Core-or-Rotten-to-the-Core-You-Decide.html

Data Min­ing, on the Glen Beck Show — http://youtube.com/watch?v=7NjqOBEc3HU

Valerie Strauss, ” A Tough Cri­tique of Com­mon Core on Ear­ly Child­hood Edu­ca­tion,” The Wash­ing­ton Post, Jan­u­ary 29, 2013. Ref­er­enced at: http://washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/29/a‑tough-critique-of-common-core-on-early-childhood-education/

Real­i­ty Check: The Truth About Com­mon Core — http://youtube.com/watch?v=6AdiCGgxj58