The Sto­ry Behind the Pennsylvania
Press Release and Open Let­ter

By Ani­ta Hoge, 3D Research Group

 

“I have grave con­cerns about the direc­tion that the Com­mon Core stan­dards move­ment has tak­en, as well as, my con­cerns of the ethics of test­ing and teach­ing in the affec­tive domain. I must ques­tion the legal­i­ty of these meth­ods with­out prop­er safe­guards and ask that legal coun­sel respond to this direc­tion that Penn­syl­va­nia has taken.”

~Ani­ta Hoge’s let­ter to PA Dept of Ed, 9/12/14

On Mon­day, Novem­ber 24, 2014 Penn­syl­va­ni­ans Restor­ing Edu­ca­tion and Penn­syl­va­nia Against Com­mon Core issued a Press Release ask­ing Gov­er­nor Cor­bett to place a mora­to­ri­um on the data col­lec­tion in the Penn­syl­va­nia Infor­ma­tion Man­age­ment Sys­tem and to rescind all con­tracts with out­side con­trac­tors who can access per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion on chil­dren in vio­la­tion of fed­er­al law, state pol­i­cy, and Chap­ter 4 regulations.

To alert all Amer­i­cans this press release was pub­lished in its entire­ty on Char­lotte Iserbyt’s blog titled: “PA Cit­izens Ask Gov. Cor­bett for Data Col­lec­tion Mora­to­ri­um” (http://abcsofdumbdown.blogspot.com/2014/11/pa-citizens-ask-gov-corbett-for-data.html). The press release state, in part:

“We have dis­cov­ered that Penn­syl­va­nia con­tin­ues to be the mod­el for the nation to devel­op a dossier on each cit­i­zen feed­ing into a nation­al data base that col­lects this per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion with the col­lab­o­ra­tion of the schools. This sys­temic col­lu­sion between the Penn­syl­va­nia Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion and the Nation­al Cen­ter for Edu­ca­tion Sta­tis­tics cre­at­ed a nation­al ID with­out the knowl­edge of the cit­i­zens. This sys­tem boasts that “all of the Com­mon­wealth’s chil­dren, ado­les­cents, and adults” will have a dossier. (CFDA-# 84.384) We have also found that this data base in Penn­syl­va­nia is a mod­el state for the nation to imple­ment a “womb to work­force” data base, (NCES Con­tract: CFDS-#84.384, PR/Award #R372A090022; grants.gov Track­ing #: Grant 10076087) that would start at birth and con­tin­ue until retire­ment which con­nects the Depart­ment of Labor with wages in this dossier with the addi­tion of the last 5 dig­its of the SSN or the con­nec­tion to this Unique ID. (Cor­re­spon­dence between Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion Ger­ald Zahor­chak and Sec­re­tary of Labor Sandy Vito). This cre­ates a data base of human cap­i­tal, your worth… or non-worth to the econ­o­my. (Pennsylvania’s Work­force Data Qual­i­ty Ini­tia­tive Grant) (PA-WDQI)”

“The fed­er­al  gov­ern­ment in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Penn­syl­va­nia is devel­op­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal pro­files on the fam­i­lies of this coun­try through the per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion col­lect­ed in the schools that will be used as a deci­sion-mak­ing mod­el for the future. The gov­ern­ment wants to know HOW you think and WHAT you think and every­thing about YOU. This is a gov­ern­ment intel­li­gence oper­a­tion using edu­ca­tion to cre­ate a dossier on every fam­i­ly in this coun­try. Atti­tudes and prac­tices of each fam­i­ly are unwit­ting­ly revealed in the stu­den­t’s response in the class­room and on tests through the “Spe­cial Ed Stu­dent Snap and Stu­dent Snap” (Penn­syl­va­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty, Pen­n­Da­ta Grant: Project Num­ber 062–14‑0–042: Fed­er­al Award Num­ber: HO27A130162)”

On Novem­ber 28, 2014 I pub­licly released the com­plete text of “Ani­ta Hoge’s OPEN LETTER to PA Dept of Ed’s Dumaresq,” again pub­lished on Char­lotte Iserbyt’s blog (http://abcsofdumbdown.blogspot.com/2014/11/anita-hoges-open-letter-to-pa-dept-of.html)  What fol­lows is impor­tant back­ground to what led up to this let­ter and our press release.

On Jan­u­ary 3, 2012 the new FERPA reg­u­la­tions went into effect that allow out­side con­trac­tors to access stu­dent per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion in a stu­dent record. An Exec­u­tive Order by Pres­i­dent Oba­ma allowed per­son­al data to flow “unlock­ing” this data. (Source: EO 12866) States must have a pol­i­cy in place that would allow a signed writ­ten agree­ment between the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion and an out­side con­trac­tor to gain access to this per­son­al data for research. FERPA reg­u­la­tions changed the def­i­n­i­tion of WHO could access the data and WHAT could be accessed. The def­i­n­i­tion of per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion not only includ­ed stu­dent name, address, zip code, birth­date, moth­er’s maid­en name, etc, it also includ­ed bio­met­ric data includ­ing fin­ger­prints, voice prints, iris scans, DNA sequences, and facial recognition.

I had researched the tem­plates for how an out­side con­trac­tor could apply for this per­son­al data. In May, I had a meet­ing in Har­ris­burg to explain these FERPA loop­holes. I asked that a state rep­re­sen­ta­tive request the names of the con­trac­tors who had access to Penn­syl­va­nia Per­son­al­ly Iden­ti­fi­able Infor­ma­tion in stu­dent records. Penn­syl­va­nia Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Lawrence received the doc­u­ments last June, but then refused to give them to us. The next request was through the Chair­man of the Sen­ate Edu­ca­tion Com­mit­tee, Sen­a­tor Mike Folmer, who request­ed the doc­u­ments and for­ward­ed them to us. The doc­u­ments are explosive.

We arranged a meet­ing in Har­ris­burg on Octo­ber 20, 2014, to explain the doc­u­ments that we found. That meet­ing was attend­ed by Sen­a­tor Folmer’s aide, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Den­linger, Jere­my Kiehl Esq, Andrew Paris, aide to Gov­er­nor Cor­bett, Ryan Ban­nis­ter, Penn­syl­va­nia Against Com­mon Core, and myself, Ani­ta Hoge. I pre­pared the doc­u­ments for the meet­ing and one by one, pre­sent­ed doc­u­ments to the entire group.

The impli­ca­tions of the impact of these doc­u­ments for the entire nation are astound­ing. These doc­u­ments explain that Penn­syl­va­nia is a mod­el to col­lect per­son­al infor­ma­tion on the stu­dent and his/her fam­i­ly. The stu­dent is giv­en a “nation­al unique ID” in order to mon­i­tor whether stu­dents were meet­ing gov­ern­ment affec­tive domain stan­dards referred to as Inter­per­son­al Skills Stan­dards and Anchors. By 2007, 1.8 mil­lion stu­dents were giv­en this unique ID in Penn­syl­va­nia, also cat­e­go­riz­ing col­lege age stu­dents, start­ing at birth to age 21. The doc­u­ments refer to the sys­tem as a “womb to work­force” data­base even­tu­al­ly con­nect­ing wages for a per­son­’s worth or human cap­i­tal” to the economy.

This is sys­tem of sur­veil­lance through con­tracts with the Nation­al Cen­ter of Edu­ca­tion Sta­tis­tics in a state lon­gi­tu­di­nal sys­tem for every state in the entire nation. It is being set up using the schools as a means to col­lect this data. This sys­tem con­nects to the demo­graph­ic data col­lect­ed by the cen­sus. In thir­ty years those stu­dents who had been giv­en the “nation­al unique ID” will be near retire­ment age, with absolute­ly no need for cen­sus gath­er­ing. This agen­da replaces the cen­sus with details of psy­cho­log­i­cal pro­files, per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion, along with bio­met­ric data and demo­graph­ic data of every per­son in the Unit­ed States – a com­plete dossier!

After this his­toric meet­ing in Sen­a­tor Folmer’s office, two days lat­er the Gov­er­nor asked Penn­syl­va­nia Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion Dumaresq to cleanse the Penn­syl­va­nia Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion web­site por­tal called Stan­dards Aligned Sys­tem, SAS, of all affec­tive domain stan­dards called Inter­per­son­al Skills Stan­dards that deal with atti­tudes, val­ues, opin­ions, and beliefs of stu­dents. This action proves wrongdoing.

The par­ents of Penn­syl­va­nia have the doc­u­ments to prove that there is much more that needs to be cleansed – every­thing about Com­mon Core, all relat­ed tests, cur­ricu­lum, soft­ware, les­son plans – every­thing must go. All data col­lec­tion must be stopped until the Attor­ney Gen­er­al inves­ti­gates the inva­sion of pri­va­cy and vio­la­tions of fed­er­al law, state pol­i­cy, and state regulations.

“Ani­ta Hoge’s OPEN LETTER to PA Dept of Ed’s Dumaresq” issued to the Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion, for­ward­ed to Gov­er­nor Cor­bett, and the Attor­ney Gen­er­al requests a mora­to­ri­um on the data col­lec­tion and an inves­ti­ga­tion into the data col­lec­tion activ­i­ties of our state. This let­ter also explains in detail the alleged vio­la­tions that the par­ents of Penn­syl­va­nia believe are being per­pe­trat­ed on their children.

You can do this too! We have infor­ma­tion and tem­plates from oth­er states that can help cit­i­zens and par­ents find the same sort of doc­u­ments to expose how your own state is involved in the data col­lec­tion. Read our press release. “PA Cit­i­zens Ask Gov. Cor­bett for Data Col­lec­tion Moratorium”

Again, here are the links to the OPEN Press Release and the OPEN Let­ter. Read these for your­selves. This is pub­lic infor­ma­tion that should be wide­ly dis­trib­uted across our nation.

 

http://abcsofdumbdown.blogspot.com/2014/11/pa-citizens-ask-gov-corbett-for-data.html

http://abcsofdumbdown.blogspot.com/2014/11/anita-hoges-open-letter-to-pa-dept-of.html

[Ed Note: In case there aris­es any doubt as to the verac­i­ty of the infor­ma­tion pub­lished on this devel­op­ing Penn­syl­va­nia sit­u­a­tion, they are to be direct­ed to Ani­ta Hoge’s excel­lent legal team.]