Reprinted with permission from LDACA: LA

COMMON CORE Education without Representation

State Office of Education Operating Database to Track Individuals Without Authority

The following letter is reposted with permission from Libertas Institute, a Utah-based conservative think-tank. It was given to members of the Utah legislature two weeks ago.

It concerns the State Longitudinal Database System (SLDS) which was implemented in Utah –and in every state, thanks to federal bribery– just a few years ago.

Each SLDS runs according to federal specs and is interoperable. Thus, the fifty SLDS systems function together as a “de facto” federal stalking system on children, college students, and the members of the U.S. workforce. Every state’s “voluntary” SLDS feeds its data about citizens to the federal EdFacts data exchange.

Libertas Institute points out that SLDS was created and is being used without voter approval or representation; there was no legislative knowledge or debate, and there has been no effort to promote parental knowledge or to acquire parental/student consent for this massive, lifelong data mining project.

Action step: after you read this letter, please contact your legislators (here is contact info for Utah legislators, the governor and D.C. legislators) to put them on the task of creating, at the very least, an immediate, definite, parental-opt-out bill.

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September 28, 2015
To: Members of the Administrative Rules Review Committee

Senators and Representatives,

The Utah State Office of Education (USOE) will be in your meeting tomorrow, among other things, to explain the Statewide Longitudinal Data System (SLDS)—a large database that stores a lengthy list of data points on each child in Utah’s public schools. We are concerned with how this database was set up and how it’s being used; as we are unable to attend the meeting, we wish to brieﬂy outline key concerns for your consideration.

We allege that USOE created, and now operates, this database without any legislative authorization or oversight. Further, the federal funding USOE has obtained in order to build and operate the database has required them to make certain policy commitments, as you’ll see below, that exceed their authority and circumvented any public discussion on the matter.

This letter outlines three actions of which you should be aware:
1. The “Four Assurances” promised by Governor Huntsman
2. A grant received by USOE to build the federally compliant SLDS
3. The 2015 grant announced just last week to further develop and utilize the SLDS

The “Four Assurances” promised by Governor Huntsman
On April 15, 2009, Governor Jon Huntsman signed an Application for Initial Funding under the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund Program, submitted to the U.S. Department of Education. The purpose of this application was to obtain federal “stimulus” dollars; here is the explanation from the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE):

The State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) program is a new one-time appropriation of $53.6 billion under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). Of the amount appropriated, the U. S. Department of Education will award governors approximately $48.6 billion by formula under the SFSF program in exchange for a commitment to advance essential education reforms…

Without legislative authorization or guarantee, the Governor made four assurances to the USDOE—a required step in order to receive any many. Those assurances were as follows:
1. The State of Utah will take actions to “improve teacher effectiveness” and “address inequities in the distribution of highly qualiﬁed teachers between high- and low-poverty schools”
2. The State of Utah will “establish a longitudinal data system”
3. The State will –
1. Enhance the quality of the academic assessments it administers…
2. Comply with the requirements… related to the inclusion of children with disabilities and limited English proﬁcient students in State assessments, the development of valid and reliable assessments for those students, and the provision of accommodations that enable their participation in State assessments; (Inclusion Assurance) and
3. Take steps to improve State academic content standards and student academic achievement standards consistent with section 6401(e)(1)(A)(ii) of the America COMPETES Act. (Improving Standards Assurance)
4. The State will ensure compliance with the requirements of section 1116(b)(7)(C)(iv) and section 1116(b)(8)(B) of the ESEA with respect to schools identiﬁed under these sections. (Supporting Struggling Schools Assurance)

Thus, without any legislation to back it up, the federal government was promised signiﬁcant policy reforms in the state: common education standards (“Common Core”), new assessments, teacher evaluations, school grading, and a comprehensive data collection system.

All of this was done in pursuit of money; less than a year later, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that Utah had been showered with $741,979,396 through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Utah lawmakers—and thus the public at large—were left out of the loop.

A grant received by USOE to build the federally compliant SLDS
Under the same Recovery (“stimulus”) Act, USOE was given a grant of $9.6 million to create the Utah Data Alliance—a longitudinal database that was fully compliant with USDOE requirements. While data systems had obviously existed previous to this grant, this one was geared, as USOE wrote, primarily towards satisfying questions and requirements “asked by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), Institute of Educational Sciences (IES), SLDS grants program; the ARRA, Race to the Top (RttT); and the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) assurances”—all federal mandates tied to funding USOE desired.

The Utah legislature did not authorize the creation of the SLDS, to our knowledge. The only
statutory references we have been able to identify refer to the already-existing database. For example, Senate Bill 82 in 2013 (which passed and was signed into law) had this language:
(e) “Utah Student Record Store” means a repository of student data collected from LEAs as part of the state’s longitudinal data system that is:
(i) managed by the Utah State Office of Education;
(ii) cloud-based; and
(iii) accessible via a web browser to authorized LEA users.
(2) (a) The State Board of Education shall use the robust, comprehensive data collection system maintained by the Utah State Onnce of Education…According to USOE, a statewide longitudinal database—mostly complaint with federal standards—had been in operation since 2005.

The 2015 grant announced just last week to further develop and utilize the SLDS
On September 17, 2015, the Institute of Education Sciences—a project housed within the U.S.
Department of Education—announced that Utah was awarded a grant under the Statewide Longitudinal Data System Grant Program in the amount of _____AMOUNT______, along
with potential continuation grants to provide more funding in the years ahead.

USOE’s application for this grant , obtained through an open records request, sheds light on the alarming nature of this project. In order to suggest legislative authorization for the SLDS and Utah Data Alliance, USOE argues that “The Utah State Legislature awarded UDA partners [individual state agencies] ongoing appropriations to support sustainability of the original infrastructure (e.g., database, researchers, technicians, project director, and technical contracts), which demonstrates the state’s commitment to the work and mission of the UDA data warehouse.” In other words, narrow appropriations for data projects in state agencies is being interpreted as blanket authority for, and support of, the overall SLDS project. We feel this a misguided and unreasonable inference. Further, USDOE’s Request for Applications document speciﬁes that “a successful data system rests upon a governance structure involving both State and local stakeholders in the system’s design and implementation.” However, USOE’s application admits that only “A memorandum of understanding governs the partnership. A governance plan documents the policies of the partnership and is continuously updated and reﬁned to address emerging governance issues.” An MOU, which can continuously evolve free from vetted processes and public input, is insufficient to govern the requirements of such a large database—one that has signiﬁcant privacy and security implications.

There are many disconcerting statements and policy priorities outlined in USOE’s application, but our main concern here is that the real “stakeholders” have been completely left out of the loop. From information we have gathered, the State Board of Education was unaware of this grant application. No vote was taken on the issue. No legislative authorization was given to compile this information on every child, make the information available to state government agencies (including “individual-level data in the UDA data warehouse”), or provide data to third parties. Most importantly, the true stakeholders are almost totally unaware that this database even exists; Utah law recognizes that “the state’s role is secondary and supportive to the primary role of a parent.”

You may be aware that Libertas Institute organized a lawsuit late last year against the State Board of Education over its rushed adoption of Common Core, done in to obtain federal money under the Race to the Top grant. (A hearing is scheduled in a few weeks.) We feel that a pattern exists within USOE, whereby education policy is dictated not with input from parents and teachers, or even legislators or the State Board of Education, but by USOE’s seemingly insatiable appetite for federal grants, which inevitably come with signiﬁcant strings.

If “strings” are to exist, then they must be openly discussed, debated, and authorized—not agreed upon behind closed doors with the unscrutinized stroke of a pen. You as legislators have been circumvented and deemed largely irrelevant on this issue. Signiﬁcant education policies are being adopted and implemented without public input. We encourage you to take an active interest in this issue and bring transparency and scrutiny to USOE grant applications and the policies that necessarily follow.

Sincerely,

Connor Boyack
President, Libertas Institute
785 E. 200 S., Suite 2, Lehi, UT 84043
801.901.0310
LibertasUtah.org

DOCUMENT SOURCES
1 Application for Initial Funding under the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund Program, http://
www2.ed.gov/programs/statestabilization/stateapps/ut-sub.pdf
“State Fiscal Stabilization Fund,” U.S. Department of Education, March 7, 2009, http://
2 www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/recovery/factsheet/stabilization-fund.html
“UTAH STUDENT RECORDS EXCHANGE,” https://nces.ed.gov/programs/slds/pdf/
3 Utahabstract.pdf
“INFORMATION RELATED TO FY15 GRANTS,” http://nces.ed.gov/programs/slds/
4 grant_information.asp
“Enhancing Utah Data Alliance College and Career and Evaluation and Research Capabilities
5 through Web Technology,” http://libertasutah.org/drop/slds_2015.pdf

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