In July 2014, after helping to defeat inBloom Inc., we launched the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy because we realized how widely personal student data was being disclosed by schools, districts, states and private corporations – without parent knowledge or consent. Since then, our organization has become the go-to source for the parent point of view on student privacy and what must be done to strengthen parent rights to protect their children’s data from breaches and abuse.
Please help support our efforts, by clicking here at the Class Size Matters website, and specifying that you would like your tax-deductible donation to go to the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy.
Our Coalition continues to make waves. We have written op-eds and have been quoted widely on the need to protect sensitive, personally identifiable student information, most recently in relation to Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to expand online learning, and Google’s data-mining of students at school. At the same time, we are working to inform parents about how to access their children’s personal data collected by state departments of education, as well as what they should demand in terms of privacy and security protections.
Next year offers great promise for our Coalition since we were able to secure some grant funding and are now able to dedicate more time to this work. More specifically, we plan to collaborate with the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood to create and distribute a toolkit to educate parents, teachers and school officials about best practices to protect student information; and further grow our Coalition. We will be hosting webinars and intensifying our parent outreach in the upcoming year. More details to come soon.
In the meantime, we hope you will consider making a financial contribution to our Coalition’s efforts to help us strengthen our fight to protect student privacy. You can make your tax-deductible donation here and specify the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy as the recipient. Any amount helps!
By redoubling our efforts to improve school and district policies and practices, as well as improve legal protections, we are uniquely positioned to affect positive change for student privacy in the year ahead.
Again, thanks for all that you do to support student privacy. We look forward to a wonderful New Year working with you!
Rachael Stickland and Leonie Haimson
Co-chairs, Parent Coalition for Student Privacy
email: [email protected] | website: www.parentcoalitionforstudentprivacy.org | facebook: http://tinyurl.com/PCSPfbook | twitter: @parents4privacy