We have been told that the federal government will not be collecting data on children. The state has said it will not be collecting data and sharing with the federal government. Dr. Schopp and education officials from 33 other states penned a letter to Arne Duncan, United States Secretary of Education, saying that they will not send personally identifiable information to the federal government. You can read that letter and SDACC’s joint response here.

State officials have said that SBAC will not be sending student level data, via the common assessment, to the federal government, even though on page 3 of their cooperative agreement with the US government states that SBAC has agreed to be: “…working with the Department to develop a strategy to make student-level data that results from the assessment system available on an ongoing basis…”

With the research field test for SBAC about to begin in South Dakota, you can read more about that here and here, I went to the Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) website. This is a federal government website. If you go the the letter “A”, there are 245 data points related to the assessments. And just in case you think they are not student level, check out a few of the data points the federal government wants to collect via the SBAC and other assessments. You can read them all on their website.:

Assessment Item Response Start Time 

Definition:  The time of day that the assessment item was presented to the learner. (My underline)

Assessment Item Response Duration 

Definition:  The amount of time in seconds or milliseconds that a person took to give an initial response, a first attempt to answer a formative assessment item. (My underline)

 And there will have to be a unique student identifier, There has to be an alpha numeric identifier, given to your child and you as the family. Remember, all assessments must be given online. Your child has to sign into an electronic device.  Never give your child’s Social Security Number to the school. It is not required. 

  Student Identification System 

Definition:  A coding scheme that is used for identification and record-keeping purposes by schools, social services, or other agencies to refer to a student. (My underline)

Option Set: Description Code Canadian Social Insurance Number CanadianSIN District-assigned number District Family unit number Family Federal identification number Federal National migrant number NationalMigrant School-assigned number School Social Security Administration number SSN State-assigned number State State migrant number StateMigrant Oh and notice that they want not only a family number, but also family income. Family Identifier  Definition:  A unique number or alphanumeric code assigned to a family by a school, school system, a state, or other agency or entity Family Income Definition:  Total income of family from all sources. Income includes money, wages or salary before deductions; net income from non-farm self-employment; net income from farm self-employment; regular payments from Social Security or railroad retirement; payments from unemployment compensation, strike benefits from union funds, workers’ compensation, veterans benefits (with the exception noted below), public assistance (including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Security Income, Emergency Assistance money payments, and non-Federally funded General Assistance or General Relief money payments); training stipends; alimony, child support, and military family allotments or other regular support from an absent family member or someone not living in the household; private pensions, government employee pensions (including military retirement pay), and regular insurance or annuity payments; college or university scholarships, grants, fellowships, and assistantships; and dividends, interest, net rental income, net royalties, and periodic receipts from estates or trusts; and net gambling or lottery winnings. While writing this post, I had to take a phone call. As the conversation wandered to this post and the data sharing, it was brought to my attention that the data points regarding how long it takes, to the millisecond, for a child to answer a question, could be because they are trying to make the test better. I had to concede that could be very true. The problem with that, is the federal government is prohibited from exercising any control over testing or curriculum by the General Education Provisions Act, Department of Education Organization Act and Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Please do not take my word for any of this, or anything I ever write about on here. Do your own research. My only goal is to expose the truth of the education reform agenda taking place in America.