The Data Mining of America’s Kids Should Be a National Scandal

[Ptarmigan]

The Data Mining of America’s Kids Should Be a National Scandal
https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2021/10/27/the_data_mining_of_americas_kids_should_be_a_national_scandal_110659.html

As U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland sat down for his first hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, denying a conflict of interest in his decision to investigate parents for “domestic terrorism,” there is a mother in the quiet suburb of Annandale, N.J., who found his answers lacking. And she has questions she wants asked at Garland’s hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee this Wednesday.

On a recent Saturday night, Caroline Licwinko, a mother of three, a law school student and the coach to her daughter’s cheerleading squad, sat in front of her laptop and tapped three words into an internet search engine: “Panorama. Survey. Results.”

Within three clicks, Licwinko was in an online “dashboard” created by Panorama Education Inc., a government contractor hired by school districts to gauge their students’ “social and emotional learning.” However, Panorama digs far deeper than whether students might feel depressed or lonely, raising serious public policy questions. It asks all kinds of prying questions, including gender and sexual orientation and views on racial issues. Licwinko and her husband, Eric, became concerned in September when their sons’ school, North Hunterdon High School, told parents they were sending students a Panorama survey. Although they opted their sons out, as parents are ostensibly allowed to do, their sons were sent the survey anyway. What’s more, a school official confirmed to them, the private information of all students – including whether they receive special education services and free and reduced meals – was sent across four state lines to Panorama, based in Boston. Last week, Panorama refused to give the Licwinkos the data the company received on their children.

No one is talking about it.

[Drafe Hoblin]

The Data Mining of America’s Kids Should Be a National Scandal

No one is talking about it.

The ineptness of the Left is evident everywhere.  They'll surely bumble data-mining.  The scheme's too broad... and'll probably conducted by teams of amateurs.  It's not a priority parent-worry quite yet.