The New Hampshire Senate will be voting on an important Bill today, HB301.  HB301 establishes a committee to study New Hampshire’s statewide longitudinal data system and any other department of education maintained database that contains student level data.

Parents across the country are becoming more concerned about the amount of personal information the state and other vendors are collecting on their children.  HB301 will allow a committee to review the data that is currently being collected on students by the New Hampshire Department of Education.

One would think this wouldn’t be necessary.  After all, why wouldn’t the Department of Education make all of this information transparent and easily accessible to parents?  Why do we need legislation to force the Department of Education to answer basic questions on what is being collected on the students and where this information goes?

Some important questions that need to be answered are:
1) How do the current federal laws protect student data?  How do they fail to protect student data?
(FERPA and COPPA)
2) What Happens to the Data once the New Hampshire Department of Education uses the data?
3) How much is going to the Federal Learning Registry? The joint system shared by the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Defense?
4) What happens to the data from algorithms in existing programs?
5) How much data from personalized learning & standardized assessments is going out to education vendors? 
6) How much social and emotional student data is going out?
7) What are the data-badges and will NH participate in a pilot similar to the program in Colorado? 

These are just some of the questions I would like to see answered once this committee is established.  However we still need the Senate to pass HB301 and Governor Hassan to sign it into law.

If this legislation fails, this information on your children could be sent out without your knowledge or consent.  It’s important that parents contact Governor Hassan and ask her to sign HB301 into law.
Contact Governor Hassan:
Office of the Governor
State House
107 North Main Street
Concord, NH 03301
(603)271-2121
(603)271-7680 (fax)

Ann Marie Banfield currently volunteers as the Education Liaison for Cornerstone Action in New Hampshire. She has been researching education reform for over a decade and actively supports parental rights, literacy and academic excellence in k-12 schools. You can reach her at: abanfield@nhcornerstone.org