I'M OUTRAGED AND YOU SHOULD BE TOO! Private Student Data On Google Docs For ALL To See!

For years now, ROPE (and others like Kaye Beach) have been warning parents that not only are public schools NOT the place to expect student privacy to be considered sacred, but that public schools are now sharing student data publicly. Just this week, I've become privy to information that absolutely PROVES this to be the case once and for all. Before I continue, I need to thank a current Oklahoma City teacher (who shall remain nameless) for this information - and also Howard Houchen and Kaye Beach - for contributing to this blog. This teacher - as other teachers in the OKC public school system - has been told that she must upload her students' information to Google Docs. She has refused. She, like fellow teacher Nikki Jones from Tulsa, has chosen to stand for children and their privacy and innocence! We thank her very much.

I will warn you, this is not going to be my typical long, researched to the nth degree blog. I simply want to post the screenshots here and give basic explanations. Frankly, I do NOT want to post this blog as, once I do, all the names of the students in the documents plastered on the web for everyone to see will have an arrow pointed in their direction. For that, I am truly sorry. I don't see any other way to break this story, however.

As many of you know, Teach For America (TFA) has been recruited to a very high degree in Oklahoma in order to make up for the 'teacher shortage'. If you take the time to research TFA, you'll find that many concerns have been raised about the program. This should be an addition to the growing pile.

This is a screenshot of the home page for the Oklahoma Teach for America Corps. It can be found at this address:  http://wechangetheodds.weebly.com/

Please note the tabs at the top. Please notice that Jefferson, Roosevelt and US Grant are not only former US presidents, but current Oklahoma City Public Schools.

For purposes of explanation, I have clicked on the "Jefferson" tab. Here is a screenshot of the partial page under that tab.

These are a portion of the TFA Corps members assigned to Jefferson.

I decided to click on Thomas Joyce - he looks quite colorful. Here is the screenshot resulting from that click.

 

Yes, as a Constitutional Conservative, I'm a bit miffed by the quote, however, please note that his name is in red type. Here's what I found when I clicked on his name.

Yes, that says, "Data" and "Data 2".

This is what I found when I clicked on "Data". Yes, these are spreadsheets of his students with their full names and grades.

This is what came up when I selected "Data 2". I will not show what is behind the green boxes as these often have student ID numbers as well as full names and grades. As a teacher, I was not allowed to have my students switch papers for others to grade as this was a violation of their privacy. WHAT THEN IS THIS? I AM OUTRAGED AND YOU SHOULD BE TOO!

Of course this was the same for TFA teacher after TFA teacher listed on this site for all three schools. Just so you'll know I'm not making this up, here's the tab from Roosevelt:

Going further, here is the screen shot for one of these teachers, Dalton Goodier.

Good news. He knows Tomas Paine. However, when you click on his name, you get this:

And when you click on "Data" you get this:

I'm going to leave this picture very small here, as there are student names, grades and ID numbers visible (since redacted). Not only that, but some are SPECIAL EDUCATION STUDENTS.

There was another TFA participant, Julie who even had phone numbers visible on her documentation:

Now. Do you understand? Is this where you want your child's information - on a Google Doc for ANYONE TO READ (and/or some public education watchdog publishing on her blog)? Please, please immediately find out if your child's teacher is storing your child's data on GOOGLE DOCS and tell them you want this data removed IMMEDIATELY. This is DEFINITELY in violation of our states new Parental Rights law, HB1384 or the OSCN Network Title 25. This should be lawsuit worthy.

ADDENDUM 1/5/2015: We revealed this issue at a private meeting this morning. Soon after, the Google Docs site went black. No one without the original web address will be able to find it - however, if you went to the website to verify our post, you will be able to. So will I and anyone else who did the same thing. In fact, anyone who is a Google user, could have pulled it into their Google Docs account and used it, edited it, or shared it.

Though we didn't delve into much of what is wrong with Google Docs and other 'cloud' based, shareable media in this meeting, one meeting participant added that many schools he knew of used Google Docs and the documents were all offline so no one could see them. I told him Google Docs were easily hacked. He observed that he didn't know anything about that. Unfortunately, just because school officials don't know about it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Schools today are using technology at such rapid rates that training and understanding of the media is getting lost in the shuffle. Sadly, so is the privacy of our state's kids.

Common Core Ushers In The Police State - America's New Way Of Life

I was mortified when I went out looking for a photo to add to this blog and found this picture on Bing.com images.  I'm sure this was not an actual Newsweek cover, but it sure could be!

Anymore, I frequently ponder the movie "Minority Report", detailing a world in which everyone was GUILTY until proven INNOCENT and you could be jailed for a crime BEFORE it was even committed because the police (government) had enough data on you to determine your every move.  Of course the journey for the cop at the center of the story - the one who had been such a proponent of the 'predictive' software used by the police - is to discover that even he has no liberty in the end.

We are heading for a police state in this country and people aren't noticing it because it's been a long, slow road getting here - a 'death by small cuts'.

We don't think about having to be fingerprinted or scanned to get into our kid's school because long ago the state made us put our picture on our driver's license with a bar code that can be scanned anywhere to reveal our personal information.  But we have to drive, we figure, so we'll put up with that (except for my brave friend Kaye Beach who is actually fighting this nonsense on religious grounds!).  Or, we think we need to fly, so we'll let TSA agents grope us like perverts because we're now presumed to be TERRORISTS until they find NOTHING on us - a presumption of GUILT instead of INNOCENCE.

This really hit home for me in a big way when I saw this video of a man standing up at a Common Core 'Forum'  in Maryland where a school board had an open time for parents to ask questions, but then wouldn't take direct questions from parents.

Attendees had to submit questions to the board in writing and then individual questions were asked from the pile of questions. (Gosh, how many legislative Town Hall meetings have begun using this tactic?)

Apparently, answers were not forthcoming at this meeting in the manner parents expected.

ROPE isn't surprised, we've seen this before over and over in Oklahoma where, for example, the State Superintendent filibusters for 25 minutes before even getting to the question of Common Core at the Common Core Forum in Tulsa in August and then repeats classic Common Core messaging for every answer to every question - or where the Superintendent makes comments like, "We anticipate low costs" when asked about how much Common Core will cost.

At the last (and I mean probably the LAST we will attend) board meeting we attended - where we were FINALLY going to be allowed to speak at all on Common Core (July 25) - a husband and wife from Edmond had seen our plea to come speak about Common Core at the Board Meeting - and they came.  The husband was an Airman at Tinker Air Force Base.  After speaking out against the Common Core, the Airman had a seat.  Upon listening to Amber England with Stand for Children tell everyone at the meeting that the military were all for Common Core, the airman's wife reacted by blurting out, "You don't speak for the military."

Good Lord, you would have thought she pulled out an AK47 and began to cut down everyone in the room the way Superintendent Barresi and Board Member Amy Ford nearly came across the table at the woman, screaming something to the effect of, "You need to be quiet or you'll be removed!" as if they saw her as an imminent threat to their lives. (This can all be found on the audio recording from that meeting just in case you want to check me up on my story).

At any rate, ROPE isn't surprised at what happened to the poor parent in Maryland who DARED to try to get some answers from a school board and was FORCIBLY REMOVED from the forum by a police officer and later provided with the charges of

second-degree assault of a police officer and faces a $2,500 fine and up to 10 years in prison. He was also charged with disturbing a school operation, which carries an additional $2,500 and up to six months in jail.

He absolutely did NOT assault the police officer - the police officer assaulted HIM - and if you watch the video you will see that.

WHAT IS MAKING THESE PEOPLE SO ANGRY?  What is it about the Common Core State Standards that means you can't answer questions about them, but send people out in an audience like a mobster to break the arms of parents who merely try to ask questions?

As the man leaves the hall at the forum, he tells people they are sitting there like 'cattle'.  Fortunately, as I went back to listen to it again, I definitely heard at least two or three people stick up for the guy and tell the 'powers that be' to let him stay - obviously to no avail.  There were MANY people in that room apparently.  What should have happened is that EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THAT ROOM SHOULD HAVE STOOD UP and deflected that policeman- turned-board-body guard and stuck up for the man.  He was not being rude or ugly or screaming and shouting, he was just tired of not having questions answered and spoke out of turn.

How long are we going to be rule followers when it seems that the PROPONENTS aren't following 'the rules'?  How long are we going to let educrats and those making money off  school 'reform' measures pull us around by our ears and tell us how they're going to spend the money we are forced to contribute to such a broken system?  A system so broken that many parents have given up and now pay TWICE - once for public school and again to a private school or for home school curricula because they refuse to allow their kids to partake of an education that is not only not helping them, but hurting them, their development and their worldview.

I've said it before and I'll say it again....it's time for Civil Rights era tactics.  If we're not going to be heard, we'll sit quietly until we are - even if that is well after time to close up shop!  If we're not going to be heard, we need to take our children out of public schools and deny them their funding until schools again work for PARENTS and CHILDREN and not software developers, book sellers and politicians.

I fear that Common Core is just one of the symptoms of a parasitic disease that is slowly killing its host - America.  I leave you with the following quote:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.