Education Commissioners Receive Objection From Millions of Families Regarding Arne Duncan Letter

DENVER - Jan. 30, 2014 - PRLog -- "We the undersigned organizations, representing millions of families and teachers across the nation, issue the following statement in response to the January 23rd, 2014 letter by thirty-four chief state school officers to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan regarding student data privacy," begins the organized response from parents and teacher who banded together in formal objection.

“The letter is deceptive,” said     Karen Effrem, president of Education Liberty Watch and co-founder of the Florida Stop Common Core Coalition, regarding the letter from the education commissioners.  “The states may not give the individual student test data to the federal government, but the cooperative agreement and the federal FERPA regulations require or allow the consortia to give individual test and other student data to the feds without consent.”

"We join more than 50 other grassroots organizations in rejecting the idea that these government officials have the authority or the knowledge to make such guarantees," said Karin Piper, National Director of Parent Led Reform, a multi-state parent network. "Frankly intent of such a letter should be in question. Is this just another PR attempt to convince the public that Common Core Standards are benign and collecting children's personally identifiable information is fine? We are extremely disappointed that these 34 Education Commissioners decided to participate in this letter campaign."

The entire list of parent and teacher organizations that signed the response is provided on the website of www.EdLibertyWatch.com.