From: "Hamaker, Charles" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2015 03:49:38 +0000

My takeaway from this is a little different than Michael's. Students
and by implication a couple of generations of kids and young adults
need to understand how serious it is to put out what may seem like
harmless information on social media, the kind you would tell your
friends. It can be noticed and have repercussions far beyond your
social circle. I have an acquaintaince who posted details of losing a
job on Facebook to her friends. She is a young adult and had no idea
she may have harmed her own future job prospects.

I don't know what kinds of restrictions school districts pass on to
kids taking these tests but I suspect it was not strong or direct
enough. And I wonder if school officials signed off on some kind of
responsibility to guarantee or warrant student behavior given the
official state response. This is a common demand I see everyday in
licenses and reject every time.

I agree the reporting is a bit breathless, but felt as an issue I see
everyday both in licenses and  acquaintances it was worth posting as
an example. The Washington Post article provided Pearson's response as
well.

Regards
Chuck



-------- Original message --------
From: Michael Magoulias <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2015 15:17:34 +0000

As a parent with a child doing the PARCC at this very moment, this
strikes me as an amateurish and  irresponsible attempt at
investigative journalism. Pearson was clearly trying to ensure the
integrity of the test and to prevent a possible case of
cyber-cheating. If a student tweets an image of a test question that
would be the most sensible assumption to make. What is not sensible is
to jump to the conclusion that this is some Orwellian abrogation of
basic rights. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of cases out there
of inappropriate monitoring and misuse of personal data, but this
doesn't sound anywhere close to being one of them. The fact that there
are journalists (and parents) unable to make the appropriate
distinctions is a far more worrying sign of the times.



-----Original Message-----
From: "Hamaker, Charles" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2015 16:36:21 +0000

“The (NJ) DOE informed us that Pearson is monitoring all social media
during the PARCC testing.”

DOE=state education department in New Jersey. source Elizabeth Jewett,
Wachtung Hills Regional High School District see link for her full
letter.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/14/1370865/-Pearson-Caught-Spying-On-Students-Big-Brother-Is-Here

From the Daily Kos post: "Jewett sent out an e-mail–... to her
colleagues expressing concern about the unauthorized spying on
students. She said parents are upset and added that she thought
Pearson’s behavior would contribute to the growing “opt out” movement.

In her email, Jewett said the district’s testing coordinator received
a late night call from the state education department saying that
Pearson had “initiated a Priority 1 Alert for an item breach within
our school.”

The unnamed state education department employee contended a student
took a picture of a test item and tweeted it. But it turned out the
student had posted–at 3:18 pm, after testing was over–a tweet about
one of the items with no picture. Jewett does not say the student
revealed a question. Jewett continues:

“The student deleted the tweet and we spoke with the parent–who was
obviously highly concerned as to her child’s tweets being monitored by
the DOE (state education department)."

NB :dailykos. associated links don't seem to be working as I send this..

There is a twitter hashtag- #PeepingPearson  and a current link to a
current Washington Post article :"Pearson monitoring social media for
security breaches during PARCC testing"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2015/03/14/pearson-monitoring-social-media-for-security-breaches-during-parcc-testing/

includes the letter from Jewett.

Also see twitter #optout