From: Michael Magoulias <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2015 02:57:51 +0000

This thread continues to perplex, but it's a useful indication of how
contradictory the collective thinking is when it comes to assessing
activities on the web. Anyone who is seriously concerned about the
public at large being subject to digital surveillance should focus
their attentions on the organizations that are the real offenders,
namely Google and FaceBook. (And they certainly shouldn't be using
Gmail.) What Google and FB do is infinitely more pernicious than this
trivial incident regarding Pearson.

There seems to be a drive to consign the same activity to "good" or
"bad" buckets depending on how we feel about the actors. If you feel
Pearson is evil, then their near-monopoly over standardized testing
and monitoring of users will also be evil. If you think Google is
good, or perhaps simply not evil, then their even greater
near-monopoly over search and their far more successful track-record
of invisibly stalking their users and monetizing the results will get
a free pass.

To me, this just shows that this is all still too new for us to be
able to form coherent moral norms governing how people should be
treated once it is possible to reduce them to a set of highly
"actionable" data points, especially when they are seemingly so
complicit in this reduction.



> On Mar 17, 2015, at 7:59 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Sean Andrews <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2015 08:51:04 -0500
>
>
> While I see the point you're making, Michael, I think the larger issue
> is the idea that Pearson - a foreign, private, for-profit entity with
> little to no public oversight other than through the holy oracle of
> the market - can police the public sphere, criminalize loosely defined
> speech infractions, and deputize public officials to enforce their
> judgments all in the ideological defense of an unpopular testing
> regime they have won control over through backroom deals and moral
> panic.
>
> Whether you would agree with the above as a statement of fact, it is
> unquestionable that Pearson and its fellow standardized testing orgs
> have a public image dilemma - so they would be wise to use their
> considerable power responsibly. From the facts described below - there
> was no pic on the tweet and it was sent after testing was over - it
> sounds less like a necessary security precaution to take for securing
> this faulty model of educational assessment and more like a chance to
> demonstrate its power of surveillance and to reaffirm that students'
> agency is limited by an institution that gives them no ability to give
> input other than filling in little bubbles.
>
> Perhaps we can justify this as an experiential lesson in the realities
> of bureaucracy and the police state; but most of these students also
> have to go to the DMV to get a driver's license so I think we have
> that covered through voluntary extracurricular activities.
>
>
>> On Mar 16, 2015 7:02 PM, "LIBLICENSE" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> 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