Pearson Caught Spying On Students. Big Brother Is Here
He posted the following on his blog, Bob Braun's Ledger:
MARCH 13, 2015When this posted, Braun's blog was shut down with a DDoS attack.
BREAKING: Pearson, NJ, spying on social media of students taking PARCC tests
” Pearson, the multinational testing and publishing company, is spying on the social media posts of students–including those from New Jersey–while the children are taking their PARCC, statewide tests, this site has learned exclusively. The state education department is cooperating with this spying and has asked at least one school district to discipline students who may have said something inappropriate about the tests.This website discovered the unauthorized and hidden spying thanks to educators who informed it of the practice–a practice happening throughout the state and apparently throughout the country. The spying–or “monitoring,” to use Pearson’s word–was confirmed at one school district–the Watchung Hills Regional High School district in Warren by its superintendent, Elizabeth Jewett.
Jewett sent out an e-mail–posted here– 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).
“The DOE informed us that Pearson is monitoring all social media during the PARCC testing.” (Diarist's emphasis)
More below the Chee-to:
His Facebook page is still up, and I have just heard that his blog is back up, but running extremely slowly. In fact, I tried to link to the original story, but my computer was moving so slowly the page would not load.
Here are Braun's latest posts on Facebook:
Bob Braun's Ledger
9 hrs · Edited ·Bob Braun's Ledger is back up but is still very slow. It's probably easier to get to it through something other than Facebook. Initially, I thought--vainly-- the site was acting up because of the number of people reading it. Then I got an email from my webhostPearson Caught Spying On Students. Big Brother Is Here:
