Topic Idea: How Much Should The Feds Know About Your Kids?

Randy Lane • January 1, 2012

Would it bother you to know that the federal Centers for Disease Control had been shown your daughter’s health records to see how she responded to an STD/teen pregnancy prevention program? How about if the federal Department of Education and Department of Labor scrutinized your son’s academic performance to see if he should be “encouraged” to leave high school early to learn a trade? To qualify for stimulus money, states had to agree to build such systems capable of maintaining extensive databases on public-school students.


The administration wants this data to include much more than name, address and test scores. According to the National Data Collection Model, the government should collect information on health-care history, family income and family voting status. In its view, public schools offer a golden opportunity to mine reams of data from a captive audience. Read more about student privacy here.

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