Who Should Have Access to Student Records? Education data can be useful, but privacy experts are concerned about data misuse. By JASON KOEBLER January 19, 2012
Since “No Child Left Behind” was passed 10 years ago, states have been required to ramp up the amount of data they collect about individual students, teachers, and schools. Personal information, including test scores, economic status, grades, and even disciplinary problems and student pregnancies, are tracked and stored in a kind of virtual “permanent record” for each student.
But parents and students have very little access to that data, according to a report released Wednesday by the Data Quality Campaign, an organization that advocates for expanded data use.
All 50 states and Washington, D.C. collect long term, individualized data on students performance, but just eight states allow parents to access their child’s permanent record. Forty allow principals to access the data and 28 provide student-level info to teachers.
Education experts, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and former Washington, D.C., Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, argue that education officials can use student data to assess teachers—if many students’ test scores are jumping in a specific teacher’s class, odds are that teacher is doing a good job.
Likewise, teachers can use the data to see where a student may have struggled in the past and can tailor instruction to suit his needs.
Schools have become 'health institutions' thanks to some poorly used/tossed around diagnosis:
ADHD/ADD
and currently the legislation that has expanded insurance coverage for ASD(sad diagnosis but a true one, unlike the above much of the time)
Quoted Text
Autism Bill Passes State Legislature Unanimously
By Judy L. Randall Staten Island Advance June 20, 2011
A bill that would provide health insurance for screening, diagnosis, treatment and therapy for individuals with autism passed the state Legislature unanimously on Friday, a crucial step for families seeking enhanced care for their children, said a Grant City mother.
"As a parent of a child diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, the passage of the autism insurance bill into law in New York state is not only critical to our family's quality of life but to all of our Staten Island families," said Melissa Schneider, whose 10-year-old son is autistic.
"I believe this reform will positively impact the quality and level of care, treatment and therapies we provide our children and young adults diagnosed with ASD."
Applied behavior analysis, along with speech, occupational and physical therapies, will be covered for those with ASD under the legislation. It also includes routine toddler screenings.
The bill also would prohibit discrimination in the purchase of health insurance to cover someone with ASD, as well as treatment of medical conditions otherwise covered by the insurance policy because the individual has ASD, according to the New York Autism News website.
As deputy executive director of the Eden II Programs, for children and adults with ASD, Eileen Hopkins said she has seen the local need for the legislation.
"There are many families on Staten Island, some of whom have multiple children with autism, who have spent thousands and thousands of dollars on accessing needed care," she said.
"Grandparents often play a big role, too, depleting savings to help provide essential and potentially life-changing treatments like speech therapy."
Those families have faced the same economic challenges as everyone else over the last few years, Ms. Hopkins said, while dealing with cuts to "badly needed services."
On the Island, there have been improvements to access for treatments for behavioral and other issues related to autism, Ms. Hopkins said.
But more access is needed, she said, and the legislation should help ensure it.
"While the insurance reform is by no means the end of those challenges, it is an important step in the right direction that I am sure thousands of families will be extremely grateful for," she said.
Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, a co-sponsor of the bill who was among those to highlight it at a recent Albany press conference, hailed its passage.
"A lot of families have been suffering because their health insurance doesn't cover these treatments," said Ms. Malliotakis (R-East Shore/Brooklyn).
"This is a win-win for everyone. Families will be protected and individuals will get coverage. Early intervention is so important. If we detect autism early, it changes the life of the child and saves money in the long run."
Donna Long, executive director of the G.R.A.C.E. Foundation, said the bill was long overdue and would help with earlier detection of autism.
"Parents will now have the ability to get early intervention, access it earlier, get therapies earlier," she said. "The sooner there is a diagnosis and treatment begins, the better it is for the child."
Some children require more therapy than what their insurance coverage allows, Ms. Long said.
"At least the parents won't have additional financial burdens, as well as the other things that parents have to deal with when they have this diagnosis," she said.
and some services Currently, Medicaid is the main reimbursement source are provided in public schools.
But many parents struggle to pay for additional services that can cost thousands of dollars annually.
show me the $$ trail and the records and the laws/regulations/incrimination
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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