Education Week - May 21, 2014 - 8

FCC Seeks Input on 'Open' Web Rule
By Michele Molnar
Education advocates worry that
schools could find themselves in
the slow lanes of Internet delivery
if proposed "net neutrality" rules
posted by the Federal Communications
Commission last week are
adopted as written.
Net neutrality refers to the open
and free flow of content on the
Web, regardless of where it originates.
The new rules could leave
an opening for broadband Internet
providers like Verizon Communications,
Comcast Corp., and Time
Warner Cable to give preferential
treatment to content providers
that pay for the privilege of faster
delivery of their content, such as
streaming movies, to customers.
That prospect leaves some educators
wondering whether other,
less monied content providers,
such as those that offer videos and
other online materials to K-12 systems,
would be left with slower delivery,
which could ultimately hurt
schools.
The fcc's proposed rules come
after a January ruling by the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit that the commission
lacked the legal authority to
prevent telecommunications providers
from blocking the delivery
of lawful online content or discriminating
against certain kinds
of content providers. That ruling,
considered a blow against net neutrality,
compelled the fcc to draw
up a new plan.
The public has until July 15 to
comment on the rules. Among the
many questions the public will
be asked to respond to are ones
about whether broadband service
should be treated like a utility, and
whether special agreements, like
recent ones between Comcast and
Netflix, and Verizon and Netflix,
should be permitted. In each case,
Netflix agreed to pay the service
provider so that its movies would
be streamed faster.
Losing to Entertainment?
While potential changes to net
neutrality have agitated many of
those who closely monitor Internet
policy, the issue has been ignored
by many within K-12 circles, despite
its potentially broad impact,
said Douglas A. Levin, the executive
director of the State Educational
Technology Directors Association,
in Glen Burnie, Md.
"Ultimately for educators, the
access to high-capacity broadband
is as important in schools today as
access to electricity, plumbing, air
conditioning, and heating," he said.
If education content providers
are required to "pay to play" to
guarantee a high-quality connection
to schools, "education is going
to lose versus entertainment every
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time," Mr. Levin said. "The only
good news here is that there's four
months for the education community
to get educated on this and
express their views to the fcc."
Creating a "fast lane" online is
seen as a plus for large companies
like Apple, Netflix, and Google,
which could enter into agreements
to get speedier service for the content
they deliver. The fcc could
end up ruling on whether such
arrangements between individual
service providers and content providers
are "commercially reasonable,"
holding those agreements to
a variety of standards.
Advocates of open-Internet policies
have voiced alarm over the
possibility the fcc would change
the rules. fcc Chairman Tom
Wheeler said May 15 that despite
those fears, he is determined to
protect open Web access.
Maureen Sullivan, a past president
of the American Library
Association, in Chicago, said her
organization is concerned about
the prospect of slower Internet
speeds and higher prices for all
consumers of Web content, including
libraries.
"What we most want to see is
that people in this country have
fast and high-quality broadband
access," she said, "because that
broadband enables people to get
the information they need and
want, when they need and want it."
Indiana Data Network
Draws Opposition
By Michelle R. Davis
Rising concerns about the privacy
and security of vast amounts of student
data are playing out across the
country. That is especially true in
Indiana, where the state is building
a network that would gather and
analyze academic information on
students from the time they enter
kindergarten to their days as adults
in the workplace.
State lawmakers passed legislation
earlier this year to create the Indiana
Network of Knowledge, or ink, to
link students' data with state labor
data and information collected from
employers about desirable job skills.
The goal is to help the state tailor its
education system to meet employers'
needs and help close a workplaceskills
gap.
But critics of the measure contend
there has been little discussion about
how to keep the student data private
and secure, and they are drawing
connections between ink and similar
concerns that led to the demise of inBloom,
a nonprofit data-management
company that recently announced it
would "wind down" operations. (See
Education Week, May 7, 2014.)
States that had committed to workBLOGS
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Researchers Find Being a Bully
Could Have Health Benefits
| RULES FOR ENGAGEMENT | Could being on the
delivery end of bullying be good for you? Some
researchers have found being a childhood bully seems
to correlate with at least one isolated positive health
indicator. And, conversely, being the target of bullying
might have negative health effects.
Shhh ... Don't share this study with the bullies in your
school. We wouldn't want name-calling to be a part of a
student's health regimen along with protein shakes and
"Rocky"-style runs up and down flights of stairs.
Researchers at Duke University School of Medicine
analyzed levels of C-reactive protein, a marker
of low-grade inflammation, in randomly selected
participants in the Great Smoky Mountains Study,
which has gathered information from 1,420 North
Carolina residents for two decades. Heightened levels
of C-reactive protein, or crp, could be an indicator
of health problems, including metabolic syndrome,
cardiovascular disease, and infections.
Studied subjects were between ages 9 and 16 at
the time of the research. In interviews, they were
identified as bullies, bullying victims, a combination
of the two, or neither. Here's the big finding from the
study, which was published in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences last week:
"Although crp levels rose for all groups as they
entered adulthood, victims of childhood bullying
had much higher crp levels as adults than the other
groups." And the more often the bullying, the higher
the levels. Bullies, meanwhile, had the lowest levels.
The good news: Other, more positive social states
correlate with low levels of inflammatory markers,
the researchers write. That feeling of power and
heightened social status associated with bullying
might also be achieved through self-confidence and a
positive attitude.
Newark Voters' Mayoral Choice
Signals Shift for City Schools
| DISTRICT DOSSIER | In a rancorous mayoral
campaign that often revolved around the future
of public schooling in New Jersey's biggest city,
Newark voters last week overwhelmingly favored
city councilor and former high school principal Ras
Baraka over Shavar Jeffries, a civil rights lawyer
who chaired the city's school advisory committee.
Baraka, who won decisively with 54 percent of the
vote, was heavily backed by labor unions, including
the local teachers' union and its parent, the American
Federation of Teachers.
Jeffries, the founder of a high-performing charter
school in Newark, drew strong support from a deeppocketed
array of education philanthropists who
have been pushing for certain education reforms to
be adopted in the city's long-struggling public schools.
While the Newark mayor has no control over the
school system-the district has long been run by
the state of New Jersey-Baraka's election no doubt
will be viewed as a repudiation of former Mayor
Cory Booker and his aggressive push to overhaul
the schools through the expansion of charters and
forcing rule changes to make it harder for ineffective
teachers to keep their jobs. Booker left the mayor's
office several months ago after winning election to
the U.S. Senate.
Although Jeffries has been critical of Newark's
state-appointed superintendent, Cami Anderson,
Baraka's election will also be viewed as a strong
statement from voters on their disapproval of the
schools chief and her controversial One Newark
plan, which proposes a massive reorganization of
the district through closures and mergers of existing
schools and invitations to more charter schools to
operate in regular public school buildings.
-EVIE BLAD
8 | EDUCATION WEEK | May 21, 2014 | www.edweek.org
-LESLI A. MAXWELL
ing with the Atlanta-based inBloom,
or considered doing so, cut ties after
an outcry from parents and others
who voiced worries about the security
of the information the company
planned to store.
But supporters of the Indiana plan
say the state clearinghouse is linking
existing student data to labor and employer
information to provide insight
on education and the job market.
Kristin Yochum, director of federal
policy for the Washington-based Data
Quality Campaign, which promotes
the use of data to support school improvement,
said national concerns
about privacy are unfairly tainting
the ink initiative.
"Data aren't the monsters under
our bed," she said, "but the way people
continue to frame this discussion, it
makes it sound scary."
Tracking Down Students
But Fred H. Cate, the director of
the Center for Applied Cybersecurity
Research at the Indiana University
Mauer School of Law, in Bloomington,
said he worries that the database
could be used for unadvertised
purposes, such as tracking down students
with unpaid loans or those who
might be deemed to pose a threat to
national security.
He said he's not against using data
effectively, but believes that too little
attention has been paid to protecting
the information.
"I worry when the idea precedes
the privacy plans," Mr. Cate said.
"The legislation says they will use
state-of-the-art security, but we've
seen state-of-the-art security compromised
again and again."
The ink database will link information
from the state's department
of education, Commission for Higher
Education, and department of workforce
development. Officials also will
try to persuade employers to share job
and salary histories.
State officials say care will be taken
to remove student names and other
identifying information. Ink will develop
a security plan and procedures
to protect the data in case of a breach.
"There is nothing that doesn't
meet the code, standard, the law,
and the expectation of privacy," said
Teresa Lubbers, Indiana's higher
education commissioner. The information
collected will not include
personally identifiable information
like names or Social Security numbers.
The initiative requires that
data collection and use comply with
the Family Educational Rights and
Privacy Act, or ferpa, a federal law
meant to establish protections in
that area.
Transparency Needed
The bill's author, state Rep. Steve
Braun, a Republican, said the legislation
builds on Indiana's previous work
collecting data about the state's labor
market and its students.
With that data, "we can align workforce
training and education around
what jobs will be available in five and
10 years," Mr. Braun said. "We can go
back and work with K-12 and higher
education groups to develop the curriculum
that reflects those skills."
Mr. Braun said ink will not collect
any new types of student data-it
will rely on information already being
taken in by the state.
Mr. Braun said he is not surprised
by the concerns around student data,
because "those privacy issues are incredibly
important." But in this case,
he said, they arise from a misunderstanding
of what ink will do.
That explanation hasn't swayed
Erin Tuttle, a co-founder of the advocacy
group Hoosiers Against Common
Core.
"The fear that people have is that
[data] will be shared and sold," Ms.
Tuttle said. "A lot of people don't want
their data out there because of all the
violations and all the ways that it can
be manipulated. Those things get
hacked all the time."
Such issues will likely continue to
resurface as more states collect a lot of
student information and put it to use,
said Ms. Yochum of the Data Quality
Campaign. As such work moves forward,
Ms. Yochum said, states must
make efforts to calm fears.
"It just shows us we need to be
out there communicating," she said.
"There needs to be as much transparency
in this process as possible."
The Associated Press contributed
to this article.
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Education Week - May 21, 2014

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