Senate Bill Legalizes Expansion of Data Mining
By Carole Hornsby Haynes, Ph.D. June 14, 2017 Education Views
While the national focus is on data mining at the K-12 grade levels, bureaucrats and technocrats are filing legislation to legalize the expansion of federal data collection on ALL U.S. citizens. If they pass Senate bill, S 1121, the College Transparency Act, the federal government can monitor, track, and pigeon hole Americans from cradle to grave. The bipartisan bill is sponsored by Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).
If cutting edge education technologies can enhance student learning, why do so many Silicon Valley executives at Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Google, and Yahoo send their children to the 
For several years, Texas parents have been in a rage because Common Core is being found in their children’s classroom materials and on STAAR Tests, despite Texas law saying that is “illegal”. On April 18th, the Texas State Board of Education will finally consider an amendment to the Texas Essential Knowledge & Skills (TEKS) Standards to remove the illegal Common Core-compliant mathematic process skills. 
The 84th Texas Legislature House Bill 2804 created the Texas Commission on Next Generation Assessments and Accountability (NGAA) to prepare recommendations for statutory changes for the student assessment and public school accountability programs. An analysis finds that if these recommendations are implemented, Texas curriculum standards will be Common Core-compliant, placing Texas on the road to National Assessments. 
The Texas House Committee on Public Education wants to utilize high-tech digital learning to improve student achievement and fulfill future workforce demands. The popular notion is that students need computer time to compete in the 21st century. 
Across the nation parents are protesting the data mining of their children’s highly personal information. As the collection of educational data on students has increased across the K-12 sector, so has concern about who has access to that data and how to best shield it. Many lawmakers in dozens of states have stepped forward with bills to protect the privacy and security of sensitive student information. 
In 1996 the Telecommunications Act was enacted to provide subsidies for schools to access broadband service through the Schools and Libraries program, also known as the E-rate program. After spending more than $40 billion of taxpayers’ money, the program is just another big government fiasco.
For the past tumultuous year and a half, the Texas English language arts and reading (ELAR) curriculum standards (TEKS) have been under review – actually rewritten rather than reviewed as the panel was instructed.