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Sign up * * * * * * * * * Andrew Giambrone * Jun 22, 2015 * Education The recent debate over the NSA’s surveillance policies shows just how much Americans care about privacy—perhaps on an unprecedented scale. “This is the power of an informed public,” Edward Snowden wrote of Congress’s decision this month to limit the agency’s data-collecting power. “With each court victory, with every change in the law, we demonstrate facts are more convincing than fear.” But when it comes to the future of education in the United States, what if Americans’ privacy concerns are hindering the constructive use of data, from customized student learning to better teaching performance? That’s the tension behind a growing body of education research by private companies, academics, and nonprofits alike. McKinsey’s Education Practice, for one, published an article in April that considered the pros and cons of data in schools. Citing an earlier McKinsey report, the authors argued that using student data could feed between $900 billion and $1.2 trillion into the global economy each year. More than $300 billion of that value could result from improved teaching, while other benefits could arise from more efficiently matching students to jobs and programs, estimating education costs, and allocating resources to schools, according to the report. Still, many are skeptical, fearing that student data could be used inappropriately, or for corporate purposes. As Sophie Quinton reported for National Journal, analytics have raised ethical questions on college campuses, including whether institutions are essentially surveilling their students. One study from 2012 focusing on the higher-ed sector found that nearly a quarter of education professionals surveyed were concerned about the misuse of data, regulations governing data use, and individuals’ privacy rights. But when asked about data’s potential to maximize strategic outcomes, from student progress to efficient spending, more than 80 percent of the respondents said analytics would become more important in the future. “Even if you’re doing a lot of data-tracking, you still need a thinking human to interpret it.” Similar concerns exist in K-12 schools. “Even if they don’t follow education policy, people’s ears perk up when they hear something about their own children’s data, and they can get swayed pretty quickly by groups that are fighting to maintain privacy at all costs,” says Rod Berger, the vice president of education at RANDA Solutions, a software firm based in Tennessee. K–12 schools have almost always kept track of standardized test scores and graduation rates, but only over the past decade or so have they had access to more-detailed information captured by sophisticated analytic software. This level of tracking has caused some consternation among families. Last year, a nonprofit company called inBloom, funded by $100 million in seed money from the Gates and Carnegie Foundations, shut down because parents worried that their children’s personal information—stored by inBloom to help improve academic performance in public schools across the country—could be misused, sold, or breached. InBloom recorded student grades and attendance in addition to details like family composition, free-lunch eligibility, and reasons for enrollment changes, including medical conditions. It was one of an increasing number of third-party vendors that create, license, and implement education software—an $8 billion market, by recent estimates. Reluctance to adopt data analytics across school districts may be preventing improvements to student outcomes and teacher effectiveness, according to Jimmy Sarakatsannis, one of the McKinsey article’s authors. He says parents are understandably concerned that decisions based on data could “rob the human experience from teaching and learning.” But, as a former public-school teacher in Washington, D.C., Sarakatsannis adds that most teachers strive for “personalization,” or instruction tailored to a student at a given point in time; data could help them achieve this goal. Major textbook publishers like McGraw-Hill as well as smaller ventures like ThinkCERCA, a digital package of tools and lesson plans focused on boosting literacy, have already begun to capitalize on student data—proving that making kids smarter is smart business. The public’s concerns about privacy put a significant burden on these companies—and other stakeholders, such as policymakers to school administrators—to illustrate the benefits, says Ryan Baker, an associate professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. One way to do this, Baker says, is by measuring engagement: to what extent a student expresses interest in and motivation to learn about a particular subject. (Although experts disagree over what the term exactly means, “engagement” can typically be measured by surveying students and teachers and by observing classroom behavior.) Baker adds that tracking such data can help teachers identify which kids are struggling with which material. Of course, not all students enjoy the same subjects: a bookworm may find calculus impenetrable, while a math whiz may think history is boring. That largely leaves it up to teachers to encourage their students to go beyond their comfort zones, says Eileen Murphy Buckley, the founder and CEO of ThinkCERCA. Her company, which emphasizes the role of debate and collaboration skills in education, provides teachers and school officials with data dashboards that display an individual student’s progress. But having sophisticated information about students isn’t a cure-all for education’s challenges, Buckley notes. “There’s this dream that we will have data that will make everything adaptive, and that thinking humans won’t have to do anything anymore,” she says. “I’m not there—it’s like thinking you could successfully automate a sales force. Even if you’re doing a lot of data-tracking, you still need a thinking human to interpret it.” Reasoning Mind, a Houston-based nonprofit, does with math what ThinkCERCA does with literacy: It offers an online platform to help students advance their computational skills. George Khachatryan, the cofounder and a senior executive of the organization, says Reasoning Mind collaborates with teachers and even math Ph.D.s (called “knowledge engineers”) to develop curricula. It currently serves over 100,000 students in grades two through six, 85 percent of whom reside in Texas. Khachatryan argues that the platform has reduced student boredom, increased standardized test scores, and allowed teachers to give students targeted feedback, citing research studies the company has conducted with parental consent. “It permits a better allocation of human time,” he says. “Why should I let you collect my data? The benefits are fantastic? Now you have to reassure me you’re going to use it in a way I’m comfortable with.” Administrators can leverage student data to more fairly distribute financial resources, too. This could go a long way towards making American education more equitable across demographic groups: Under the status quo, public-school funding is regressive in many states, with schools serving disproportionate numbers of low-income students receiving fewer resources. As Susan Dynarski recently wrote in The New York Times, researchers and others rely on data to “pinpoint where poor, nonwhite, and non-English-speaking children have been educated inadequately.” Student data, in other words, could help make education the “great equalizer” it’s supposed to be. Various obstacles, including political ones, stand in the way of that vision. The public’s aversion to data-gathering—exacerbated in part by the current discourse surrounding national security and privacy—may threaten to stymie new education research. According to the Pew Research Center, more than half of Americans (54 percent) disapprove of the government collecting individuals’ phone and internet data to combat terrorism. Education may be quite different from national security, but American attitudes on privacy and personal data suffuse both. Jose Ferreira, the founder and CEO of Knewton, a New York-based company that develops adaptive-learning tools, says a lot of student data is going to waste right now; rather than being forgotten at the end of each school year or semester, it could be harnessed responsibly to drive learning outcomes. His company tracks students’ proficiencies across a variety of subjects, but will not share that information—even with teachers—unless explicitly authorized to do so by a student’s legal guardians. “If you’re going to touch people’s data, it’s very important that the benefits be clear,” he explains. “‘Why should I let you collect my data? The benefits are fantastic? Now you have to reassure me you’re going to use it in a way I’m comfortable with.’” * Continue Reading * Jump to Comments * About the Author * * * * * * * * Latest Video [thumb_wide_300.jpg?1453474769] How America Trains Its Officers to Respond to School Shootings Inside the program that's preparing law enforcement for the rise in active shooting incidents * The Editors * 10:56 AM ET * Latest Slideshow [thumb_wide_300.jpg?1447874076] Peter Garritano In Photos: Inside the Internet Photographs of what “the cloud” actually looks like * Emily Anne Epstein * Jan 5, 2016 * About the Author * [headshot.jpg] Andrew Giambrone is a former editorial fellow with The Atlantic​. + Twitter Most Popular Presented by * [javascript] Reuters Standing Athwart History Yelling, 'Stop Donald Trump!' + Conor Friedersdorf The National Review publishes the movement-conservative case against the Republican frontrunner. Last summer, George F. Will, the elder statesman of conservative pundits, declared Donald Trump “an affront to anyone devoted to the project William F. Buckley began six decades ago with the founding in 1955 of National Review––making conservatism intellectually respectable and politically palatable.” He urged conservatives to treat Trump as Buckley once treated the John Birch Society. On Thursday, the National Review published its bull of excommunication. Its new issue leaves no doubt about where the magazine stands on the race for the GOP nomination. Say the editors, “Trump is a philosophically unmoored political opportunist who would trash the broad conservative ideological consensus within the GOP in favor of a free-floating populism with strong-man overtones.” Continue Reading * [javascript] Barry Blitt Twilight of the Headbangers + James Parker How long can the legends of heavy metal keep on rocking? Where’d lemmy go? The stage is empty: vacated mics, cooling drum stool, the blocky, buzzing statuary of amps and speakers. Motörhead, the legendary Motörhead, is not there anymore. I’m in a heavy-metal hangar in Salt Lake City in late August, and singer/bassist Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister has just walked off, shakily and in evident distress, after only four songs, anxiously pursued by his drummer, Mikkey Dee, and guitarist, Phil Campbell. A man in a bandanna approaches me, pop-eyed with dire foreknowledge: “He’s not comin’ back, man! He’s not comin’ back! He’s too old!” Then he reels away, into the hormonal half-smoke and press of bodies in front of the stage. Should we riot? Are we sad? Is it possible that Lemmy—69 years old, pacemakered, diabetic—Lemmy, the great survivor, opposer, grizzled odds-beater, humanity’s middle finger, was crying? “Listen,” he’d said to us before exiting, in his familiar English roar-gasp, that voice of fiery exhaustion. “I’m really sorry—I can’t tell you how sorry I am—but my back’s gone. I’ve got this bad back and … I can’t breathe up here either.” Then he covered his face with his hands, and he left us. Continue Reading * [javascript] Carolyn Kaster / AP Milk, Bread, and Eggs: The Trinity of Winter-Storm Panic-Shopping + Joe Pinsker Why do people reliably stock up on the same things before they get snowed in? Lines of frantic shoppers have mobbed grocery stores in Washington, D.C., after the National Weather Service gently advised residents on Wednesday that an intense weekend storm will pose “a threat to life and property” and impact “you, your family, and your community.” Which led me to wonder: After people hear a message so ominous, and after reminders of their employers’ inclement-weather policies hit inboxes, what do they buy to prepare for spending a good deal of time indoors? I called up the managers of some grocery stores in D.C. to find out, and they all had more or less the same answer: bread, milk, and eggs. This holy trinity of winter-storm preparedness is not some quirk of the nation’s capital—bread, milk, and eggs are popular panic-buys everywhere from Knoxville to New England. Continue Reading * [javascript] Aaron P. Bernstein / Reuters Why Precisely Is Bernie Sanders Against Reparations? + Ta-Nehisi Coates The Vermont senator’s political imagination is active against plutocracy, but why is it so limited against white supremacy? Last week Bernie Sanders was asked whether he was in favor of “reparations for slavery.” It is worth considering Sanders’s response in full: No, I don’t think so. First of all, its likelihood of getting through Congress is nil. Second of all, I think it would be very divisive. The real issue is when we look at the poverty rate among the African American community, when we look at the high unemployment rate within the African American community, we have a lot of work to do. So I think what we should be talking about is making massive investments in rebuilding our cities, in creating millions of decent paying jobs, in making public colleges and universities tuition-free, basically targeting our federal resources to the areas where it is needed the most and where it is needed the most is in impoverished communities, often African American and Latino. Continue Reading * [javascript] Glory Foods / Flickr What's Leafy, Green, and Eaten by Blacks and Whites? + Conor Friedersdorf A tiny but illuminating controversy over collards. This is a story about how tiny things come to divide us. Fittingly, it begins with a Tweet. Last week, Whole Foods Market sent this to its 4.81 million Twitter followers: If you're not cooking with these greens, you need to be! How to cook collards: https://t.co/2lk2bMnKdS #HealthYeah pic.twitter.com/YqBPXg3uus — Whole Foods Market (@WholeFoods) January 14, 2016 One imagines a marketing staffer drafting the Tweet without apprehension or anxiety. Obesity is epidemic. Americans suffer from their unhealthy diets in myriad ways. Who could object to a supermarket cheerily touting a leafy green vegetable? Alerted to the Tweet by a foodie who asked me to explain why it was controversial, I looked at it, vaguely recalled that Michelle Obama had included a collard-greens recipe in her cookbook, American Grown, and asked if maybe the Red Tribe was giving the Blue Tribe a bit of ribbing about its affinity for plant-based diets? Continue Reading * [javascript] Stefano Rellandini / Reuters Sympathy for the Macklemore + Spencer Kornhaber “White Privilege II” bravely tackles difficult truths about race, but that doesn’t make it a good song. The third verse of Macklemore’s new song, “White Privilege II,” is from the perspective of a fan complimenting the 32-year-old Seattle rapper for hits like “Thrift Shop” and “Same Love.” Everything is copacetic and nice until the speaker—it’s Macklemore using a filter and multi-tracking to make it clear that this isn’t his voice—disses the rest of hip-hop: That’s so cool, look what you’re accomplishing Even an old mom like me likes it cause it’s positive You’re the only hip-hop that I let my kids listen to Cause you get it, all that negative stuff isn’t cool Yeah, like all the guns and the drugs The bitches and the hoes and the gangs and the thugs Even the protest outside—so sad and so dumb If a cop pulls you over, it’s your fault if you run Continue Reading * [javascript] Brian Snyder / Reuters Ted Cruz's Tithing Problem + Jonathan Merritt Many Christians believe God requires the faithful to donate a tenth of their income to charity. Will they vote for a candidate who doesn’t? Conservative critics of Ted Cruz are going after his tithing practices. According to recently released tax records, the Texas senator contributed less than 1 percent of his income to charity between 2006 and 2010. But many Christians believe that the Bible commands a charitable offering, or tithe, equal to 10 percent of one’s annual earnings. This discrepancy could end up making a difference less than two weeks before the caucuses in Iowa, a state where a Republican politician’s faith matters. And this is exactly what a newly formed political group, Americans United for Values, is hoping for. Today, the group is launching a 60-second radio advertisement on news, talk, and Christian stations across Iowa that raises the tithing question and labels Cruz a “phony”: “He doesn’t tithe?” a female voice asks in the ad. “Isn’t he a millionaire? His wife worked for a big Wall Street bank, right?” Continue Reading * [javascript] Carlos Javier Ortiz The Case for Reparations + Ta-Nehisi Coates Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole. And if thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty: thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the LORD thy God redeemed thee: therefore I command thee this thing today. — Deuteronomy 15: 12–15 Besides the crime which consists in violating the law, and varying from the right rule of reason, whereby a man so far becomes degenerate, and declares himself to quit the principles of human nature, and to be a noxious creature, there is commonly injury done to some person or other, and some other man receives damage by his transgression: in which case he who hath received any damage, has, besides the right of punishment common to him with other men, a particular right to seek reparation. Continue Reading * [javascript] Toby Talbot / AP The Decline of the Driver's License + Julie Beck Fewer people of all ages are getting them, and it’s not quite clear why. Remember how, in Clueless, Alicia Silverstone’s character Cher fails her driver’s test after nearly killing a biker and scraping her car alongside several parked cars? And then how she asks, “Do you think I should write them a note?” as she drives away? And then how, at the climax of the movie, her friend Tai (Brittany Murphy) calls her “a virgin who can’t drive” and it is just the harshest burn? Well, that was a fictionalized version of the ‘90s, and this is now. Things are different. Young people are not getting driver’s licenses so much anymore. In fact, no one is. According to a new study by Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, the percentage of people with a driver’s license decreased between 2011 and 2014, across all age groups. For people aged 16 to 44, that percentage has been decreasing steadily since 1983. Continue Reading * [javascript] NASA/NOAA What the U.S. East Coast's Massive Snow Storm Looks Like + Marina Koren and Adam Chandler From outer space down to the streets Updated January 22 at 2:10 p.m. EST That swirling cover of white up there is the first blizzard of 2016, captured by satellite on Friday as it barrels across the central United States, toward the East Coast. The “potentially crippling” storm is expected to bring powerful winds and up to two feet of snow to parts of the Mid-Atlantic this weekend, which could result in flooding in coastal regions, the U.S. National Weather Service warned. The storm has the makings of the “Big One” and so far appears “textbook,” according to the winter-weather expert who literally wrote the textbook on northeast snowstorms. As of Friday morning, more than 85 million people—or more than one in every four Americans—were covered by some kind of blizzard or winter-storm advisory, according to weather.com. Local, state, and federal officials have been scrambling to organize their responses to the blizzard as residents swarm grocery stores to stock up on food and water. As of Friday afternoon, there were already five storm-related deaths reported. Continue Reading * [javascript] The Most Powerful Images of 2015 + Greyson Korhonen and Alan Taylor A selection of the year's best photos Watch Video * [javascript] A Photojournalist Walks Away From His Profession + Nadine Ajaka How do you decide when you've seen enough of war? Watch Video * [javascript] Dennis Hlynsky / The Atlantic / Pearson Scott Foreman / Wikimedia Commons Revealing the Hidden Patterns of Birds and Insects in Motion + Sam Price-Waldman A video shows the dreamlike voyages of starlings, water striders, and more. Watch Video More Popular Stories Show Comments Subscribe Get 10 issues a year and save 65% off the cover price. 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