Making the permanent record really permanent


Proposal to create a national student database to increase accountability.
The Secretary of Education wants to establish a national student database. Katherine Haley Will tells us the story. Emphasis added.

Whether you call it a "national unit records database" (the first name) or a "consumer-friendly information database" (the second), it is in fact a mandatory federal registry of all American students throughout their collegiate careers -- every course, every step, every misstep. Once established, it could easily be linked to existing K-12 and workforce databases to create unprecedented cradle-to-grave tracking of American citizens. All under the watchful eye of the federal government.

The commission calls our nation's colleges and universities unaccountable, inefficient and inaccessible. In response it seeks to institute collection of personal information designed to quantify our students' performance in college and in the workforce.

But many of us are concerned about invading our students' privacy by feeding confidential educational and personal data, linked to Social Security numbers, into a mandatory national database. Such a database would wrest control over educational records from students and hand it to the government. I'd like the commission to tell me how our students would benefit from our reporting confidential family financial information.

It's "for the kids."

Time and time again, the FedGovs have shown that not only can't they keep massive databases secure, they can't even keep them accurate.

There is no need to create a national database for students. The students have every right to keep their personal information out of ANY government database. And your employer certainly doesn't need to see your geography scores from the seventh grade.

This is your freedom that the FedGovs want to sacrifice for their "efficiency." The freedom to choose IS liberty, and anything less is just a masquerade.

It keeps coming back to one thing. "Power over versus power with." I may not agree with Starhawk about everything, but gods, the lady nailed that one!

If the FedGovs really want to create accountability in higher education, fall back on the one thing that consistently works, a free market and consumer choice. Get the Federal money out of the universities and colleges, then watch the changes bloom.

It's that simple.

Instead, we have a problem created by government intervention. The proposed solution is to increase government control and monitoring. And it's not going to get better by electing the "right" people. The root problem is too much government, not which party calls the shots.

KYFHO.

Hat tip to Wren's Nest.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sun - July 23, 2006 at 04:25 AM  Tag


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