A majority of Americans oppose a plan to create a database that would track individual students’ educational progress, according to polling data released by a national higher-education group that is dead set against the proposal.
The poll, which was commissioned by the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, showed that 62 percent of Americans opposed the creation of a system that would allow the government to track individual students’ academic, financial-aid, and enrollment information; 33 percent supported such a system; and 4 percent were unsure. The national poll of 1,000 adults, which was conducted for the association in June by Ipsos Public Affairs, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
The private-college group commissioned the poll in response to a draft report by the U.S. Education Department’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education. The draft endorsed the formation of a “national student unit-record tracking system” that would use Social Security numbers or some other identifier to track students.
Proponents of the system say it would provide a better means of holding colleges accountable and would collect data that are now un- available, such as accurate graduation rates for transfer students.
“It’s about knowing what happens to our students and who our students are so we can serve them better,” said Travis J. Reindl, director of state-policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, which supports the federal commission’s proposal.
He said the poll’s results were misleading because its questions made the proposal sound like “the federal government is going to disclose information to God and everyone.” The poll’s questions do not mention who besides the government, if anyone, would have access to the data or what privacy safeguards might be taken.
Opponents of such a tracking system, like the private-college association, think such a vast database would be ripe for abuse. They cite as examples a recent security breach of personal information at the Department of Veterans Affairs and the viewing of personal data at several colleges by hackers.
The federal commission is scheduled to release its final report in middle to late September.
An earlier proposal for a unit-record system prompted the House of Representatives to pass a measure last year that explicitly barred the Education Department from creating such a system.
David L. Warren, president of the private-college group, criticized the department for its “rapacious appetite for more data” when it is not using all the data it now collects from colleges.
As part of a teleconference announcing the poll results, presidents of several private colleges said they opposed the collection of data on individual students. Calling the proposal “Orwellian,” they expressed concerns about student privacy and administrative costs.
Rolf Wegenke, president of the Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, said that much of the data was already available in aggregate form and that there were other ways to judge colleges. “We are accountable to an even more important constituency than the Congress, and that is the student,” he said.
The private-college presidents who took part in the conference call said that asking colleges to provide data on individual students rather than aggregate data could cost institutions hundreds of thousands of dollars and many hours of work. They also worried that it could violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law, known as Ferpa, that bars colleges from releasing personal information about a student without his or her approval.
But Mr. Reindl said that the policy could be carried out within existing laws, and that the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics could find ways to protect students’ personal information.
http://chronicle.com Section: Government & Politics Volume 52, Issue 46, Page A21