There's been lots of public education news in recent days. Below we cover three stories where your action is needed:
- Legislation to create national voucher program advances in the US House
- Fallout from the Powerschool data breach continues, but no movement on student data privacy bill in Springfield
- For-profit virtual counseling services in CPS endanger students' private data
Still time to stop vouchers from returning to Illinois...
A national school voucher program, which would overrule states like Illinois that have rejected vouchers, inched closer to passage this week.
On Wednesday, the US House Ways and Means Committee passed an amendment that is part of the larger House reconciliation budget package which includes a $20 billion voucher program—$5 billion per year for four years. (See p. 57-71.)
More details on the current version of this voucher bill are here: "Dangerous National Private School Voucher Program Included in House Budget Legislation." It is smaller than previously proposed, and it would prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability status, including requiring private schools to follow students' Individualized Education Programs.
However, those discrimination prohibitions are very weak and do not cover other protected categories of students. We know private schools that previously received vouchers in Illinois also discriminated against LGTBQ+ students, immigrants, pregnant and parenting students and more.
Like all voucher programs, this one would mostly subsidize families that already send their children to private schools, and, because the income limits are set so high, even families making more than $300K in the Chicago area will be able to receive vouchers, with no limits on the size of the voucher.
Moreover, because it is structured as a tax-credit scholarship program, it would also be a tax shelter for the wealthy, one that drastically changes the incentives for all charitable donations, by increasing the incentives for taxpayers to contribute to voucher-granting orgs instead of any other cause.
This is terrible public policy. And it’s combined with a long list of other grossly harmful measures in the larger reconciliation bill. So, every dollar slated to pay for a voucher for a wealthy family to send their child to a private school that they are already attending is a dollar being slashed from healthcare and food assistance.
On the plus side, there are still more House votes required for the full budget bill even before it can move to the Senate. It failed a key vote today in the House Budget committee. On the minus side, that loss was because of Republicans who want even harsher cuts and restrictions on Medicaid. (Under the current bill it is estimated that upwards of half a million Illinoisans, possibly many more, could lose their healthcare.)
✶ TAKE ACTION:
Write to your member of Congress here to tell them that vouchers shouldn’t be snuck into a budget bill, and follow it up with a call.
(Note: even when/if the bill passes the House, if it is then modified in the Senate, it will need to return to the House, so continuous pressure on all of our US reps is helpful!)
Whether or not your Congressperson is in the majority in the House, they can still draw public attention to the fact that this reconciliation package is not just an attack on the basic human rights of healthcare and food, but also public education.
Please also call both of your US Senators. Neither of our Senators in Illinois have made a public statement opposing the creation of a national voucher program. Ask that they issue such a statement! If the DC switchboard is busy, try their other offices.
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Sen. Durbin |
Sen. Duckworth |
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202-224-2152 - Washington DC |
202-224-2854 - Washington DC |
Hackers extorting school districts…but IL Senate not moving on HB 2696
There was yet another disturbing news item last week about the Powerschool breach in December that impacted more than 60 million students and almost 10 million educators, including dozens of districts in Illinois. Now school districts hit by that breach are being extorted to prevent the release of data that Powerschool says it paid the original hackers to “delete.”
NBC News: School districts hit with extortion attempts months after education tech data breach
Paying ransom for data is something that, for years, the FBI and CISA have advised companies and organizations NOT to do!
On top of this, Powerschool has still not been forthcoming with full details of the impact of the breach, but it was almost certainly the result of their inadequate security protocols; according to NBC News, “the hacker simply obtained a single employee’s password,” and PowerSchool admitted publicly that “the infiltrated PowerSource system did not have multi-factor authentication support.”
Even though companies have a duty to implement adequate security measures for education data under IL's Student Online Personal Protection Act (SOPPA), Powerschool will likely never be held accountable for violating SOPPA. Only our state attorney general can enforce SOPPA, and that’s never happened since the law was passed back in 2017.
Sadly, HB 2696, which would give families the right to sue companies that violate SOPPA, is still languishing in the Senate Assignments Committee, more than a month after it passed the House, 70-38.
✶ TAKE ACTION:
Please contact your state senator and ask why HB 2696 was not assigned to a committee to get a hearing. Why don’t families deserve some recourse under SOPPA? Why should companies let breach after breach take place or sell students’ data year after year? Why shouldn’t families be able to sue Powerschool after an incident like this? And why isn’t the General Assembly concerned that our State Attorney General isn't enforcing the law they passed eight years ago?
New co-sponsors are still signing on to HB 2696, so, even though the bill's future is uncertain, you can also request that your Senator sponsor the bill, if they aren't listed here yet.
For-profit virtual mental health services raises red flags on student privacy
Chicago Public Schools rolled out telehealth counseling services provided by a for-profit company Hazel Health in March for high school students. It is being paid for in part by UnitedHealthCare.
Expanding access to mental health services for CPS students is very needed right now (and for a long time!) However, the program raises some huge red flags in terms of privacy, security and commercial exploitation of extremely sensitive student data.
IL-FPS sent a letter about the service to the Chicago Board of Education last week outlining a list of concerns, including:
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The consent form for the program requires parents to agree that the data collected may not be secure and may at some point be stolen.
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Parents must agree that their child’s identifiable data can be used for product development, a violation of SOPPA, and for research purposes—with no further information provided about the latter, a violation of CPS policy.
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The contracts with Hazel Health do not specify what health, video or audio data the company will have and use even though that is a requirement under SOPPA.
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The webpages parents are directed to on Hazel's website have trackers from Alphabet and Amazon, a practice that the US Department of Health and Human Services warned health care providers about in 2022. Also note that, under SOPPA, students' protected information cannot be used for targeted advertising.
New York City rolled out a telehealth mental health program last fall, which was a contract between the city's Department of Health and for-profit therapy provider Talkspace. The program was widely promoted by the NYC Dept. of Education to public school students. It had (and still has) some major privacy issues (see here and here), and the contract had to be rewritten.
CPS should be rewriting their contract with Hazel Health and revising the documents and policies that parents must agree to for their child to access services. Although future funding for the program is not certain, the CPS contract could be renewed up to another eight years.
In light of the Illinois Senate failing to take any action on HB 2696, it is especially distressing to see things like this contract and consent form from Hazel Health knowing that Hazel has no motivation to comply with provisions in SOPPA because enforcement of SOPPA is essentially non-existent.
✶ TAKE ACTION:
If you are outside Chicago:
Keep an eye out for your board considering contracting with Hazel Health or other for-profit virtual health services. Hazel Health also has a contract in East St. Louis District 189 and previously had one in Bunker HIll CUSD 8.If you are in Chicago:
Make sure your Chicago Board of Ed member has seen this letter from IL-FPS. Email them and ask what they are doing to address it. You can find who your subdistrict member is here, and the list of board member email addresses is here.
If your child is or was using Hazel Health’s services and you are worried about protecting their private data, please get in touch: [email protected]
Thanks for your advocacy! Reach out with questions: [email protected]