In a late Friday news dump, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) announced a massive breach of the personal data of almost half a million students and more than 56,000 teachers. Parents and guardians were sent individual notices if their child’s data was included in the breach. The data, which spanned four schools years, 2015-16 through 2018-19, was part of a ransomware attack on a non-profit ed tech vendor Battelle for Kids, which has had a contract with CPS since 2012.

Despite the fact that the federal government does not require standardized math and reading tests for students in grades K-2, the IL State Board of Ed is considering a proposal that would expand the state testing system to include those grades. They will be voting soon on this proposal, which would also increase 3-8th grade state math and reading testing to three times a year instead of once, in addition to paying for districts to give these tests to our youngest learners—when there’s absolutely no federal requirement to do so!

Two major changes in the IL School Code went into effect this summer: the Right to Play recess law and a major amendment to the Student Online Personal Protection Act. IL Families for Public Schools was instrumental in drafting and passing these two pieces of legislation.

What do these two new laws mean for students, families and public schools? You can watch the IL Families for Public Schools webinar we held on October 20th to learn what you need to know.

Our co-directors, Cassie and Wendy, are in Springfield this week to work on a number of issues! They will be meeting with Representatives Andrade, Martwick, and Williams to work on a data privacy bill. They will also be meeting with legislators to discuss the possibility of an override vote on the class-size goals bill Governor Rauner vetoed.

HB1295, the Student Information Transparency Act, a bill that RYH Action helped draft. We'll be meeting with the opponents of this bill again next week for further negotiations. You can help us by writing a quick note to your legislators about why action on student privacy is more urgent than ever.

In January, RYH Action wrote a student data transparency bill with guidance from Rachael Stickland of the national group Parent Coalition for Student Privacy. As computer usage and data collection increases in public ed, parents have the right to know who is collecting, storing and sharing what data on their children, and this bill would do just that.

SB3099 is a bill written to benefit the College Board and ACT, Inc, allowing them to sell or rent sensitive student data that they access through questionnaires administered along with tests like the SAT. RYH Action urges parents and privacy advocates to submit a witness slip to oppose this bill in hearing tomorrow (3/12/2018)

The Student Online Privacy Protection Act, SB1796, does the opposite of what it is intended to: instead of protecting student data, it will write into law tech companies' existing misuse of students' personally identifiable information. For every small benefit children get with this bill, website and app operators get a huge gift. Call your state rep and tell them to vote NO.

Ever more digital data is collected about and from students in public school, and the security and privacy of this data is a major concern for parents. We would love to see robust legislation passed in Illinois that builds on the protections of our existing student privacy law in this new era of big data and ed tech. But SB1796, the Student Online Privacy Protection Act, is not that legislation.