Responding to overwhelming public protest, a federal judge has backtracked on the potential release of records for 10 million California students — and decided that they won’t be provided to attorneys in a special-education lawsuit.
Instead, Judge Kimberly Mueller ruled that the huge database will remain solely with the California Department of Education, which then will have to assist attorneys seeking evidence in the state’s electronic files.
But the judge left in place the potential release to attorneys of other comprehensive information, including six years of statewide STAR test data, plus records of special-education students, who make up about 10 percent of pre-K-12 students statewide. Those databases include mental health and behavior records.
Parents and privacy advocates applauded Mueller’s decision but still worried it will allow the release of sensitive details. The huge database on students and teachers includes names, addresses, disciplinary records, grades, test scores, and even details such as pregnancy, addiction and criminal history. Pam Dixon of the World Privacy Forum said the data are “inappropriate in any hands” other than those of education authorities.
“It’s a really good thing they are just going to query the database,” she said. “This information should never be released.”
The lawsuit alleges that the state fails to ensure districts provide a free and appropriate education for special-needs children. The case is being heard in Sacramento in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.
Dixon and other critics had said that once released, the databases would be a ripe target for sophisticated thieves. The San Francisco law office of Rony Sagy, who is representing the parent plaintiffs, would not be able to safeguard the data, critics warned, no matter what kind of security measures they would take.
Sherry Skelly Griffith, executive director of the California State PTA, said, “Every student and family deserve to have their data and identity protected.”
On the other side, the parents suing the state also applauded Mueller’s decision, issued in writing earlier in the week, arguing they never sought to jeopardize student privacy and that the state had other options for meeting their information request.
“Whatever approach we can get access to current, valid and accurate data is great,” said Christine English, vice president of California Concerned Parents, which is suing along with a group that started in Morgan Hill. Until now, she said, the Department of Education has refused to explain how data was communicated across the databases.
Before this week, the judge had indicated that the attorneys could get a copy of the state’s comprehensive database on students and teachers, known as CALPADS or the California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System.
Mueller acknowledged the public reaction against the proposed data release.
Following federal privacy rules, Mueller had offered parents the option to protest the release of their children’s data. Her court has been so inundated with objection forms — which had to be mailed to court — that officials can’t even read them. Mueller this week ordered the forms archived in sealed boxes.
She wrote that she “construes the objections as reinforcing the need for the protection of personal identifying information in the CDE’s educational records” and the need to modify her protocol for releasing data. She also suggested that in the future, when courts solicit parent objections, that they arrange a way to submit protests online. She also suggested updating the federal student privacy law, enacted in 1974, in the pre-digital era. The law allows parents to protest but not prevent release of their children’s data.
Last year, Mueller appointed a special master, San Francisco attorney Winston Krone, to oversee the data release. This week she ordered the parties to confer with Krone on how queries can be run on CALPADS to allow the plaintiffs to obtain the data they seek.
Contact Sharon Noguchi at 408-271-3775. Follow her at Twitter.com/noguchionk12.
