Loading...
Title : Naviance; I Have Some Questions
link : Naviance; I Have Some Questions
Naviance; I Have Some Questions
On Wednesday night, the Board is to vote on whether to accept a contract with Hobson's Naviance system of college/career supports for over $600K over three years.I admit I am a bit late to the party but I have finally looked into this and I have mixed feelings. As usual, the devil is in the details and there are very few details in the BAR to go on.
Clearly, a 400-1 student-counselor ratio for high school is terrible. Most of our high school counselors do a lot more scheduling than advising on college/career. And, most high schools no longer even have a college/career counselor. (Those that do either have principals that rearranged money or, more likely, the PTSA is funding.).
While that is a sad state of things, it's one that the district decided to go with, just as they have consistently decided to underfund regular maintenance. And, this BAR for the contract states that they need at least one FTE - at JSCEE - to oversee this implementation and, as well, someone at each high school to run it there. (I would assume there are costs to both things but that isn't mentioned in the BAR so the $600+K contract is much higher.)
Meaning, the district got itself to this place and their answer is...technology.
What's odd - and thanks to a reader for much of this help - is that the BAR mentions a couple of alternatives but not the one that seems most obvious - the Coalition for Access & Affordability. This a coalition group of colleges and universities - including UW - that work together to making applying for college easier for underresourced students. And, did I mention, it's free to districts to use.
So what is my recommendation?
First, I urge you to write to the Board - spsdirectors@seattleschools.org - and include some of my suggestions. Tell the Board that student data privacy is important and parents' rights to control that data must be respected.
I think the Board should ask for many other alternatives to Naviance. Or, use Naviance for some things but use the Coalition for Access & Affordability for others.
Also, the contract with Naviance should clearly state:
- no third-party vendors have access to any data without parent/district permission
- that FERPA gets suspended with some uses of Naviance (apparently in using the Common Application) and parents will receive notification when this happens
- parents should be able to opt their kids out of using Naviance without any kind of repercussions to students
- parents be notified that they can have access to their child's account
- maybe have proxy IDs for students so Naviance doesn't have anyone's name or birthdate
- make sure that the system the district uses for student information will indeed matchup with Naviance's platform
- that the district will CLEARLY tell parents what aspects of Naviance are being used and the district will NOT turn on any new ones without early notification to parents
- all data on students who leave/graduate from SPS that is in the hands of Naviance will be destroyed within three months.
The Board should be very clear on what any contract with Naviance will look like.
Analysis
As usual, it will really boil down to what is in the contract between Naviance and SPS. What is attached to the BAR is just the RFP.
One reader said that his daughter was at Holy Names Academy and they use it. So I gave them a call and boy, are they nice.
Turns out they have been using it, happily, for 14 years. However, they ONLY use it as method to help for college applications. Each student gets a school e-mail and then, in early 10th grade, they all bring their laptops to school and everyone registers at once. It helps the school send letters of recommendation (except for a few schools that still want a hard-copy letter mailed), transcripts and all school reports.
They also can see stats from all the colleges where students apply and create a scattergraph to track applications. However,
"We don't use the career option piece."
Basically, Holy Names uses it to streamline college applications and not much else.
So one key to all of this is that the district is in control of what different aspects of the platform they wish to use (some things are part included and others cost more). AND this:
Each school or district configures the product in a way they see fit for their students.
Different features are available to to be turned on or off at the sole discretion of the school or district. None are compulsory.
Parents can have an account and see their their child's activity.
Also to note, Naviance "retains data at the discretion of clients." So even if your student graduates, Naviance will have that data until the district tells them to destroy it.
I note that Naviance did NOT sign the SIIA pledge on privacy until they were practically shamed into it. Not good.
Here's a Q&A with one Colorado school district parent about privacy issues. Not inspiring.
Basically, Naviance only asks for about four personal items from your child. However, the district is likely to give much, much more in order to get more analytics from using Naviance. And that's where it gets very personal.As the Missouri Education Watchdog says,
"What to do when a vendor wants to know everything about your child but won't tell you what they are doing with the data?"
For example:
You will remember we wrote about Naviance who gathers personal information about school children, including personality surveys, hobbies, likes and dislikes, employment history, and family information and financial, income information via grant applications, scholarship applications, college applications. We also explained that during the Naviance process, there are many third party vendors who access the data. In fact, students were asked to waive their FERPA rights while using the Common App through Naviance. You can read about it here.
We asked Naviance if we could see a list of their third party vendor contracts, what data they get, how they share it. Here is what Naviance said,“We are legally bound by confidentiality agreements with our third party providers and may not release these contracts.” – Hobsons VP of Policy and Advocacy (see full letter here)
* 2017 Update* Thanks to a new Colorado law, vendors who collect pii student data must provide names of subcontractors and a copy of the data sharing contract. Hobsons Naviance still has NOT provided contracts, or cited data elements that are shared, but has provided a list of subcontractors. Please see their March 2017 letter and subcontractor list here.
Hmmm. So much for transparency and advocacy. As for asking the school district, they didn’t know either, and actually gave us the contact information to ask Naviance ourselves (who pointed us back to the school district.) Rinse, Repeat.About Naviance
I always get suspicious when companies - even "non-profits" - say different things about themselves.
To wit:
Naviance by Hobson is a college and career readiness platform that helps connect academic achievement to post-secondary goals.
But then there is also:
Naviance is a college and career readiness solution that helps districts and schools align student strengths and interests to postsecondary goals, improving student outcomes and connecting learning to life.
I'm wondering which is the real goal - to help students or help districts?
They have a number of "partners" including Common Application, Pearson, Sallie Mae, the School Superintendents Association and the American Association of Community Colleges.
As well, they are aligned with - I'm not kidding - The Data Cookbook's PAR Framework.
The PAR framework is a learner analytics-as-a-service provider. We are (sic) non-profit, multi-institutional data-sharing cooperative , compromised of two and four year public, proprietary, traditional and progressive institutions.
Basically, it's a lot of institutions contributing what might be called "big data" in order to learn more about students and outcomes. How this all happens is a little vague. Again, not good.
thus Article Naviance; I Have Some Questions
that is all articles Naviance; I Have Some Questions This time, hopefully can provide benefits to all of you. Okay, see you in another article posting.
You now read the article Naviance; I Have Some Questions with the link address https://onechildsmart.blogspot.com/2017/11/naviance-i-have-some-questions.html
0 Response to "Naviance; I Have Some Questions"
Post a Comment