In response to a request for advice and recommendations for proposed regulations to implement programs under Title I of the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), SIIA submitted a letter to the U.S. Department of Education with recommendations intended to encourage innovation from the ground up.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission against Google for violation of the K-12 School Service Provider Pledge to Safeguard Student Privacy.  The FTC will assess the complaint on its merits and make a judgment one way or the other.  But, it is important to point out that the complaint contains some important misunderstandings about the student privacy pledge.

The post-August recess has not been a quiet time for education policy on Capitol Hill or in the states.  The reauthorization of ESEA is moving to conference, the U.S. Senate has announced its intention to reauthorize the Perkins CTE Act, two Federal student privacy bills are pending, and Michigan has been moving its own student privacy legislation. SIIA has not been sleeping through this season either.

The Education Technology Industry Network (ETIN) of SIIA, in partnership with Funds For Learning, announces the release of SIIA’s Guide to the E-rate 2.0. The guide reviews the FCC’s recent E-Rate modernization, including a summary of the significant update to its rules and eligible services, analysis of the evolving E-Rate market, and how the E-Rate affects school technology purchases and planning.

The recent FTC workshop “Big Data: A Tool for Inclusion or Exclusion?” posed important questions on whether and how analytics could be used to restrict life chances for people rather than create economic and social opportunity.  The answer lies in the hands of the user of the technology, not in the technology itself.  The critical question is how people use, implement or otherwise act on the discoveries – the indicators, insights and evidence – that data analytics can uncover or reveal.