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STRENGTHENING EDUCATION 

RESEARCH AND PRIVACY 

PROTECTIONS TO BETTER SERVE 

STUDENTS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION 

AND THE WORKFORCE 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, MARCH 22, 2016 

Serial No. 114–45 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and the Workforce 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/ 

committee.action?chamber=house&committee=education 

or 

Committee address: http://edworkforce.house.gov 

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COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE 

JOHN KLINE, Minnesota, Chairman 

Joe Wilson, South Carolina 

Virginia Foxx, North Carolina 

Duncan Hunter, California 

David P. Roe, Tennessee 

Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania 

Tim Walberg, Michigan 

Matt Salmon, Arizona 

Brett Guthrie, Kentucky 

Todd Rokita, Indiana 

Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania 

Joseph J. Heck, Nevada 

Luke Messer, Indiana 

Bradley Byrne, Alabama 

David Brat, Virginia 

Buddy Carter, Georgia 

Michael D. Bishop, Michigan 

Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin 

Steve Russell, Oklahoma 

Carlos Curbelo, Florida 

Elise Stefanik, New York 

Rick Allen, Georgia 

Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, Virginia 

Ranking Member 

Rube ́n Hinojosa, Texas 

Susan A. Davis, California 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, Arizona 

Joe Courtney, Connecticut 

Marcia L. Fudge, Ohio 

Jared Polis, Colorado 

Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, 

Northern Mariana Islands 

Frederica S. Wilson, Florida 

Suzanne Bonamici, Oregon 

Mark Pocan, Wisconsin 

Mark Takano, California 

Hakeem S. Jeffries, New York 

Katherine M. Clark, Massachusetts 

Alma S. Adams, North Carolina 

Mark DeSaulnier, California 

Juliane Sullivan, Staff Director 

Denise Forte, Minority Staff Director 

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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on March 22, 2016 ............................................................................ 1 

Statement of Members: 

Kline, Hon. John, Chairman, Committee on Education and the Workforce 1 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 3 

Scott, Hon. Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’, Ranking Member, Committee on Education and the Workforce ............................................................................. 4 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 05 

Statement of Witnesses: 

Campbell, Neil, Mr., Director, Next Generation Reforms, Foundation for 

Excellence in Education, SC ........................................................................ 14 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 16 

Hannaway, Jane, Ms., Professor, McCourt School, Georgetown University .................................................................................................................. 18 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 20 

Stickland, Rachael, Ms., Co-Founder and Co-Chair, Parent Coalition for 

Student Privacy ............................................................................................. 07 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 09 

Swiggum, Robert, Mr., Deputy Superintendent of Technology Services, 

Georgia Department of Education ............................................................... 26 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 28 

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STRENGTHENING EDUCATION RESEARCH 

AND PRIVACY PROTECTIONS TO BETTER 

SERVE STUDENTS 

Tuesday, March 22, 2016 

House of Representatives 

Committee on Education and the Workforce 

Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in Room 

2175 Rayburn House Office Building. Hon. John Kline [chairman 

of the committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Kline, Wilson, Foxx, Roe, Thompson, 

Walberg, Salmon, Guthrie, Rokita, Heck, Messer, Byrne, Brat, Carter, Bishop, Grothman, Curbelo, Stefanik, Allen, Scott, Fudge, 

Polis, Bonamici, Pocan, Takano, Jeffries, Clark, Adams, and 

DeSaulnier. 

Staff Present: Janelle Belland, Coalitions and Members Services 

Coordinator; Tyler Hernandez, Deputy Communications Director; 

Amy Raaf Jones, Director of Education and Human Resources Policy; Nancy Locke, Chief Clerk; Dominique McKay, Deputy Press 

Secretary; Brian Newell, Communications Director; Krisann 

Pearce, General Counsel; Alex Ricci, Legislative Assistant; Mandy 

Schaumburg, Education Deputy Director and Senior Counsel; 

Alissa Strawcutter, Deputy Clerk; Juliane Sullivan, Staff Director; 

Leslie Tatum, Professional Staff Member; Sheariah Yousefi, Legislative Assistant, Tylease Alli, Minority Clerk/Intern and Fellow Coordinator; Austin Barbera, Minority Staff Assistant; Jacque Chevalier, Minority Senior Education Policy Advisor; Denise Forte, Minority Staff Director; Alexander Payne, Minority Education Policy 

Advisor; Veronique Pluviose, Minority Civil Rights Counsel; Rayna 

Reid, Minority Education Policy Counsel; Saloni Sharma, Minority 

Press Assistant. 

Chairman KLINE. A quorum being present, the Committee on 

Education and the Workforce will come to order. Good morning. I 

want to extend a warm welcome to our distinguished panel of witnesses. Thank you for joining us to share your thoughts and expertise on a number of complex yet important issues affecting students 

across the country. 

Education research has long played an important role in our Nation’s classrooms. States and school districts use research to identify teaching and learning strategies that improve classroom instruction and those that do not. 

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Education research also provides parents, teachers, school leaders, and policymakers with the information they need to determine 

if Federal programs are delivering real results for students and 

taxpayers. 

For more than 40 years, the Federal Government has partnered 

with the private sector and State and local leaders to help facilitate 

this research. The partnership was reaffirmed in 2002 when Congress passed the Education Sciences Reform Act. The law established the Institute of Education Sciences to take the lead on gathering information about educational progress, conducting research 

on teacher practices, and evaluating the quality of Federal programs. 

The Institute has helped provide greater transparency and accountability and has helped implement successful education practices in countless schools. 

That does not mean there are not areas for improvement. In fact, 

the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office has cited several 

weaknesses Congress needs to address, including duplicative research and a failure to disseminate key information in a timely 

manner. 

Fortunately, because of the work of this committee, we are well 

on our way to reforming the law. In the spring of 2014, the committee passed and the House later adopted by voice vote the bipartisan Strengthening Education Through Research Act. 

The legislation included a number of important reforms, such as 

streamlining the Federal education research system, requiring regular evaluations of research programs, and strengthening the autonomy of Federal researchers to ensure they are not subject to political bias and interference. 

Many of us were disappointed when the Senate was unable to 

push the bill across the finish line in the last Congress. However, 

we are pleased the Senate has taken action on nearly identical legislation this year, and it is my hope we can complete this work this 

year. 

Now, any effort to improve education research should also 

strengthen student privacy protections. New technology has made 

it easier to analyze student information and develop new ways to 

improve learning, but it has also left parents and students more 

vulnerable to the misuse of student information. 

To make matters worse, student privacy protections are woefully 

outdated. Long before online learning tools and Cloud-based computing systems were the norm, Congress passed the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, FERPA. The intent of the law was 

to safeguard student privacy and give parents the peace of mind 

that their children’s academic records and personal information 

were safe and secure. 

That was 1974, and a lot has changed since then. More student 

information is being collected and shared than ever before, often 

without the knowledge of parents and school officials. 

A proposal introduced by Republicans and Democrats will bring 

the law into the 21st century. Among other reforms, the Student 

Privacy Protection Act will provide greater clarity and transparency over what information schools can use, collect, and share 

for educational purposes. 

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The legislation will also strengthen the right of parents to prevent the sharing of their children’s information and enhance communication between parents and school leaders. 

Both proposals, the Strengthening Education Through Research 

Act and the Student Privacy Protection Act, reflect the hard work 

of members on both sides of the aisle, particularly the ranking 

member of the K–12 Subcommittee, Congresswoman Fudge; a 

former colleague from New York, Carolyn McCarthy; and last, but 

certainly not least, Congressman Todd Rokita, the chairman of the 

K–12 Subcommittee who remains a strong leader on these vital 

issues. 

Improving education remains a leading priority for our committee, and it is my hope we can take additional steps to improve 

education by enhancing education research and strengthening student privacy protections. 

Before I recognize Ranking Member Scott, I want to make sure 

that I express my condolences, and I am sure our condolences, to 

those who lost loved ones in the Belgium terrorist attack. Our 

thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families during this very difficult time. 

I now recognize Ranking Member Bobby Scott for his opening remarks. 

[The information follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Hon. John Kline, Chairman 

Committee on Education and the Workforce 

Good morning. I want to extend a warm welcome to our distinguished panel of 

witnesses. Thank you for joining us to share your thoughts and expertise on a number of complex yet important issues affecting students across the country. 

Education research has long played an important role in our nation’s classrooms. 

States and school districts use research to identify teaching and learning strategies 

that improve classroom instruction and those that don’t. Education research also 

provides parents, teachers, school leaders, and policymakers with the information 

they need to determine if federal programs are delivering real results for students 

and taxpayers. 

For more than 40 years, the federal government has partnered with the private 

sector and state and local leaders to help facilitate this research. The partnership 

was reaffirmed in 2002 when Congress passed the Education Sciences Reform Act. 

The law established the Institute of Education Sciences to take the lead on gathering information about educational progress, conducting research on teaching practices, and evaluating the quality of federal programs. The institute has helped provide greater transparency and accountability and has helped implement successful 

education practices in countless schools. 

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t areas for improvement. In fact, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office has cited several weaknesses Congress 

needs to address, including duplicative research and a failure to disseminate key information in a timely manner. Fortunately, because of the work of this committee, 

we are well on our way to reforming the law. In the spring of 2014, the committee 

passed – and the House later adopted by voice vote – the bipartisan Strengthening 

Education through Research Act. 

The legislation included a number of important reforms, such as streamlining the 

federal education research system, requiring regular evaluations of research programs, and strengthening the autonomy of federal researchers to ensure they are 

not subject to political bias and interference. Many of us were disappointed the Senate was unable to push the bill across the finish line in the last Congress. However, 

we’re pleased the Senate has taken action on nearly identical legislation this Congress, and it’s my hope we can complete this work this year. 

Now, any effort to improve education research should also strengthen student privacy protections. New technology has made it easier to analyze student information 

and develop new ways to improve learning, but it has also left parents and students 

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4 

more vulnerable to the misuse of student information. To make matters worse, student privacy protections are woefully outdated. 

Long before online learning tools and cloud-based computing systems were the 

norm, Congress passed the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA. 

The intent of the law was to safeguard student privacy and give parents the peace 

of mind that their children’s academic records and personal information were safe 

and secure. But that was 1974, and a lot has changed since then. More student information is being collected and shared than ever before, often without the knowledge of parents and school officials. 

A proposal introduced by Republicans and Democrats will bring the law into the 

twenty-first century. Among other reforms, the Student Privacy Protection Act will 

provide greater clarity and transparency over what information schools can use, collect, and share for educational purposes. The legislation will also strengthen the 

right of parents to prevent the sharing of their children’s information and enhance 

communication between parents and school leaders. 

Both proposals – the Strengthening Education through Research Act and the Student Privacy Protection Act – reflect the hard work of members from both sides of 

the aisle, particularly the ranking member of the K–12 subcommittee, Congresswoman Fudge, our former colleague from New York, Carolyn McCarthy, and last 

but certainly not least, Congressman Todd Rokita, the chairman of the K–12 subcommittee, who remains a strong leader on these vital issues. 

Improving education remains a leading priority for our committee, and it’s my 

hope we can take additional steps to improve education by enhancing education research and strengthening student privacy protections. I look forward to today’s discussion, learning more about these issues, and ultimately moving forward with commonsense reforms that will make a positive difference in the lives of our nation’s 

students and families. With that, I will recognize Ranking Member Bobby Scott for 

his opening remarks. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for recognizing our friends in Belgium. And I want to thank our panelists 

for being with us today to testify before the committee. 

Mr. Chairman, gone are the days when education was flashcards 

and workbooks. Today’s students use electronic tablets, 

smartphones, apps, online study tools, and various other technological resources to aid them in their studies. 

Teachers have the ability to extend learning beyond the classroom using digital learning platforms to share multimedia resources and engage parents in their children’s learning. 

Educational technology generates information that can be instrumental in improving a student’s learning experience. The data from 

these tools allow teachers to more accurately assess student 

progress and provide interventions to ensure the children are 

learning. Data can also assist schools in making district strategy 

and curriculum decisions. 

Many States now use longitudinal data systems to link student 

achievement data from pre-K through grade 12, even past college 

and into the workforce. This enables district and State leaders to 

make informed data-driven policy choices. 

The Institute of Education Sciences, the IES, also helps to provide education practitioners with scientifically sound, relevant, and 

accessible findings that can inform decision-making and educational practice. 

Through the delivery of the National Assessment of Educational 

Progress and various research projects and surveys, even randomized control trials and provision of technical assistance to States, 

and dissemination of research, IES provides a novel approach to 

harnessing data collection and educational technology to improve 

educational practice and systems management. 

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5 

While the use of technology in education continues to expand, we 

must take the necessary steps to protect the privacy and data of 

students and their families. The Family Educational Rights and 

Privacy Act was passed 40 years ago to address privacy concerns 

in a time of paper student records. 

Innovative educational technology tools capture large amounts of 

student data, and many districts now contract with private vendors 

to use online, Cloud-based storage for students. 

With this new technology, Congress must ensure privacy of the 

new data. Congress must ensure that student data is being used 

only for defined educational purposes, and cannot be sold or used 

for private companies’ financial gain. Parents should know who has 

access to student data and how it is being used and protected. 

Teachers and school leaders need to understand how to properly 

protect student information while taking advantage of powerful 

digital learning tools at their disposal. 

As we expand the student privacy and improve educational research and data collection, we need to make sure that we do not 

compromise on privacy. Students, teachers, and parents need to 

feel comfortable that student data is protected and at the same 

time, we need to be careful not to limit the advancement of new 

educational technologies or the breadth of ways data can be used 

to improve student performance. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how this can be 

done and other relevant issues on this topic. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The information follows:] 

Prepared Statement of Hon. Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, Ranking Member, 

Committee on Education and the Workforce 

Thank you Chairman Kline for holding this hearing, and thank you to the panelists for taking time out of your day to testify before the Committee. 

Gone are the days when education was flashcards and workbooks. Today’s students use electronic tablets and smartphones, apps, online study tools, and various 

other technological resources to aid them in their studies. Teachers have the ability 

to extend learning beyond the classroom using digital learning platforms to share 

multimedia resources and engage parents in their children’s learning. 

Educational technology generates information that can be instrumental in improving a student’s learning experience. The data from these tools allow teachers to 

more accurately assess student progress and provide 

interventions to ensure children are learning. Data can also assist schools in making district strategy and curriculum decisions. Many states now use longitudinal 

data systems to link student achievement data from pre-K through grade 12, or 

even past college and into the workforce. This enables district and state leaders to 

make informed, data-driven policy choices. 

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) also helps provide education practitioners with scientifically-sound, relevant, and accessible findings that can inform 

decision-making and instructional practice. Through the delivery of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, various research projects and surveys, randomized control trials, provision of technical assistance to states, and dissemination of 

research, IES provides a novel approach to harnessing data collection and educational technology to improve instructional practice and systems management. 

While the use of technology in education continues to expand, we must take the 

necessary steps to protect the privacy and data of students and their families. The 

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act was enacted 40 years ago to address privacy concerns in a time of paper student records. Innovative educational technology 

tools capture large amounts of student data, and many districts now contract with 

private vendors to use online, cloud-based storage for students. 

Congress must ensure student data is being used only for defined educational purposes and cannot be sold or used for private companies’ financial gain. Parents 

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6 

should know who has access to student data and how it is being used and protected. 

And teachers and school leaders need to understand how to properly protect student 

information while taking advantage of the powerful digital learning tools at their 

disposal. 

As we examine student privacy and improve education research and data collection, we need to balance privacy with innovation. Students, teachers, and parents 

need to feel comfortable that student data is protected. At the same time, we need 

to be careful not to limit the advancement of new educational technologies or the 

breadth of ways data can be used to improve student performance. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on this balancing act and other relevant issues regarding these topics. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman KLINE. I thank the gentleman. Pursuant to Committee 

Rule 7(c), all members will be permitted to submit written statements to be included in the permanent hearing record. Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow 

such statements and other extraneous material referenced during 

the hearing to be submitted to the official hearing record. 

Before I introduce our distinguished witnesses, I want to make 

sure they know and all here in the room that as is usual here in 

the House of Representatives, we have multiple hearings going on. 

This is one of those times where there are a number of members 

of this committee, including myself, who are also members of the 

House Armed Services Committee, and the Secretary of Defense 

and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are testifying there 

on the morning of the horrific attack in Brussels. 

Even more turmoil than usual as members are moving back and 

forth between those hearings, and I want to make sure you know 

that in a little while, I also am going to have to leave and yield 

the gavel, I think, to Chairman Rokita. 

Okay, let me introduce our witnesses. Ms. Rachael Stickland 

serves as the co-founder and co-chair for the Parent Coalition for 

Student Privacy in Littleton, Colorado. Ms. Stickland is also the 

founder of School Belongs to the Children, an organization that 

protects student privacy and advocates for parental rights in Colorado. 

Mr. Neil Campbell serves as director for Next Generation Reforms at the Foundation for Excellence in Education here in Washington, D.C. Previous to this, Mr. Campbell served as the director 

of Strategic Initiatives at Education Elements, an education technology company that helps schools design and implement personalized learning solutions. 

Dr. Jane Hannaway serves as professor at McCourt School of 

Public Policy at Georgetown University here in Washington, D.C. 

Her work focuses on the effects of education reforms on student 

outcomes, as well as on school policies and practices. 

Mr. Robert Swiggum serves as the deputy superintendent of 

Technology Services at the Georgia Department of Education. Mr. 

Swiggum leads the technical services data collections, instructional 

technology, and virtual school functions for the Department. 

Let me now ask our witnesses to stand, and please raise your 

right hand. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Chairman KLINE. Let the record reflect the witnesses answered 

in the affirmative, as they always do, I might add. 

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7 

Before I recognize each of you to provide your testimony, let me 

remind you of the lighting system. It is pretty straightforward. You 

get a green light, a yellow light, when you have 1 minute to go, 

and then a red light. When you get the red light, please try to expeditiously wrap up your testimony. 

We have big clocks in the back of the room, so we are watching 

that from here. I am loath to gavel down a witness when they are 

giving testimony, but with four witnesses and members who are 

going to want to ask questions, I would ask that you try to wrap 

it up at 5 minutes. Then as always, I will try to keep our members 

very tightly to the 5-minute rule. Because those big clocks are 

there, we have no excuses. We can see it. 

Ms. Stickland, you are recognized. 

TESTIMONY OF RACHAEL STICKLAND, CO–FOUNDER AND CO– 

CHAIR, PARENT COALITION FOR STUDENT PRIVACY 

Ms. STICKLAND. Good morning, Chairman Kline, Ranking Member Scott, and distinguished members of the committee. I would 

like to thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of 

parents concerned about strengthening privacy protections to better serve students. 

My name is Rachael Stickland. I am a parent of two public 

school children in Colorado, and I am co-founder and co-chair of the 

Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, which represents a wide coalition of parents from across the Nation, including Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, public school parents and home 

schoolers, professionals, and stay-at-home mothers. 

We receive no funding from special interests, and we are united 

in our effort to protect our children and their privacy. 

I would like to focus my testimony today on the need to strengthen Federal educational law to meet the challenges of our modern 

educational system and to address current threats to student privacy. 

Today’s schools collect more information on students than most 

parents realize. While some was required by No Child Left Behind 

and State statutes, much of the data today actually appears to 

transcend from legal requirements. Beyond transcript type data, 

like student names, addresses, courses taken, and grades earned, 

schools also collect hundreds of pieces of information, like disabilities and interventions, medical information, disciplinary incidents, 

scores on standardized exams, and recommendations for grade retention. 

Once information is collected at the local level, much of it is 

pushed up to the State to be maintained in the State unit record 

system called the Statewide Longitudinal Data System or SLDS, or 

the P–20W, which stands for Preschool Through Workforce. 

These unit record systems have been funded partly through Federal grants. Forty-seven States, in fact, have received at least one 

SLDS grant. In my State of Colorado, our SLDS has the capability 

to maintain approximately 400 data elements on each individual 

child, and will eventually link from the Department of Education 

to five other State agencies, including Human Services, Corrections, and Public Safety. 

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Parents find this very troubling because the individually identifiable life information that is so neatly organized in these systems 

effectively become lifelong dossiers, and if or when compromised, 

could give away the entire life history of every student in a State. 

SLDS’s purported benefits are to help States, districts, schools, 

and educators to make data-informed decisions as well as to facilitate research to increase student achievement and close achievement gaps. 

Parents don’t disagree with the premise that data can and 

should be used for purposes to help advance their children’s education. However, availability of a dataset as rich as SLDS quickly 

turns into the go-to data mart for unauthorized as well as authorized access by other institutions, organizations, and State agencies. 

While there have been no public reports of large-scale breaches 

of SLDS, higher education unit record systems are routine targets 

of hackers. A 2014 breach affected 300,000 current and former students and staff of the University of Maryland, and just last month, 

80,000 UC Berkeley students, alumni, and faculty had their information compromised. 

Also last month a California organization petitioned the courts 

for access to information held in the state SLDS. The Federal judge 

ruled in favor of the plaintiff and ordered the release of records for 

10 million California students, dating back to 2008. 

According to media reports, highly sensitive information on every 

child in a State’s education system were to be made available to 

the plaintiff’s legal team, including student names, addresses, disciplinary records, grades, test scores, and even details such as pregnancy, addiction, and criminal history. 

The judge backtracked on her decision slightly this month but 

only because of parental backlash. It is also worth nothing that the 

judge has since suggested modernizing FERPA. 

As Congress weighs competing interests in the student privacy 

debate, parents in our coalition urge you to always first think of 

the individual child. Allowing or incentivizing the government to 

track autonomous individuals through most of their lives in the 

name of research has speculative benefits at best and can lead to 

profiling, stereotyping, and discrimination that can hinder a child’s 

potential for growth and success. 

Should Congress continue supporting a development and expansion of SLDS through Federal grants? And as you contemplate student privacy as a legislative matter, please consider our coalition’s 

recommendations outlined in my written testimony, which includes 

increased transparency, citizen oversight of SLDS, a ban on commercial uses of student information, strong security protections, increased parental and student rights, and strong enforcement of the 

law. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to participate in this hearing today and for your consideration of my testimony. 

[The statement of Ms. Stickland follows:] 

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Chairman KLINE. Thank you. Mr. Campbell, you are recognized 

for 5 minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF NEIL CAMPBELL, DIRECTOR, NEXT GENERATION REFORMS, FOUNDATION FOR EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Thank you, Chairman Kline, Ranking Member 

Scott, and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me 

to testify today. 

I am the policy director for Next Generation Reforms at the 

Foundation for Excellence in Education. We are an education reform organization that designs and promotes education policy 

through the development of model policies, implementation strategies, and public outreach. 

My work at the Foundation centers on State policies that encourage and support high-quality personalized and blended learning, 

from course access policies that ensure students have access to a 

range of advanced and elective courses their schools may not be 

able to offer, to supporting States piloting innovative school models, 

to developing privacy policies that include strong governance, 

transparency, and security protections. 

The model private policy we developed was used as a starting 

point last year by legislators in Georgia. The resulting bill unanimously passed the House and Senate there before being signed into 

law. 

This new law requires an inventory of data the State collects, accelerates the timing for parents to be able to access and review 

their child’s education record, avoids unnecessary data collection, 

and requires the development of a data security plan for the State 

data system. 

Effective privacy policies require a delicate balance. Finding an 

intersection that respects parents’ desire to protect information 

about their children acknowledges the capacity of State and local 

education agencies and allows for innovative practices in schools. 

That third point about allowing for innovation is critical in two 

ways. First, that teachers and leaders are able to effectively utilize 

technology in their schools. School systems need to be able to contract with service providers for educational software, online grade 

books, or parent communication tools that meet their needs and 

comply with applicable Federal and State privacy laws. 

Second, that researchers, after strong review processes and subject to confidentiality and security requirements, are able to access 

data needed to evaluate the effectiveness of policies and classroom 

practices. 

One of the policies our Foundation has worked on extensively 

deals with K–3 reading. By the end of third grade, students must 

make the transition from learning to read to reading to learn. If 

they are not ready to do that, it becomes continually more difficult 

to keep up with the science, history, literature, and even math 

their teachers cover in class. 

Longitudinal student level research showed that nearly 90 percent of students who failed to earn a high school diploma were 

struggling readers in third grade. These and many related research 

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dation led Campaign for Grade Level Reading and comprehensive 

reading policies in States like Florida, Mississippi, and Colorado. 

These policies required districts to identify struggling readers 

early, notify parents if children have reading difficulties, and provide intensive interventions and supports. 

Without the ability to study student level longitudinal data, it 

would not have been possible to reach the same conclusions and 

much harder to build the support for early identification and intervention. Researchers could identify the reading difficulties of dropouts but not that reading in third grade was such a critical gateway for those students. 

Without subsequent research, teachers and school leaders would 

not have critical information needed to improve their reading performance of today’s students, what interventions are most likely to 

succeed, for which students, when do they need to begin, how long 

do they need to continue. 

As important as research is, we know it is even more important 

to protect students’ privacy. We are pleased to see the proposed updates to the Education Sciences Reform Act worked to find this balance and includes strong requirements before researchers can access student level data. Requirements that proposals detail the research intent for data and how the confidentiality of data about 

students will be protected are valuable improvements. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today, and I would 

be happy to answer any questions after the other speakers. 

[The statement of Mr. Campbell follows:] 

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Mr. ROKITA. [Presiding] Thank you for your testimony. Dr. 

Hannaway, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF JANE HANNAWAY, PROFESSOR, McCOURT 

SCHOOL, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 

Ms. HANNAWAY. Chairman Kline, Ranking Member Scott, and 

members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to appear 

today to discuss education research and student privacy concerns. 

I would like to make two main points in my comments. First, 

large-scale education data, especially individual level administrative data, make possible important new insights into policies and 

practices that promote student learning and later educational and 

employment outcomes. 

Second, provisions that protect the confidentiality of data about 

individual students are essential. With appropriate strategies, I see 

no necessarily inherent conflict between research using individual 

level data and protection of student privacy. Indeed, I would argue 

that appropriate safeguards foster a healthy environment for research productivity. 

My comments today are based on over a decade of experience 

conducting research using individual level longitudinal State administrative data and leading a highly productive national research 

center dedicated to working with such data. 

First, let me talk about the research advantages, and then I’ll 

talk about student privacy. Almost every State has developed a longitudinal individual level database. These data systems have substantive, technical, and efficiency virtues. 

Let me start with the efficiency virtues. Because the data are existing working files, created, maintained, and used by the State for 

administrative purposes, they are readily available for approved research purposes. 

Researchers are thus not required to undertake costly and timeconsuming data collection, and because these State data files are 

used by the State, the data quality is very high. Having data already in hand means that turnaround time for research, giving 

feedback to policymakers of new policies, is short, allowing decisions to be made about whether to discontinue, modify, or continue 

particular policies in near real time. 

The administrative files also have substantive advantages. They 

include data on all students, all teachers, in each State over a 

number of years. Data on students of interest for particular interventions, for particular studies, can easily be pulled out. 

Because these longitudinal data systems extend for long periods 

of time, researchers can capture difficult to study populations, such 

as highly mobile students, long-term consequences of a program or 

policy shift, and the effects of students’ past experiences on current 

performance. 

For example, an intervention at eighth grade may have relatively 

short-term advantages in terms of academic results, but longer 

term effects on, say, high school graduation and college attendance. 

Collecting this data to answer many of these questions would just 

be prohibitively expensive. 

Longitudinal data also has a number of analytic advantages that 

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tical strategies that allow us to come to conclusions that have causal implications. 

The advantages of these data are substantively expanded when 

they are linked with later employment and postsecondary education data. In addition to the technical and substantive policy implications, the availability of these data have led to important 

human capital effects on the research enterprise. 

It’s impossible to pick up any economics, public policy, education, 

or other social science journal without seeing research using such 

data. The best and the brightest in social science are now working 

on education issues, something that was not common before. 

Privacy protections are important. All researchers agree they are 

important. States also put on their own filters. We can’t just go and 

access this data. We have to apply to the State to use it. The States 

review whether the proposed research questions are important, the 

research plan the researchers have proposed, the credentials of the 

researchers, and how the data will be protected. 

All the data researchers receive are anonymized. There are no 

birth dates. There are no names. To the best of my knowledge— 

Mr. ROKITA. Thank you, Doctor. Your time has expired. Mr. 

Swiggum, you are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. HANNAWAY. I just want to make one more point which —— 

Mr. ROKITA. Mr. Swiggum, you are recognized for 5 minutes. We 

will get to you in questioning. 

[The statement of Ms. Hannaway follows:] 

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TESTIMONY OF ROBERT SWIGGUM, DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT OF TECHNOLOGY SERVICES, GEORGIA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION 

Mr. SWIGGUM. Thank you, Chairman Rokita, Ranking Member 

Scott, and members of the committee for the opportunity to be here 

today. 

I am here to share with you the journey that Georgia has been 

on implementing and developing SLDS. The first question I would 

like to talk about is why does Georgia need an SLDS. 

To understand that, you really need to understand the make-up 

of Georgia. There are 190 school districts in Georgia. Each one of 

those districts have its own student information system, and what 

people do not understand is at the end of the year, most of those 

districts delete all the information in that electronic system, and 

they refer to a ‘‘cum file,’’ which is a file that is kept in a file cabinet, typically in the basement or a file room of that school. 

Let’s say you are an English Language Arts teacher, and you 

have 100 students coming into your class next year, and you would 

like to understand their reading comprehension scores. In order to 

do that without a Statewide Longitudinal Data System, you have 

to go down to that vault and check out five cum files at a time, you 

bring them back to your office, and you make notes. You leaf 

through those files, you make notes, and you return those five files 

and get another five files. 

For a teacher with 100 students, that is 20 trips down to that 

vault. That is what teachers have to do when you only have a 

paper-based system. So, longitudinally, we fixed that problem because we give the teachers all that information at the touch of a 

button. 

Why statewide? Statewide is because in Georgia, we have about 

a 30 percent transient rate. That means about half a million kids 

are moving around to different parts of the State, and without a 

system to track those children from district to district to district, 

what happens is a new child will move to a district and those cum 

files that are in that paper vault basically have to be copied and 

either mailed or faxed. 

What happens is the student may not get their information about 

where they are at or what practices they need to be educated, the 

teacher sits and waits for a long time to get that data. 

So what we did in Georgia is we basically solved that problem 

by putting all the data into one place where all the teachers and 

all the principals and the parents and the students can have access 

to it. That’s why you have a Statewide Longitudinal Data System. 

Our solution six years ago when we started building this system 

was to take all the information they’ve sent us over the years and 

give it back to them, but not give it back to them in the format 

of a cum file, because that is a very hard file to find and analyze 

data. 

We gave it back to them in the form of dashboards that are 

drillable, which means you can start at a high level, see the areas 

you want to focus on, and then drill down into the details, so you 

can really help the teacher with the analytics. The same thing goes 

to the parents, the same thing goes to the administrators. 

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We built this system with engagement from all our constituencies. We had focus groups comprised of teachers, comprised of 

parents, comprised of students, comprised of administrators, asking 

them what do you need this to be? We built the system in Georgia 

to meet the needs of the people in Georgia. 

We started off with the initial focus groups and they basically 

said what do you need us to do, and they did not want to have another set of passwords, another set of IDs, they did not want to set 

up more security, they sure did not want to send more data. 

We built the system around those needs. We delivered to them 

about 4 years ago, we actually did the first phase, and since then 

we have implemented another phase every year to what we have 

today, is 60 million hits on that system. That system has been used 

60 million times by teachers, parents, students, educators. 

Our governing body is made up of district folks who come and 

decide what is going to be in that system and how it is going to 

work. We have a research arm where people can have access to research information, but they have to go through an internal review 

board, and they do not get that information unless they go through 

the internal review board. 

Last year, we had a privacy bill that was passed that further elevated the sense of security and privacy around students and data. 

Our outcomes, people ask me all the time, what kind of impact 

did it have? Well, in 2009, before we had LDS, we had a 59 percent 

grad rate. Last year our grad rate was 78 percent. I am not saying 

SLDS did that all by itself, but I cannot help believe if you fill 60 

million requests for information, it is going to have an impact on 

that. 

Thank you very much for this opportunity. I look forward to your 

questions. 

[The statement of Mr. Swiggum follows:] 

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Mr. ROKITA. Thank you, Mr. Swiggum. Again, I thank all the 

witnesses. We will now move to questioning. I am going to hold my 

questions to the very end in order to accommodate my fellow colleagues. With that, I recognize the gentlelady from North Carolina 

for 5 minutes, Ms. Foxx. 

Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today. Mr. Swiggum, I think we all agree protecting student privacy is critically important. 

One of the concerns we’ve heard is that by requiring some aggregated data to be shared with the Federal Government, States and 

local districts will hand over personally identifiable student data to 

anyone who requests it without scrutiny in an effort to avoid added 

burden or duplication. 

In your testimony, you mentioned how the State worked with 

districts to build a State data system in a way that was useful to 

them, understandable, and not duplicative of what they were already using. 

Can you elaborate for us on these discussions and how you addressed concerns about protecting data? In your opinion, is protecting student privacy more important than an increased burden? 

I want to pick up on the last comment you made about your 

graduation rate having so improved. You said you cannot attribute 

it all to the SDSL, but I would be intrigued to know at the end of 

your comments if the State itself is doing research to figure out if 

there is a cause and effect by the use of such data. If you would 

talk about protecting the data first. 

Mr. SWIGGUM. So, when we first started the system, we met with 

all our districts, and they basically were very concerned about the 

data being protected, and so what we have is a central repository 

that is housed in a hardened data center. We have all the security 

set up so that no one can get into that system. From a physical 

perspective, the data is very secure. 

From an access perspective, the way we do this is districts control access to their data. The district basically says here is my data, 

here is who I want to have access to the data, they tell us what 

teachers have what students. They tell us what principals have 

what schools. They tell us what district people have access. 

The districts actually control the security through the data. The 

State does not. We simply have the data and we follow the directives of the individuals in the districts. That is basically how we 

manage the security and the access of that data. 

As far as research on the grad rate, I am sure there is a lot of 

research being done around that. I do not have that detail with me 

right now but I could follow up and find out what research is being 

done that affects the grad rate. I just know if I would claim it was 

just LDS, there would be a lot of people who would have other 

ideas about that. 

Ms. FOXX. Well, most of us know it is very difficult to prove a 

single cause and effect in this world. Ms. Stickland, thank you very 

much for your testimony. I am very concerned about the ability for 

any government agency to be able to get individual information 

and have worked very hard to keep us from having individual student records here at the Federal level. 

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I wonder if you might talk a little bit more about what should 

parents know about their students’ education data, and how can 

they be involved in conversations to protect their students’ information? 

Ms. STICKLAND. Thank you for the question. I would say a great 

first step is inviting parents to a hearing such as this and allowing 

our voice to be heard. We are very grateful for the opportunity. 

In terms of what parents should know about what’s in their education record, I think the term ‘‘education record’’ gives parents a 

very false sense of assurance that it’s low risk information, when 

in fact information in an education record can include medical information, disability information, in some SLDSs, it includes arrest 

and criminal type activity. 

So I think getting parents educated and involved in the conversation, asking their schools, their school districts, their school boards, 

and certainly members of their State legislatures about what data 

is being collected, who has access to it and for what purpose, when 

that information should be destroyed, and how it can be secured, 

are questions parents need to be asking, and they are starting to 

do so now. 

Ms. FOXX. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentlelady. Ranking Member Scott, you 

are recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Hannaway, you were 

cut off and had one more point to make. 

Ms. HANNAWAY. Yes. The point I wanted to make is in the 10 

years that I have been involved working with this data with multiple researchers across the country, I do not think there has ever 

been any violation by researchers on confidentiality. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. In your written statement, you make a 

point about the ability to opt out and the effect that might have 

on the validity of data. 

Ms. HANNAWAY. Yes. Researchers see this as a huge problem. It 

means the data that we would be receiving would basically look 

like Swiss cheese, and we would have no idea who was in and who 

was out, and, therefore, we wouldn’t know in what ways and to 

what extent the data might be biased in terms of who is in the 

database. 

Mr. SCOTT. If data is collected, it is obviously always going to be 

at risk of compromise. Is there a way to collect data in such a way 

to reduce the risk of data breaches? 

Ms. HANNAWAY. We are on the receiving end of that data, we 

don’t do the collection. The data that we received are already 

anonymized by the State, and a separate ID is created in order 

that we can track individual data points over time, but we have no 

information on who those individuals might actually be. 

Mr. SCOTT. Is there any excuse, Ms. Hannaway, for selling the 

data to the private sector for the purpose of marketing? 

Ms. HANNAWAY. I am afraid that is above my grade level. I am 

very appreciative when I get the data to work with under very controlled situations for research purposes. 

Mr. SCOTT. Does anybody have a comment on whether or not any 

of this data should be sold to private sector marketing firms? Mr. 

Campbell? 

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Mr. CAMPBELL. I think it is quite clear in existing Federal and 

State policies that it should not be, so student data is something 

that is the property of the local education agency, and if they partner with a service provider, that data remains owned by the local 

education agency, and has to be returned or deleted as that service 

is provided. It does not grant authorization to use student data for 

reasons other than which it was shared. 

If a company is providing mathematics educational software for 

a school, then they can use that student’s name to provide information back to the teacher about how the student is doing as they use 

that product. That does not give them the right to use it for other 

purposes. 

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Campbell, let me follow up. If the private sector—right now, the penalties for a breach, a violation of the law, 

only apply to the public school system. Should penalties be appropriate if the private sector by any reason gets the information and 

violates the provisions of the law? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. I think that makes sense. That certainly has 

been something that was part of the bill that Mr. Rokita and Representative Fudge introduced, and is also in the proposal from Mr. 

Messer and Mr. Polis. 

The model policy we developed for the State level includes that 

as well, but it takes the approach of directly regulating service providers working with schools and clarifying that all of the data, be 

it the students’ direct identifiers, like their names, or the indirect 

information generated as they use products, needs to be controlled, 

and that the identifiable information needs to be deleted at the request of a school when that service is done. 

Mr. SCOTT. Dr. Hannaway, as a researcher, can you explain to 

us how you use the data to improve education? 

Ms. HANNAWAY. My center alone has produced over 150 research 

papers, most of which are published in peer review journals, high 

productivity rates. Some of the key issues that we have done a lot 

of work on are teacher effectiveness. I think that would be the 

dominant topic right now. I think the findings have triggered a lot 

of thinking about how to improve teacher effectiveness, everything 

from training to feedback in the classroom. 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Thompson, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Members of the panel, 

thank you for being here. My first question is for Mr. Swiggum. In 

your experience, what is the best way to facilitate valuable conversations between parents and stakeholders on student privacy 

and educational research? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. What I think is the best thing is face-to-face meetings. I mean we started with our focus groups and we talked about 

if we are going to build something, how is it going to help everybody? Those face-to-face meetings are the most effective for what 

we did in Georgia because you really get people’s opinions and then 

you can start designing what they are going to see, so rather than 

some abstract term, they actually can start seeing what will this 

look like, how will this work. 

Mr. THOMPSON. I assume that helps to build trust in this process 

as well. 

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Mr. SWIGGUM. And ownership. 

Mr. THOMPSON. And ownership. Ms. Stickland and Mr. Campbell, there is no denying the importance of privacy, especially with 

the vulnerabilities that we have seen nationwide and internationally in just recent years. 

Certainly, the importance of data to improving the educational 

outcome, the educational process, educational structures. I think it 

was educational research that obviously tied the link of poverty to 

learning and led to Title I funding, and through research we hopefully continue to look at how we make a better investment of Title 

I funds to address poverty. 

As I travel around my congressional district, I do educational 

roundtables. I have teachers and parents and superintendents, and 

occasionally students that are interested to come or their parents 

drag them there. 

One of the things I have heard about is just some of the hardship 

of collecting data. I have already made my statement, data collection is important. The question is how much do we need? My question for you are there within the scope of data that is collected, are 

there data points or information collected by schools or schools are 

required to collect that are not utilized or not relevant in education 

research? 

Any observations in that area? 

Ms. STICKLAND. If I could just comment on a parent perspective, 

when parents enroll their children into school and they share information about their child, they do so knowing that the purpose of 

sharing that information is to help their child. 

I would say that very few, if any, understand that information 

is then pushed up to the State and used for research purposes. I 

think in terms of, you know, parents are not opposed to legitimate 

research on education, and certainly we all benefit from the products of research, but I think the research loophole in the existing 

FERPA allows for a lot of research that maybe does not have the 

purpose or intentionality that parents support necessarily. 

Certainly, each SLDS at a State level has different data elements. My State of Colorado has data elements that I would say 

parents do not feel are necessary for policymaking decisions and research. In fact, just recently, we have a school readiness law in Colorado. We have an assessment for that readiness law. We were 

able to just send aggregated data from the districts up to the State 

to show how our children are doing in this readiness assessment. 

I think there is a balance between what personal identifiable information can be shared, and then there are also places where we 

can pull back and just share aggregated data or anonymized the 

identified as well. 

Mr. THOMPSON. Mr. Campbell, any thoughts? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Well, I think a first positive step that States can 

and in many cases are taking is transparency around what is collected and why. The model policy that we developed requires that, 

and then also requires if there are any additions to the State data 

system or proposed additions, those be made publicly available for 

a comment period with a rationale as to why that information 

would be collected. 

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35 

I think there are definitely elements that are collected that are 

maybe not apparent as to why we would want to collect them, so 

in terms of things like disability, we want to collect that to make 

sure students are served appropriately by schools, so States have 

an oversight role to make sure that students with disabilities are 

served appropriately. That sensitive information needs to be collected and available. 

I think even if there is a potential for being uncomfortable with 

certain pieces of information, they can still serve valuable educational purposes for parents and to make sure kids are served 

properly. 

Mr. THOMPSON. I think that circles back to Mr. Swiggum’s comment about face-to-face and building trust and building ownership. 

Thank you, panel. Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Polis, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. POLIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our witnesses for taking the time to be part of this hearing today, and I 

want to express appreciation to the chair and ranking member for 

holding this hearing. 

Student data privacy is a topic that is very important to me and 

my constituents, and one that I am glad to say is not a partisan 

issue. 

Last year, I introduced the Student Digital Privacy and Parental 

Rights Act with Mr. Messer. It has been mentioned here during 

some of the questioning. Which would create new privacy protections for students by prohibiting ed tech vendors from selling student data or using it for commercial gain. 

Of course, part of the focus of the testimony was on education research and FERPA. I also want to acknowledge the responsibility 

of ed tech providers in guaranteeing student data is private and secure. 

My first question is for Ms. Stickland, and I wanted to address, 

in addition to applauding her work in Colorado, the importance of 

ensuring that Congress does not do anything to preempt States 

from raising the bar in protecting the privacy of students, and the 

importance of ensuring that legislation that we consider should 

allow for the States to go even further. 

Ms. STICKLAND. Thank you, Congressman Polis. Yes, there are a 

lot of parents across the country who are very active in their own 

communities and their own State level, and as a result, there are 

some good examples of State bills and actually laws that are now 

being passed that certainly go above and beyond where our current 

FERPA resides, in the form of the 1974 version. 

Our coalition certainly was very pleased that your bill and Congressman Messer’s bill also reaffirms the concern that we do not 

want to set any limits on States going further and beyond what 

might happen at the Federal level. 

Mr. POLIS. Thank you. Dr. Hannaway, as you know, at the end 

of last year, we passed and the President signed the Every Student 

Succeeds Act. One of the important ways that we know whether 

schools are performing and how they should be held accountable is 

through data. 

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I was hoping you could discuss briefly how reliable de-identified 

data can play a constructive role in identifying gaps in public education, and how longitudinal data can help State and local leaders 

identify strategies for intervention and improving poorly performing schools. 

Ms. HANNAWAY. These State level individual data systems are 

literally a treasure trove. They are the complete census of kids who 

are in the State system, a complete census of teachers, and, therefore, there is complete flexibility in terms of developing research 

questions. 

I also want to point out that all the questions that researchers 

on the outside engage in all have to be approved by the State. So 

I could apply to Georgia or I could apply to Florida, North Carolina, and ask them to use their data for particular research questions. If the State doesn’t think they are policy relevant or practice 

relevant, they will not provide us with the data. That is another 

way, a control mechanism that ensures these data are put to good 

use. 

Mr. POLIS. Mr. Campbell, as you know, one of the challenging 

parts of student data privacy laws is striking a balance between 

creating the strong privacy protections that parents and families 

demand, while, of course, encouraging the continued innovations 

and promise of educational technology and personalized learning. 

I wanted you to briefly address how we can protect privacy while 

also allowing personalized and adaptive learning to continue to provide improved education for our Nation’s children. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. I believe a strong first step can be to directly regulate those that are receiving student data from school districts. 

One of the things I mentioned in my testimony— 

Mr. POLIS. By that do you mean vendors? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Vendors, be they vendors or be they nonprofit 

agencies that work with schools and provide tutors. Be they nonprofits, software providers. 

Mr. POLIS. Making sure that all of those that receive data are 

covered under the law? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes. I think that an important part of that is 

that element of balance. We have to understand the range of capacities of school systems across this country. Here in Metro D.C., 

there are many districts with over 100,000 students and significant 

staffs, but we have to be careful about policies that would affect a 

district where the superintendent is also the principal is also the 

basketball coach, and not put a burden on them that becomes unreasonable for them to be able to provide access to their students 

as well. 

Mr. POLIS. Thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Carter, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of you for 

being here. Mr. Swiggum, thank you for your work in the State of 

Georgia and with the educational system. I am familiar with it. I 

appreciate the technology that you have put forward, but I am concerned about it. 

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I wanted to ask you specifically about the SLDS. I know this is 

designed to help school districts and teachers to make decisions 

based on data-driven information. 

I am also familiar having served in the State Senate in Georgia 

that just recently there was a Senate bill introduced, Senate Bill 

281, that was heard by the Education Committee, that brought 

forth a number of concerns. I just want to ask you about some of 

those, if I could. 

First of all, there was a concern about this putting more work 

on teachers as they were having to get more information. The last 

thing we need to be doing in any State is to put more work on our 

teachers. They are overworked now and underpaid. 

Can you comment briefly about that? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. One of the provisions in 281 was if a teacher is 

going to use any kind of software package, like the Doodle Poll, 

they had to actually get permission in writing from the parents before they could use that Doodle Poll. 

It became where teachers could not use even the simplest technology thing without a laborious process to notify all the parents 

and then have all the parents agree to participate, and if any parent decided they did not want to participate, then they would be 

teaching half the class one way, half the class the other. That bill 

didn’t move forward— 

Mr. CARTER. I understand. Still, I am concerned about some of 

the provisions that were brought up in the bill, and that is what 

I wanted to question you about. 

Secondly, transparency. There are a lot of the parents who are 

feeling like they need to know what the information is that is being 

collected and they do not know. 

Mr. SWIGGUM. Yes. The provision in there was basically pretty 

much covered by the privacy bill that we have today, with the inventory of all our items. The thing that we have today that was 

not covered was basically any of these software packages that a 

teacher would use in the classroom. That was the new thing that 

was introduced that would provide extra work for the teacher to do, 

and the transparency for the parents. The other transparency is already covered in the privacy bill that was passed last year. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Let me ask you, there are a lot of parents 

who feel like no matter what you do or how hard you try, that you 

cannot keep this information anonymous. Can you assure me that 

you can do that? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. At the State level, we do not give out any data 

to anyone unless it is de-identified or aggregated, and only after 

they go through an internal review board. The data just does not 

go out from the State. 

Once it is de-identified, you cannot reverse engineer that. You 

can reverse engineer aggregated data. 

Mr. CARTER. Speaking of aggregated data, is this something that 

is kept year after year? Does it build up? Is it wiped clean once a 

year? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. The Statewide Longitudinal Data System has actually eight years in it right now. We add to it every year because 

that is the whole concept of longitudinal data. If we wiped it out, 

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we would basically have what the districts do, which is one year’s 

worth of data in their systems. 

Mr. CARTER. You can understand the concern of parents who 

might feel like this is a way to be able to find out learning abilities. 

I think there are rightful concerns here among the parents. 

Mr. SWIGGUM. There are, but when we pull our focus groups together from parents and we ask them what they want, they actually want a history of their kids. I have a shoebox full of report 

cards in a drawer at home. It would be great if I could actually see 

my child’s transcripts for the past six years, his attendance rate, 

where he has been enrolled, and parents can see that now. They 

can see all that data. 

They are the ones who asked for the data. Of course, with 3 million parents, there is always going to be some parents who do not 

want that. The majority of the people that talk to us, they want 

to see that data, and they want to see the longitudinal— 

Mr. CARTER. All right. Let me ask you, you had mentioned in 

your testimony about Georgia Tunnel. Can you tell me about that? 

As I understand it, it is designed to streamline information submittal and access for teachers. 

Mr. SWIGGUM. The Tunnel is a technical concept. The districts 

wanted the teachers to stay in their local student information system. They did not want them to leave that system, but they wanted 

all the longitudinal data. 

The Tunnel basically is a connection from the local student information system into the State system. It is an electronic connection. 

That is all the Tunnel is. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. What about the parent portal that you introduced? What was the intent there? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. The intent of the parent portal is to let the parent 

see the exact same information that the teacher sees, so there is 

not the parent has to go and figure it out, they can actually go into 

the system and look at the data, the same thing the teacher is 

looking at. 

Mr. CARTER. Right, great. You mentioned about higher graduation rates in the State of Georgia. While certainly it can be attributed to a number of proposals that we put forward in the past few 

years, you know, I am sure this has helped to a certain degree, but 

we have done quite a bit in the State of Georgia to improve our 

graduation rates. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman’s time has 

expired. The gentlelady from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, is recognized 

for 5 minutes. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to all the 

witnesses for your testimony. 

We are certainly not here debating the value of educational research, and that is a good thing. We are stewards of the taxpayer 

dollars, and we have an interest in having good research to inform 

our policies. That is not the question. 

At the same time, we are very concerned. 

Ms. Stickland, you raised some excellent issues. We are concerned about the sensitivity of the data. In your testimony, for exCEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

39 

ample, Ms. Stickland, about how sometimes there is individually 

identifiable data. How long is it kept? Where does it go? 

We certainly do not want a situation where somebody when they 

are 27 or 28 is applying for a job and their prospective employer 

finds out they threw a pair of scissors in second grade. I mean it 

is not the kind of thing that we want in the data. 

We want it to inform our policies and we want that balance, and 

finding that is a task that we are going to have to work on. With 

the technology changing faster than policy, we really need to have 

a way to get the balance so that we safeguard privacy and make 

sure we are getting the research that we need. 

Mr. Swiggum, you testified about what Georgia is doing. In addition to the Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems, the Institute of 

Education Sciences also supports regional educational laboratories, 

RELs. In my State of Oregon, the school districts and our State 

partner with our local REL to conduct research, and it helps local 

communities improve educational outcomes. 

For example, a Northwest regional education laboratory has 

looked at postsecondary persistence among rural Oregonians, discipline rates among different groups of students, and it really has 

helped develop some research-backed strategies that have improved 

outcomes. 

Our middle school principals in a school district I represent have 

used practices supported by the regional educational laboratory. 

They have cut in half suspension and expulsion rates for black and 

Latino students. 

Is Georgia doing any work to bring stakeholders together with 

researchers to use school system data to evaluate current practices 

and promote more effective research-supported strategies and do 

you work with RELs? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. I cannot actually attest to the RELs. I can talk 

about research that we do within the community. We just did a research study on absenteeism in the classroom. As a result of the 

findings, we have changed our absenteeism policy at the State 

level, so it does impact State policy. 

We also have a program called PBIS, which is a school climate 

rating system, where we did research on that, and after the research came back from that, we went from 200 schools who adopted it to 900 schools. It does have an impact when we do the research on the data. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Terrific. Dr. Hannaway, last year I worked with 

Senator Wyden from Oregon on a draft bill to close a loophole in 

FERPA that permits higher education institutions to give their attorneys access to sensitive student records. This came up in connection with treatment records of victims of sexual assault on campus 

in certain circumstances. 

My concern is that the protections that are outlined in FERPA 

give institutions discretion in determining when their attorneys 

have legitimate interest in reviewing their student records. 

It is a problem because when students and parents are uncertain 

whether their privacy will be protected, it can discourage them 

from reporting incidents of abuse or seeking treatment. 

What more can policymakers do to guarantee that personally 

identifiable information will be safeguarded, and what more can 

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40 

the education research community do to demonstrate that it is protecting student data? 

Ms. HANNAWAY. Researchers are on the receiving end of that 

data, so the data typically always are de-identified prior to our receiving it. There is no way for me—I have data on millions and millions of students in the United States. I cannot identify who is who. 

They all have a unique ID that is not connected to anything that 

I could use to identify those individuals. 

It would be the State Department. When the State Department 

gives us data, they approve our research questions. They want to 

make sure what we are doing will be of use to them. They approve 

us as researchers. They want to make sure that the people who are 

handling the data are credible analysts. They also put a time limit 

on it. 

Ms. BONAMICI. I want to follow up in my remaining few seconds, 

thank you, with Ms. Stickland. Do you agree there is not personally 

identifiable information accessible? 

Ms. STICKLAND. What I will say and what I do know is that the 

State does collect personally identifiable information. How exactly 

that transfer happens with researchers, it may be identified and 

there may be a number attached to that, particularly a unit record, 

but there is always a key. 

Whatever record number is attached to that de-identified data, 

somewhere there exists a match, a key, a way to be able to identify 

those students. 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentlelady. The gentlelady’s time has expired. The gentleman from Michigan, Mr. Walberg, is recognized 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the panel 

for being here, an important subject, especially when we think of 

privacy, we think of parents, families, and students, and the best 

interests of all, and making sure the educators have the capability 

of using research. 

I would like to go back to that research issue, Mr. Campbell. Do 

you think educational research improves practice, both in the classroom and at the school administrative level? As you answer the 

question, could you also discuss some specific examples of how you 

have seen research used to enhance student learning? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes, I think that research has a history of impacting classroom behaviors in the programs that are put in place 

and the interventions that are put in place for students, and the 

strategies that teachers are taught in their teacher preparation 

programs, and that they learn about in professional development, 

and that they then implement in their classrooms. 

I mentioned in my testimony an example of K–3 reading policy. 

In the late 1990s, the National Reading Panel studied the most effective ways to teach reading, the kind of landmark report was 

then something that impacted how teachers teach children to read. 

We have seen in the early years that those percentages of students 

that are reading at proficient levels are going up and those reading 

at the lowest levels are going down. I think that is a testament to 

improved practice that was informed by research. 

I think there are other examples in mathematics, innovative software that relies on how to help children develop number sense, and 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

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that the activities that children see will help them understand 

numbers and things like place value before they get into the algorithms of how to carry numbers when they are adding and subtracting. 

Mr. WALBERG. Let me jump to the issue of privacy relative to research and the things that promote technology that comes. Mr. 

Campbell, can you protect student privacy without sacrificing use 

of technology in the classroom? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. I think there are many steps that can be taken— 

everyone has a role to protect student privacy. In the instance of 

a school that is partnering with a technology company for 

mathematic software, that company does not need every data element about a student that exists. 

They need to know the student’s name. They need to know who 

the student’s teacher is, and they will generate information about 

how the student does in their math course, or in that content of 

the software. 

Why do they need those things? Well, teachers are not going to 

be able to make sense of data that comes back to them if it is about 

student 8567. They are going to want to know that it is Neal who 

is struggling with two-digit multiplication, and that is how it will 

become actionable and valuable to the teacher. 

That mathematical software company does not need information 

about discipline or the student’s test scores in other subjects. The 

minimum that can accomplish the need is all that should ever be 

transferred to any service provider of a school. 

Mr. WALBERG. Keep it to the basic education issues? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes. 

Mr. WALBERG. Let me move on. Ms. Stickland, this is the worse 

designed committee room I have ever been in. I see the backs of 

my colleagues’ heads, and I cannot see the panel, but thank you 

for moving. I will move as well. Good looking heads I am seeing. 

Your testimony largely focuses on the importance of protecting 

student privacy and transparency around student data. In your 

opinion, what is the most critical piece of protecting student privacy, and how would you prioritize the suggestions you made? 

Ms. STICKLAND. Thank you for the question. What I would say 

is there is a difference between privacy and security, right. Privacy 

is keeping your information confidential and security is keeping it 

safeguarded. 

What I would say in order to generate a lot of trust in the parent 

community is understanding exactly what is going on, what is 

being collected, with whom it is being disclosed, what are the uses 

of the data. 

Parents really honestly do not understand that more data is 

being collected on their children than what is on face value, right. 

It is not just the names. It is just not the two-digit multiplication 

problems that a child is not interacting with, especially in an online environment. There is a lot of metadata shed while a child is 

interacting online. 

I think understanding the breadth of the problem or the situation or the ecosystem of online learning and communicating exactly 

what parents need to know, which is what data is being used, how 

is it being used, with whom is it being shared, and— 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

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Mr. WALBERG. In other words, giving greatest attention to the 

parent and the student, the child, two key components that make 

that education opportune. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman’s time has 

expired. The gentlelady from North Carolina, Ms. Adams, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. ADAMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Scott, 

thank you as well, and thank you to our witnesses this morning. 

As many of you know, I have been an educator for over 40 years, 

and the first time I was elected as a member of my school board 

in my city of Greensboro, but needless to say, I have dedicated 

most of my career to education, and I have observed that a lot of 

education policy is developed by people with little experience in 

education. I do not mean this in a derogatory way, but I think it 

is important to point out as we discuss the importance of education 

research. 

In order to ensure the efficacy of policy making, it should be centered on data and scientific research, and while that is something 

some of my colleagues have often shied away from, it is crucial for 

sound education policy. 

One of the main roles of the Federal Government in primary and 

secondary education is to ensure that all students have equal access to a quality education, specifically our most vulnerable student 

populations, which are often low income and students of color. 

As we have seen with previous policies, like No Child Left Behind, no matter how well-intended the policies, there are often unintended consequences. 

Dr. Hannaway, can you speak to the impact educational research 

can have on the work that we do as education policymakers, and 

specifically how it can remove some of the ideological bias that 

often dictates policy decisions? 

Ms. HANNAWAY. Yes. Let me give you some examples. I mentioned earlier that a big bulk of our work is focused on teachers. 

What is very clear is the most important factor that affects student 

achievement is the teacher, number one. 

Number two, the question becomes, well, how are the teachers, 

top teachers, top 15 percentile, getting about a year and a half gain 

for their kids? The bottom 15 percentile is getting about half a year 

gain. So if your child is in a classroom with one of these low-performing teachers for a number of years, that child gets so far back 

that it is hard to catch up. 

One of the questions we have addressed is how are these teachers distributed across schools serving different student populations, 

with the idea being that if they are all with the high-achieving kids 

to begin with, disadvantaged kids are really being hurt. 

What we found is the variation within schools is as great as the 

variation between schools, so in every school, there are these very 

high-performing and low-performing teachers. We then ask the 

question, well, what if school districts want to develop incentive 

programs where they identify and they can identify those teachers 

that are extraordinary teachers? Would it make sense to give them 

bonuses of some sort in order to provide incentives for them to 

move to schools where they are most needed? 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

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We first had to find out is a teacher’s productivity, is a teacher’s 

effectiveness affected by the type of students they teach? Are teachers who are highly effective in schools serving more advantaged 

kids, if we can provide them incentives to work with more disadvantaged kids, will they be just as effective? 

This was a very big study. The answer was yes, which then provides support for incentive programs for moving the most effective 

teachers to those schools where they are most needed. That would 

be an example of the sort of research that informs policy. 

Ms. ADAMS. Thank you. Mr. Swiggum, let me follow up. Can you 

speak to the benefit of education research for our practitioners in 

the classroom and how it can contribute to better outcomes for our 

students? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. Could you repeat? I did not quite hear that. 

Ms. ADAMS. Can you speak to the benefit of education research 

for our practitioners in the classroom and how it can contribute to 

better outcomes for students? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. I will go back to the two that I cited. Our teachers 

basically found that in Georgia, if you are absent six days or more, 

it basically affects your whole literacy reading score, and it was a 

surprise to us, so we actually implemented a different policy that 

teachers now follow around absenteeism and remediation work. Research does help teachers practice in the classroom much better. 

Ms. ADAMS. Thank you. Dr. Hannaway, what would your response be to some of my colleagues who have concerns about the 

use of student data as it relates to student privacy? 

Ms. HANNAWAY. The data that we as researchers receive are 

completely de-identified, and we work with such a large number of 

cases. Number one, there are so many disincentives for us to try 

to probe in that way, I would lose my job, I would lose my access 

to data. The consequences for researchers in any way trying to 

identify individuals are severe. 

Ms. ADAMS. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I am out of time. Thank 

you, I yield back. 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentlelady. The gentlelady’s time has expired. I now recognize the gentlemen from Virginia, Mr. Brat, for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. BRAT. Thank you, Mr. C hairman. I would like to start off 

with Ms. Stickland and then just move down the panel. I was an 

economist before I got into this business about a year ago. I am 

very interested and know the absolute necessity of having good 

data to do research on kids and education policy. I was in the middle of that business. 

On the other hand, you are bringing us very real concerns here 

today on privacy issues, et cetera. One of the things I learned in 

economics is to always follow the money, right. If something is 

going wrong, think through some of the most egregious cases that 

come to mind in terms of violations of privacy, and when you think 

about that, are there economic incentives, is somebody making a 

buck off this, or is it just that we have not kept up with the technology over time? 

As we are thinking through this, most of the folks on this side 

of the aisle share kind of a decentralization view of government, 

right, so when you get up into the billions and trillions up here, 

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there are huge economic forces that can be at work driving some 

of the revenues for this, that, and the other thing. 

Some of us want to keep things more State level, local level, et 

cetera. Just help me, in your experience, any egregious cases that 

are tied to the wrong incentives being in place or is it just a matter 

we are not keeping up with the emerging technologies? 

Ms. STICKLAND. Thank you for the question. What I would say 

is there is actually not a lot of publicly released data breaches, especially of SLDS. I am aware of a few at a very small scale in our 

own State. I think what affects parents most is there is no informed consent. There is no knowledge that information that they 

are sharing with their school district is headed up to the State. 

I think approaching it from that perspective, that will gain the 

trust. Then there is the whole online education spectrum or the 

vendor community. I think what we are seeing is some good actors 

and some bad actors, and that is fair, and I think certainly addressing and modernizing FERPA, if we can place some safeguards 

around the use, not just commercial use in marketing and selling 

of data, but also monetizing in other ways, there are ways to monetize data that is outside the direct sale. 

Those are things that I think we should be very concerned about. 

And getting the vendor community on board and helping us lead 

the charge, I think it will help a lot. 

Mr. BRAT. Very helpful, thank you. Mr. Campbell? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. To my knowledge, the issues that have happened 

around improper disclosure, breaches, are most often people-related 

issues, inadvertent disclosures or maybe not, having settings done 

properly, which speaks to the importance of having more policies 

in place around audits of systems, something that our model policy 

requires of a State, that they have a security audit of their system 

to prevent situations like that from occurring. 

We think it is important that the ESSA bill that just passed allows school districts to use some of their Title II funding for training around privacy, which we think is a great step to have that 

knowledge base built, that everyone has a role to protect it. 

I think it is also a great step from industry that there have been 

almost 250 companies in the education technology space that have 

signed on to the pledge that they will protect student data, that it 

will not be used or sold for advertising purposes, that we think that 

shows they take this seriously, and just as Dr. Hannaway mentioned, the brand risk for her as a researcher encourages her to 

protect data. 

I think that pledge creates that same brand risk and they recognize bad practices around data are not good for districts wanting 

to work with them. 

Mr. BRAT. Thank you very much. We have 58 seconds left, so divided by 2, 30 and 30. Dr. Hannaway? 

Ms. HANNAWAY. You are an economist, let me give you a question that we would be very happy to do some good research, and 

that is the extent to which all of us talk about technology. One 

thing we really do not know is the extent to which technology is 

a substitute for the human capital that is in the classroom for 

teachers, and the extent to which it is a facilitator, to the extent 

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to which it is another add-on, these are important questions. They 

are important substantive questions. 

My experience is individuals can be protected, if you have legitimate people doing good analysis, individual privacy will be protected. We want it protected. We want the data providers to trust 

us. 

There are some very important questions out there, and I think 

technology is one of them. We really do not know yet the extent 

to which and the ways in which and the conditions under which 

technology can really improve— 

Mr. ROKITA. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. BRAT. Thank you. 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman from New 

York, Mr. Jeffries, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me thank the 

witnesses for your presence here today. Let me start with Ms. 

Stickland. You mentioned in your testimony that there is an absence of informed consent as it relates to the transmission of student data and academic information. 

In your view, what would sort of an informed consent requirement look like, assuming that you believe it is an appropriate step 

to take as we consider changes to data privacy laws? 

Ms. STICKLAND. What I would say is that parents would appreciate the opportunity for informed consent at any practical sort of 

situation. In the absence of those practical situations, we certainly 

would appreciate transparency. Again, the transparency is what 

data is being collected and for what purpose, who it will be shared 

with, what are the security protections, and when will that information be destroyed? 

I think when parents enter the education system, enroll their 

children, just like FERPA right now requires a directory information notice, an exception, the ability to opt out, I think FERPA 

should require schools to tell parents how information is being 

used, and certainly at any point possible, the ability to have consent and to be able to opt out. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Is it your view that many parents or a majority 

of parents have no understanding as to how their individual child’s 

data is being transmitted and for what purposes it is being used? 

Ms. STICKLAND. I would agree with that. I would say not only 

when school information is being pushed up to the State but also 

in the online environment. You know, parents are very trusting of 

their schools, and they believe that information they are sharing 

with their teachers and their schools will remain within their 

school walls. 

I would agree with that statement, but I would say we are becoming educated on the issue as well. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Thank you. Dr. Hannaway, would an informed 

consent requirement present an impediment to academic research 

in your view, or is it a reasonable thing to consider? 

Ms. HANNAWAY. I do not think informed consent of individual 

parents should be required at all for academic research because the 

data we get are de-identified to begin with. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Who is de-identifying the data? Is that happening 

at the school level? 

CEWDOCROOM with DISTILLER

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Ms. HANNAWAY. State level. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Or at the superintendent level? 

Ms. HANNAWAY. State level. We get our data from the State, and 

Mr. Swiggum is representing Georgia, and any data we get are deidentified, the research questions are approved. We sign our lives 

away as individuals, even our research assistants, where our institution that we are working at also has to sign on and build in security procedures. 

There has just never been an issue when it comes to solid research using these State administrative databases of violation of 

security. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Mr. Swiggum, could you comment on the notion of 

an informed consent requirement or ways in which parents could 

possibly be brought into a more transparent space with respect to 

how their students’ information is being used? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. Informed consent is probably one of the more 

labor-intensive things, depending on how it is implemented. Parents enroll their child in school, and they are consenting to put the 

records into that school system. Parents may not know what the 

State does with that data. That is basically up to the district to let 

the parents know. 

We rely on districts to notify parents of what is going to happen 

to that data because they are the ones collecting it. When you do 

get very prescriptive about this is what a district has to do to notify 

a parent, it can put a burden on the district. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Do you think when a parent enrolls their student 

in a school, you indicated that they are consenting to that information being part of the school system, but do you think they are consenting to that information being distributed in a variety of different ways to researchers that they may be unfamiliar with, separate and apart from the question as to whether that research is 

producing information that is valuable ultimately to school instruction? 

In your view, what do you think parents are actually impliedly 

consenting to? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. I think parents are consenting to enrolling that 

child in that school system and having the records in that school 

system. I think that is what parents basically feel. I do not think 

parents really know about the research part. I do not think they 

know about that unless someone talks to them about it. That is 

just not something that parents are thinking about when they are 

enrolling their child in that school system. That is just my personal 

opinion. 

Mr. JEFFRIES. Thank you. My time has almost expired. I yield 

back. 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman’s time has 

expired. The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Byrne, is recognized for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. BYRNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Stickland, thank you 

for your time on this. I started out in education policy as a parent, 

and there is no greater advocate for our children than parents, and 

I appreciate what you do. 

Mr. Campbell, Dr. Hannaway, I spent eight years in a State 

school board in Alabama, several years in our legislature in the 

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policy committees. The data you collect is absolutely essential to 

policymakers, including those of us on this committee, so thank you 

for what you do. 

Mr. Swiggum, I was chancellor of postsecondary education for 

the State of Alabama, so I have been in your position, so I have 

sort of covered all of these. 

I think Ms. Stickland raised a couple of questions in my mind. 

Mr. Swiggum, they kind of come to you, unfortunately, because of 

your position. She raised the issue about not necessarily informed 

consent, but just informing parents we are collecting this information on your child, it is going to be shared in this way with these 

people. Is there a problem doing that? 

The second question she raised is what can we do to protect 

against hacking, and hacking is a problem throughout society. We 

know that. The third thing I would like you to address, and this 

is three things for you to remember, is how much does this cost for 

you to comply with it? 

It is pretty easy for us policymakers here at the Federal level to 

put all of these requirements on you, but at the end of the day, you 

have to allocate resources or your State Department of Education 

has to allocate resources to comply with it. 

If you could sort of take those one, two, three, if you can remember them that way, and just respond to them. 

Mr. SWIGGUM. Number one, parental consent, I believe that what 

happens— 

Mr. BYRNE. Not consent, just notification. 

Mr. SWIGGUM. Notification. 

Mr. BYRNE. Right, not necessarily expecting them to say yes, just 

we are telling you now we are going to share this information in 

this way with these people. 

Mr. SWIGGUM. It is to the degree and to what topics they need 

to be notified of. If the State of Georgia has gotten a request from 

a research firm to pull data, de-identify, and give it to them for research, to try to notify all the parents in Georgia that we are going 

to do a research project would be next to impossible. 

Mr. BYRNE. Is there a way to say, not that you know these particular people are going to get it, but tell parents in advance we 

are collecting this information on your child, it is going to be 

shared in this manner with these types of potential users? Any 

problem with that? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. No, I do not see a problem with that, as long as 

it is not something which is very prescriptive that says if this happens, you have to do this. If it is a general understanding. I think 

educating parents how the data is used in any system is a very 

good idea. That is number one. 

Mr. BYRNE. Yeah, Hacking. 

Mr. SWIGGUM. Hacking. Hacking—are you talking about a breach 

or are you talking just people trying to get into the network or getting to the data? 

Mr. BYRNE. Well, I think the concern we have been having in 

Washington is outright hacking that has gotten into some data systems we did not think people should be able to hack into, but with 

very sensitive personal student data, how can we assure parents 

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that a hacker cannot get in and get some very personal information 

about their children? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. That is one of my primary roles, I am responsible 

for the infrastructure, also. That is where the hackers go after, 

they do not actually come in through the software, they come in 

through the hardware and the networks. 

We have a series of seven or eight steps to make sure our infrastructure is solid, the data is all encrypted in it, so if anybody actually got to it, they could not unencrypt the data. 

We do several things to make sure that a hacking attempt, if it 

even got through our firewalls, which it does not, we would have 

had about a half a billion attacks a year, that is what happens in 

a statewide network, because you get attacked constantly, but they 

do not get through because they are not able to penetrate our security. 

Hacking is something that we deal with every single day, and to 

this point in time, we have been very successful keeping those 

things at bay. 

Mr. BYRNE. I would think your colleagues around the country are 

doing the same things. If we had some very general statement that 

required school systems to do it around the country, this is requiring you to do what you are already doing. 

Let’s get to the costs. It is real easy for us to put together these 

Federal statutes up here. You have to live with them. Is there 

something you want to tell us as we go through this, hey, be careful of this because it adds an unnecessary cost? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. The more prescriptive you get with technology, 

the most costly it is going to be because the chances of what you 

decide today that I should do tomorrow will be outmoded and I will 

have to redo it again. I would caution people just not to get prescriptive saying when you install security, do it this way, or when 

you are doing something, do it this way, because technology evolves 

so quickly, I will have to replace it in another year. 

Mr. BYRNE. You would not have a problem with the general requirement to do it, because that is going to change over time with 

technology? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. Yes. 

Mr. BYRNE. Thank you very much. I appreciate everybody’s testimony. I yield back. 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman yields back. 

The gentlelady from Ohio, Ms. Fudge, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. FUDGE. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you 

all for being here today. Mr. Swiggum, the Student Data Privacy 

Accessibility and Transportation Act passed the Georgia State legislature in 2015. That same year, Mr. Rokita and I introduced H.R. 

3157, the Student Privacy Protection Act, which will modernize privacy protections, improve communications between parents and 

school officials, and hold parties accountable for their use of student information. 

While it is commendable that the State legislature in Georgia 

has taken steps to safeguard student data, what do you believe the 

Federal role is in ensuring that students in all states are protected? 

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Mr. SWIGGUM. I am a big fan of the bill that just passed in Georgia, because it really elevates the need for security and privacy. If 

the Federal Government looks at that bill and adopts a lot of those 

principles, I think we would be a step ahead as a Nation. 

It really does a lot of things that people are concerned about. It 

talks about what data we can collect, what we cannot collect. It is 

a very good way of addressing the issues of— 

Ms. FUDGE. You do believe the Federal Government has a role 

in protecting student data? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. I think the Federal Government maintains the 

floor of what is required. I think every State should add on to 

that— 

Ms. FUDGE. So, your answer is yes? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. Yes. 

Ms. FUDGE. Thank you. Dr. Hannaway, I am concerned about the 

opt-out that you talked about in your testimony. Could you just go 

a little further and tell me what the effects are of opt out, and how 

we could really bias and/or affect data collection? 

Ms. HANNAWAY. I think I, and I think most researchers, would 

be very opposed to opt-out positions, because it means when we get 

the data, we do not know whether the data we are receiving are 

actually representative of the population we are trying to see is 

benefitting or not benefitting from certain programs and policies. 

As I mentioned before, it would be as if getting a Swiss cheese 

pack of data. There could be biases built into that. I said in my testimony it could be that middle-class parents of adolescent boys do 

not want their student data to be in the file. That means any conclusions we come to could not be applied to that particular subpopulation. There could be significant fractions and bias in the 

data, and we would be coming to conclusions on faulty data. 

Ms. FUDGE. Thank you. Still to you, Dr. Hannaway, is it true 

that easily accessible education data has become like a hot topic, 

right, that has attracted some of the Nation’s best researchers? 

It sounds like a real-life example of if you build it, they will 

come. What does that mean for the future of education research? 

Ms. HANNAWAY. I think it is a tremendously exciting time for 

education research. We can produce findings quickly. We can 

produce them reliably. We can use very sophisticated technical 

strategies in analyzing the data. We can look at subpopulations. All 

of this can happen in almost real time. 

I think education research has moved into a different stratosphere of effect. As I mentioned earlier, if you go to any of the most 

prestigious journals, you will see education research being done. If 

you look even 10 years ago, you would not see that happen. 

Ms. FUDGE. Thank you. My last question to you as well, Dr. 

Hannaway. How can the Department of Education make education 

data and collection more accessible to researchers so researchers 

can perform a more effective analysis on that information without 

having to spend too much time cleaning the information or having 

to use incomplete or inconsistent datasets? 

Ms. HANNAWAY. Well, I am a big fan of the State administrative 

data system. These are generally clean data. We do not have to 

spend time cleaning them because they are used for administrative 

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50 

purposes, so they are constantly being updated. They are constantly being cleaned. Errors come to the floor very quickly. 

It is these State administrative data systems that the Federal 

Government has invested heavily in that are a gold mine for researchers. 

One thing that is happening, however, is that because of privacy 

concerns, and I think when you are talking about those data, those 

privacy concerns are overstated, but because of privacy concerns, 

States are becoming more and more cautious about giving data to 

researchers, and that is significantly retarding the progress we 

could be making in identifying the factors in programs that are 

promoting student learning. 

I might add— 

Mr. ROKITA. The gentlelady’s time has expired. We will now hear 

from the gentleman from Georgia for 5 minutes, Mr. Allen. 

Mr. ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Swiggum, you have 

done a great service to the State of Georgia, and I appreciate your 

testimony today, and, of course, what you have accomplished in the 

last few years is pretty remarkable. 

Obviously, you have impacted our education system, but then 

again we have heard a lot of testimony here today about concerns 

as far as our impact on the education system, the knowledge of 

what these students are achieving, versus what information out 

there does not need to be exposed. 

What would be a solution, do you have a recommendation as to 

what we need to do to make sure that everyone’s interest here is 

preserved? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. Well, in Georgia, to make sure the data we collect 

is data that is going to be used, we actually do not collect any data 

unless it is a State board rule, State law, or Federal law. If it is 

not one of those three things, we do not collect data. I am responsible for data collection, so if someone comes to me and says I want 

to collect some data, they have to show me one of those three policies before we even talk about collecting it. 

We have procedures in place to make sure that we just do not 

collect data just because somebody wants to look at it. There has 

to be a real reason behind it. 

Mr. ALLEN. Are there specific ways that this data is helping our 

teachers do their jobs? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. The longitudinal data system? There are countless 

ways that teachers are helped to do their jobs. It is just a matter 

of—when I gave my first testimony, a teacher who wants to look 

at the Lexile levels for 100 kids can now do it with touching one 

button. They can see all 100 kids’ Lexile levels, and then if they 

see some problems with a couple of the children, they can drill 

deeper into that child and see all the history of that child up to 9 

years’ worth to understand where have the Lexile levels been, what 

has been your enrollment, have you moved from different school 

systems? 

These are all things a teacher needs to understand, and why do 

we have it in there? Because teachers ask us to put it in there. 

Same thing that parents ask us to do. We are doing what our constituents are asking us to do with our system. 

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51 

Mr. ALLEN. This has actually helped parental engagement in the 

lives of their kids? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. Absolutely. 

Mr. ALLEN. Ms. Stickland, you obviously are concerned about 

this information, the way it is used. What is your recommendation 

for a solution to achieve the results that your organization wants 

to achieve? 

Ms. STICKLAND. Well, if I could just comment briefly on parental 

engagement with these dashboards and these types of tools. A lot 

of parents end up using these almost as monitoring their kids. In 

a lot of ways, that can backfire. Teachers as well. They can use the 

information to stereotype a child or have a discriminatory perspective on a child before they even enter the classroom. Just as we 

might see benefit in data being used this way, there is also ways 

that it can be used for harm or for risks. 

In terms of your question, what can parents do? 

Mr. ALLEN. How can we reach a compromise, I guess is my question? 

Ms. STICKLAND. Reach a compromise? 

Mr. ALLEN. Yes. 

Ms. STICKLAND. Well, again, I would go back to the transparency 

piece. Parents—I think a lot of times what happens is this data is 

being collected for research or policy decision-making purposes, 

parents do not understand that, and when they find out, then they 

are rightfully concerned that they were not informed ahead of time. 

I think the transparency issue, telling parents what is going on, 

what is happening with their students’ data, how it is being 

purposed at the school level, at the State level, beyond the school 

and State walls, I think that would be very helpful moving forward. 

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Swiggum, we do that in Georgia, correct? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. We do that. 

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Campbell, your thoughts on the compromise 

here? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. I agree, I think transparency is incredibly important so that parents understand what information and what tools 

are used by schools and information that is collected. At the State 

level, to have an inventory of what elements are in the State data 

system and what purpose they are serving, and there is an opportunity to weigh in if anything new is proposed to be added. 

I think at a district or school level, it would be smart practice 

for districts to talk about what tools and services they use, and 

why, and to make that available for parents, and to be part of a 

conversation about what tools are used and why, and what purposes they serve. 

I think that step can alleviate a lot of the concerns and fears that 

may exist. Those fears are not unfounded, but I think good practice 

from districts can help allay many of those concerns. 

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Swiggum, any idea how many hits we get in 

Georgia on our site? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. Every single one of them. 

Mr. ALLEN. No, I am talking about— 

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Mr. ROKITA. Thank you. The gentleman’s time has expired. We 

will now hear from the gentleman from California for 5 minutes, 

Mr. DeSaulnier. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the 

panel. My questions pertain more to sort of the retail aspect of getting the data and disseminating it, both to the teachers in the 

classroom and to the parents. 

Mr. Campbell, how does data collection and privacy rights impact 

innovative classrooms? In California, we certainly heard a lot about 

this in No Child Left Behind, that they were overwhelmed with interpretations of the data, particularly large school districts like 

L.A., were accumulating. 

What are some of the things we have learned about distributing 

data and making it impactful at the classroom level? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. I think the first thing is data on its own is not 

going to be an answer or address a challenge that a teacher or 

principal may face. There needs to be smart conversations about 

why information would be collected at a classroom, school, or district level, and to what use. 

I think if there is a disconnect there, it can lead to the sort of 

fatigue that you are describing, and would lead to information that 

is not usable. I think the dashboards that Mr. Swiggum has been 

describing that the Georgia SLDS includes are ways to make data 

actionable and meaningful for teachers, principals, superintendents, and parents as well. 

I think that is a key driver of the goals. Data for data’s sake is 

not valuable data to provide insights to help kids, and open up opportunities is what is important. It is how that data gets turned 

into insights and activities that really brings value. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Is the research somewhat generational? I know 

being older, some of this information, explaining to people who 

have been in the profession a long time what this means and how 

to translate it in the classroom is a struggle, learning more about 

how to make sure everyone uses this information in an impactful 

or positive way. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. I think that is definitely a challenge, innovation, 

in what school experiences look like for kids and teachers takes 

time, and it should not be viewed as radical massive shifts. 

A school needs to be thoughtful in planning what instruction 

looks like, what the experience for kids looks like, and bring their 

staff along on that journey, and have the staff actually help lead 

that journey. That will make buy-in much more long-lasting 

through the innovations that are being introduced. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Are we putting more resources into that as we 

learn more about data collection and its usefulness? Any of you? Is 

that primarily a State role, do you believe? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. I think it is, a State and local role. That is the 

vast majority of funding, there are valuable clauses in ESSA, the 

Student Opportunity Block Grant allows districts to invest in innovative personalized and blending learning models, and really puts 

an emphasis on the professional development of staff to do that 

well. We think that would be something that would be a very 

smart use of funds for many districts and States. 

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Mr. DESAULNIER. Dr. Hannaway, in regard to the parents, a 

study by the Future of Privacy Forum in 2015 found a majority of 

parents were unaware of existing privacy protections, but a similar 

majority proportionately believe there should be more. 

This goes to similar—what I am trying to get to is getting both 

as we learn more about data, getting both the teachers in the classroom and the parents to understand the balances we are trying to 

do. 

Do you have any comments about the irony that they want more 

protection but they are unaware of what is available now? 

Ms. HANNAWAY. I think that is probably an accurate statement. 

I am sure it is an accurate statement. At least from the researcher 

side, these data are, as far as I have been able to make out over 

10 years working with them constantly, completely protect privacy. 

That said, as a researcher, these data, we think, are so important, not only for our own careers, but also important in order to 

understand how to make education better in the U.S. and maybe 

get back to the level that our economic competitors are. Using 

these data are critical to that end. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Since you mentioned our international competitors, do you know if that scenario is similar in other countries 

where parents are unaware of the privacy protections but want 

more? Are any of you aware? 

Ms. HANNAWAY. I really cannot talk about that from other countries, not knowledgeably. I do think the case here, there are many 

administrators, there are many teachers, there are many researchers who really do not understand the nature of the data. Many people think that we have identifiable data, and we just do not. 

Mr. ROKITA. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Thank you. 

Mr. ROKITA. We will now hear from the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Guthrie, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for that, I 

appreciate it. It is hard to believe that it has been over 40 years 

since we have updated our privacy laws. In fact, 40 years ago, I 

think I was in sixth grade. We certainly did not have any of the 

technology we have now. 

As a matter of fact, when I stepped out I was meeting with a 

friend I knew in graduate school, that was the 1990s. We were 

switching cell numbers. We did not have cell phones really even 

then when we were in grad school. She is here for another meeting. 

A lot has changed. 

Ms. Stickland, I want to ask you first, in your experience with 

the coalition, can you describe how you have seen parents participate in the student privacy discussion at the local school and school 

district level, and how parents can become a bigger part of the student privacy discussion? 

Ms. STICKLAND. Yes, thank you for the question. I would say as 

soon as one parent sort of understands the current landscape about 

student privacy, understands that FERPA is 40 years old, and 

when they ask questions about FERPA and they are told that everything within their school district complies with FERPA, but 

then later understand FERPA has been eroded over the years, and 

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tions. I think as soon as one parent, really just one parent, begins 

to understand that and begins talking to other parents, it is the 

kind of conversation that ignites, because it is very dear to all parents. 

I mean, we are the ultimate stakeholders. We trust our schools 

with our children and with their information. Certainly, as soon as 

someone has a concern and shares it with others, it ignites, just 

like I said. 

We have had a very good opportunity to get a lot of information 

to parents, give them some practical tips. In fact, we are coming 

out with a student privacy toolkit this fall, with the intention of 

having practical tips and best practices for parents and teachers to 

really advocate for good policy at the local district level, certainly. 

And certainly when parents get more confident about their concerns and their issues, then we have seen them take the issue up 

with their State legislatures, and we are seeing some good progress 

in some States across the country. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. Thank you. I have three kids, and my third one 

is in her senior year of high school. I will tell you, no matter what 

level or what school, whatever, it is always that one parent. It is 

always somebody that takes that and moves forward, and thank 

goodness for that one parent who led on the issue and brought us 

all moving forward on whatever the issue is moving forward. 

Mr. Swiggum and Mr. Campbell, I have a question. I actually 

want to follow up on an earlier discussion that you guys were having, and looking at technology in the classroom. The question is 

how can we help ensure teachers can use helpful technology but 

are aware of what data is being used, created by using that technology, and how can we limit the burden on teachers in determining that for the app, using technology for the app and the data 

within each app? 

Mr. Swiggum? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. To me, the best way to help teachers use the technology is training, training and education. There is so much technology out there now that is being aimed at the teachers to try to 

help them, but the training is not always there for them to understand it, so a lot of them go out on their own, find these things 

themselves, but they are not always well-versed in privacy and security because the technology looks harmless, and they do not see 

it as a problem, so they start using it, but there may be a problem. 

It is really about education and helping people understand what 

are you responsible for and how technology should be used appropriately. So, training. 

Mr. CAMPBELL. I will second that. I think also districts have an 

important role in vetting tools that are used and reaching agreements where appropriate with their partners that clarify information about students remains the property of the district, and at the 

end of terms and services, needs to be returned or deleted. 

I think that is something that you are not realistically going to 

get 3 million teachers across the country up to high levels of expertise. I think there are important roles for districts to play in that. 

On top of that, I think the sort of direct regulation that was 

something in the model policy that we developed at the State level 

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thing that clarifies that it is not just the information and transcript 

level data about students that is protected, it is the data generated 

as students use tools and technology in the classroom that deserves 

protection and protection is required of that information as well. 

Mr. GUTHRIE. Thank you very much. My time is expiring, so I 

yield back. 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman for yielding back. The 

gentlelady from Massachusetts, Ms. Clark, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. CLARK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all the 

panelists for being here today on this important topic. 

My first question is for you, Ms. Stickland. Several of the suggestions that you have made have broad support, restricting student 

data from being used for marketing purposes, and ensuring that we 

have robust security protections. 

I wanted to ask you about one of your recommendations for citizen oversight for the institutional review boards. My concern 

would be that if we have citizen oversight, how do you balance that 

with maintaining the independence that board needs, and how do 

we make sure that oversight would be representative of a broad 

cross section of American parents? 

Ms. STICKLAND. Thank you for the question. I am not sure I understand your question specifically, but what I will say is that we 

recommend citizen oversight of the SLDS, development of the 

SLDS. We really believe there should be a parental voice as these 

are developed and maintained and expanded. 

In terms of IRBs, we think these should also be implemented. In 

the State of Colorado, our State Board of Education is going to dissolve our IRB and rely on all outside institutions’ or organizations’ 

IRB process. 

When we see efforts like this happening, we think IRBs are very 

important. They should be implemented at all State levels, and we 

believe also a citizen oversight of the SLDS, some sort of parental 

involvement. 

Ms. CLARK. I have sort of a tangential question for you, too, but 

one that has been of concern for me. Some of the activity we are 

seeing around asking our students who are research assistants at 

the university level, having their specific names and student information revealed based on the research they are conducting, have 

you thought about that at all in the protection for privacy for students who are conducting research? 

Ms. STICKLAND. To be honest, this is the first time I have heard 

about it. I think any student in any institution, whether it is in K– 

12 or higher ed, should have their personal information protected 

under a Federal law like FERPA. I believe that should not be released to the public unless there is student or parental consent 

when it is applicable. 

Ms. CLARK. Thank you. Dr. Hannaway, sort of along the same 

vein, I wondered if you had thought about that at all as a researcher yourself, sort of the role of student researchers and their 

privacy concerns? I realize this is a little off topic. 

Ms. HANNAWAY. Yes, and I am not—with the research that they 

conduct independently or with them as research assistants— 

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Ms. CLARK. Research assistants tied to professors and their research. 

Ms. HANNAWAY. Working with data? 

Ms. CLARK. Working with data, and really my question is we 

have seen some interest in having students who are conducting research that may be controversial to some, you know, having their 

personal data exposed and put into the public because of the research they are conducting, which seems to me a real privacy issue 

for some of our students. I just wondered if you had any thoughts 

on that, and feel free to say you had not thought about that. 

Ms. HANNAWAY. I had not really thought about that, but I do 

know when I am working, say, with State data, I am responsible 

for my students, and my students have also signed the same nondisclosure and confidentiality statements that I have signed. 

I would hold the student responsible. The university would hold 

the student responsible and hold me responsible. If you are working with these State data, you do it under very strict controls by 

the State. We abide by them to a fault. The students would be held 

to the same standard. 

Ms. CLARK. My concern is not with the students. I do not know 

of any examples. What we are seeing now are requests for student 

names based on the research they are doing, so sort of the privacy 

of that student researcher, which I understand it is not exactly the 

issue you are looking at. 

But I did want to ask you briefly in my time remaining, easily 

accessible education data has made educational research really a 

hot topic. How do you see—what does that mean for the future? I 

am hoping you can comment specifically on how we could reduce 

or best use our tight resources for education. 

Mr. ROKITA. I am sorry, I will give you 5 seconds to respond. She 

can have some of my time. The gentlelady’s time has expired. 

Ms. CLARK. Thank you. 

Mr. ROKITA. We will now hear from the gentleman from Nevada, 

Mr. Heck, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. HECK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being 

here today. I apologize for missing your oral testimony. As often 

happens, we have simultaneous hearings going on. I did have the 

opportunity to read through your written testimony. 

Ms. Stickland, certainly you have delved into this issue quite 

deeply as a parent. In your written testimony, you talk about information that is being collected might have been required previously 

by No Child Left Behind or individual State mandates, but now 

much of the data collected appears to transcend legal requirements. 

With the design, adoption, and implementation of Common Core, 

one of the things I have heard from a lot of parents is their concerns that Common Core has required new depths of data mining 

for their students. 

As a parent who has been involved in this issue, have you come 

across that same issue, and do you have any views on whether or 

not Common Core itself has actually increased the amount of data 

mining of student information? 

Ms. STICKLAND. I thank you for the question. I would say I have 

heard the same concerns from parents from across the country. 

There is a lot of new measurements of student achievement that 

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does not necessarily have academic purposes, grit, and tenacity, 

and those sorts of things, sort of emotional factors, and there are 

a lot of parents who are very, very concerned about this. 

I have not experienced it in my own children’s education, but I 

do know that is a growing concern among the parent community. 

Mr. HECK. Thank you. Mr. Campbell, in your testimony you 

talked about the model privacy policy that you developed, saying 

it avoids unnecessary data collection. How is ‘‘unnecessary’’ defined 

and who defines it? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Well, that was a summary, there are prohibitions 

in that law around certain data elements that prohibit a State from 

collecting things like political affiliation of parents and families or 

religious beliefs that we termed ‘‘unnecessary’’ in that regard, that 

the State does not need to collect that, so it is prohibited in that 

policy. 

Mr. HECK. What was it that informed your decision as to what 

would fall into that category of things determined to be unnecessary? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Well, it is a relatively small list, there may be 

one or two other things that are not coming to the top of my head. 

It was things that are not going to directly impact the measurement of a student’s educational progress and success, so we did not 

think it was necessary for the State to collect that. But, you know, 

there are instances of things about ethnicity or income for reporting purposes that are required by other State or Federal laws, so 

that we can disaggregate data and report on how students of different ethnicities are succeeding in school. 

It was really about things that would not be necessary educationally. 

Mr. HECK. Things that would not actually be an indicator of student achievement or success or impact on their education were excluded from the data collection tool? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Correct. 

Mr. HECK. Thank you. Mr. Swiggum, in yours, you mention that 

if any new data is required to be collected, you are required by 

State law to post the purpose of the collection for public comment 

and to report any new data collections to the governments and legislative offices. 

Have you actually had to do that as yet, where you had to post 

a new item for public comment? And if so, how did that go and 

what was the outcome? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. So, the law was passed last year, and it is implemented this July. We actually have not formally had to do it, but 

we have actually had one new data collection that we have actually 

posted out there just to see how the process is going to work. We 

have not gotten any feedback from it yet, but it is a relatively new 

process, but it does go into effect this July. 

Mr. HECK. How will the public or the parents know that the new 

collection is up and available for public comment, so that they have 

the opportunity to voice their opinion? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. It goes out to the DOE website, and then it also 

goes out to the districts for them to disseminate it however they 

feel best for their district area. 

Mr. HECK. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back. 

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Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman yields back. 

The gentleman from Tennessee, Dr. Roe, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. ROE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and just very quickly, first 

of all, I can see you, that is wonderful. Everybody has left. 

It looks like what we are trying to say is how much privacy do 

we need to have, and does the data that we collect actually help 

us get to a different point, a different end? And I guess I will quote 

one of my favorite philosophers, Yogi Berra, if you do not know 

where you are going, you might end up someplace else. 

To give you an example, I just read more data riding on the airplane, the SCORE Report from Tennessee on education. To Dr. 

Hannaway’s point, if you look at ACT scores, if you look at Massachusetts, they are the highest in the country. You compare them 

to Tennessee, we do not look very good. The only problem is 100 

percent of juniors take it in Tennessee and 23 percent of students, 

which are obviously the highest performers, take it in Massachusetts. You would draw a wrong conclusion with that data. 

I think data is important. We have used it in Tennessee to improve where we are in our outcomes. 

The real question is—I guess I will start with Ms. Stickland, 

from your work with the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, 

have you run across any States or even school districts that have 

actually done this right, informed parents and so forth, or is there 

a place we do not have to reinvent the wheel? 

Ms. STICKLAND. What I would say is there is some good State 

laws that have been presented in the last couple of years, and 

there are some good district policies. I do not think we have ever 

found one that we felt was 100 percent solid, but there are good 

examples. 

For instance, there is the directory information exception that 

parents can opt out of their children’s directory information to be 

released, and there are some districts who offer a menu approach, 

right. You do not have to necessarily say—a lot of times directory 

information includes your child’s picture in the yearbook. Most reasonable parents want their children’s picture in the yearbook but 

they may not want it sold to marketers. 

There are good examples out there, and I would be happy to follow up with you on some that we have found so far. 

Mr. ROE. I do not want in there when Coach Morgan, when I was 

in ninth grade basketball, bent me over and paddled me for something I did, which he did, and he got my attention with that, but 

I would not want the world to know about it, and now they do. 

The other question I have, and anyone can pick this up, and I 

guess, Mr. Swiggum, what are the most common concerns you hear 

from parents about protecting their child’s privacy? What do you 

hear from the public? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. Primarily what I hear about protecting a child’s 

privacy is when they read something in a blog and it basically 

scares them, and it is like are you really doing this with my child? 

The latest one that I got was probably six months ago, a letter 

from a parent who was concerned that we had installed wires in 

the chairs of where their kids were sitting, and this electronically 

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transmitted something to the State about how the child was taking 

a test. 

Obviously, we do not do anything like that, but those are the 

types of questions I typically get, are you really doing this, and the 

answer is no, we do not do stuff like that. 

That is where most of those privacy questions come from. 

Mr. ROE. It is a real balancing act. Dr. Hannaway is trying to 

perform accurate academic research that we can use to improve 

outcomes. I think that is clearly what we are trying to do, and yet 

if she does not get the data that she needs, as I pointed out to 

begin with, the conclusions are erroneous and they are worthless. 

As a matter of fact, they are worse than that. You may do something that may actually harm what you are doing with bad data. 

It is a real challenge what you all have presented today, and I 

appreciate you coming here to protect people’s privacy, which they 

want, and believe me, I think the government has too much information. If you have ever filled out a Census packet, you certainly 

understand the information that is in that, that is basically public. 

With that, I have no further questions. I yield back. 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman for yielding. The gentleman 

from Indiana, Mr. Messer, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MESSER. I thank the chairman, I thank those testifying, and 

the committee for the work on this important issue. As has been 

talked about over and over today, the innovations and improvements to educational outcomes that come from technology are important, and we want to keep them and maintain them, and, at the 

same time, it is important that we protect our kids and help parents in protecting their kids as we reach the improvements, educational improvements that are coming from technology. 

Today, we have talked a lot about the importance of educational 

research and the role it plays in protecting student privacy. It is 

an important conversation. 

I would like to ask a slightly different question to those on the 

panel. It is about the role education technology vendors play in protecting student data and our students. I have worked a little with 

Ms. Stickland on that subject. 

I guess I would start with you about any advice or counsel you 

would have on the important role vendors play in protecting our 

students. What should we do about them? 

Ms. STICKLAND. Thank you for the question. What I would say 

is we need them to be good partners in this venture together. I 

think they need to be amenable to adjusting their contract provisions with school districts. We have some vendors out there who 

simply will not, it is sort of a take it or leave it environment. If 

you want our services, you can accept our terms or you can walk 

away. 

What that does to school districts is put them in a position of 

moving forward with these products while not protecting student 

privacy, and oftentimes, obviously when in circumstances like 

these, maybe the products are free and then children are paying 

with their privacy because there is no monetary exchange with the 

districts. 

I think we need them to be good partners, and to do that, I do 

believe we need strong legislation. 

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Mr. MESSER. Mr. Swiggum, I saw you nodding or had some feedback, any thoughts or comments? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. I think we could learn a lot from looking at how 

our researchers handle their data. I think the vendor world is the 

new frontier. It is constantly evolving, constantly changing. 

It is very hard to keep up with all that, but if you look at how 

the researchers—I think Dr. Hannaway has mentioned this many 

times—they have a very set process on how things are going to be 

done, how you are going to handle it, the security, the deletion. If 

we had vendors following some of that same procedures, I think we 

would be much better off. 

Mr. MESSER. Do you think they are likely to do that in the absence of some law or requirement? 

Mr. SWIGGUM. I do not think they all do it now. 

Mr. MESSER. Yes, I think that is right. Ms. Hannaway or Mr. 

Campbell, any comments or thoughts? 

Ms. HANNAWAY. My only comment, I think this high technology 

input to education is extremely important, and I think it therefore 

behooves us to think through how to set up systems, like the systems that are set up for the administrative data, so that these data 

can be made available to objective researchers, because I am sure 

that the vendors themselves are doing their own research in order 

to develop their product. 

If public money is going to be spent on this, there should be objective researchers also looking at these data, and that requires 

that these data become anonymized in some way. 

Mr. MESSER. Well, frankly, my fear is that if we have a catastrophic act, something really bad happens, parents all across 

America will cry out to have this stopped. I think it is very important we get the standards right and we act now before that event 

occurs, so that we end up keeping technology in the classroom and 

getting all the positive outcomes that come with that while at the 

same time protecting our students. 

Mr. Campbell, did you want to add anything? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. I think everyone has a role to play in protecting 

privacy, and appreciate the chance to have worked with your staff 

on the bill that you and Representative Polis introduced, and the 

leadership that you showed in encouraging industry to take this seriously. I think that contributed to the hard work that was done 

on creating the student privacy pledge. 

I think industry would benefit from clear expectations, and a 

number of States are moving in that direction, about protecting 

student data and particularly when it is information that is identifiable. There may be reasons for them to have completely 

anonymized data that will help them improve their products, but 

they should be deleting, returning to districts, purging identifiable 

information on a much shorter time frame, which makes any information they have less valuable and less risky. 

Mr. MESSER. Thank you, Mr. Campbell. I see my time is about 

to expire. I should say I appreciate the vendors that did sign on 

to the pledge. I think it is important. It is showing there are some 

out there that are acting very responsibly with this data. Of course, 

not all vendors have. Many more have not than have. That is why 

I think we need to work on broader legislation. 

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I applaud the work of the chairman and others on this bill. It is 

important that schools and higher education institutions play their 

role in protecting student data, researchers, too, and then the private industry that works with these kids as well. Important work. 

I thank the chairman for his time. 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman. The gentleman’s time has 

expired. I will now take a few minutes to ask some questions as 

well. 

Of course, this is a very important subject. I thank all of you for 

your testimony. It is going to help us as we move forward with this 

improvement. 

For purposes of the record, I want to follow up on a couple of 

things, perhaps add to the record, clarify the record, or reiterate 

the record, depending on the case. 

Dr. Foxx asked what parents should know about the education 

record, and I want to follow up on that by asking what role parents 

should have in determining how that information is shared. I do 

not know if that was discussed. Ms. Stickland, I will go with you 

first. 

Ms. STICKLAND. I am sorry. The question is what is the parents’ 

role in deciding how that information— 

Mr. ROKITA. Yes, what is the best practice? If transparency is the 

goal, an informed parent is a good parent to help with the process. 

And in all the different roles we have to play, Mr. Campbell, what 

is the best practice for informing parents? What should their role 

be in determining that practice? 

Ms. STICKLAND. Well, I think once parents are educated on what 

is happening with the transparency piece, so they understand what 

data is being used, how it is being used, with whom it is being 

shared. I think then you will have a very supportive stakeholder 

group who would appreciate the opportunity to be part of the decision-making process. 

Mr. ROKITA. So it drives itself. 

Ms. STICKLAND. Yes. There is nothing more frustrating than 

being marginalized as a parent when we have legitimate concerns. 

Mr. ROKITA. You would not suggest there is any best practice or 

model that should be codified in Federal law? 

Ms. STICKLAND. I would love to research that for you and get 

back to you, but I do not have anything off the top of my head. 

Mr. ROKITA. Okay. Thanks. Just for the record, you are not 

aware of data records being sold? 

Ms. STICKLAND. From the SLDS? 

Mr. ROKITA. Yes. 

Ms. STICKLAND. Specifically? I am not aware of any SLDS 

records being sold, no. 

Mr. ROKITA. Thank you. Ms. Bonamici had a question, and I 

think you answered it perhaps as a researcher or some of the researchers have answered as a researcher, but I want to be sure we 

get the gist of the question as I took it. 

Do you see harm to students, especially at the higher education 

level, if we cannot guarantee student privacy in seeking medical 

help or reporting incidents of assault? 

Ms. STICKLAND. I think student privacy should be employed in 

every regard. I think there are no instances where students should 

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be in control and have ownership of their data, so yes, I believe 

FERPA should be extended to cover situations such as these and 

protect students, maximally. 

Mr. ROKITA. You mentioned States had a lot of good law and perhaps best practices. Do you want to go on the record and cite any 

States, whether in regard to student assaults or anything, that we 

should look at? 

Ms. STICKLAND. With regard to student assaults, I am afraid that 

is just not an area of my expertise. 

Mr. ROKITA. Anything else, any other States or policies you want 

us to focus on? 

Ms. STICKLAND. There are certain States that address some of 

the vendor community issues. California, while I think that could 

be improved certainly, it is a very, very good start. There is a bill 

being introduced in Alabama this year that addresses some of our 

concerns about SLDS. I am not sure where it is in its process right 

now. Those are two bills that kind of address those two separate 

issues. 

Mr. ROKITA. Thank you. Mr. Campbell, you were nice enough to 

mention the bill that Ms. Fudge and I filed, the Student Privacy 

Protection Act, and the additional penalties we include there. 

Do you think the requirement for the written agreement to clearly outline the use and access of data will help limit the misuse? If 

so, how? Does it not depend on the written word? 

Mr. CAMPBELL. Yes. The information about the written agreement, I think it is one of those things that in an ideal world, it is 

yes, of course, there should be a written agreement, but executing 

that in 15,000 local education agencies and all the requirements in 

there can introduce the concern of burdening capacity for districts 

to be able to do that effectively. 

We had in our development of the model policy at the State level 

active discussions with many organizations about approaches that 

were taken, and actually, California passed both, had contract requirements and direct regulation in separate bills, but each passed. 

I think there is overlapping and sort of potential redundancy there. 

Our eventual approach was to rely on direct regulation to make 

clear the requirements for the service providers working with 

schools, and if there is a clause about written agreements, I think 

it is really important to think about what is required to minimize 

burden and make sure districts are all able to implement that successfully. 

Mr. ROKITA. Thank you. My time has expired. I will recognize 

Ranking Member Scott for his closing remarks. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we have 

heard that we can effectively use student data to improve education policy. Of course, any time that you are gathering data, 

there is a risk that student and family privacy may be compromised. 

Today’s hearing has exposed several issues we have to consider 

in legislation, such as the effect of the validity of research, if some 

students opt out, we heard the gentleman from Tennessee point out 

that if one State was testing 100 percent, and another State is testing 23 percent, presumably the best 23 percent, obviously, the conclusions would be much different. 

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We also heard about the issues such as sanctions for privacy violations committed by vendors and the prohibition against the use 

of student data for marketing. We do know that significant improvements in the quality of education can take place if data is 

properly used. 

Insofar as we have bipartisan legislation already before the committee, I am confident that we will be able to pass legislation to 

update the Education Science Reform Act and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act in such a way that maximizes the 

available use of student information, to improve education policy, 

without jeopardizing student and family privacy. 

I look forward to working with Chairman Kline and members of 

the committee as we did with the Every Student Succeeds Act late 

last year, and the reauthorization of the Older Americans Act, 

which we did yesterday. I yield back. 

Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman for his remarks. In my closing, I would like to reference the fact that I promised 5 or 10 seconds to answer a question that Ms. Clark had when she ran right 

out of time. I do not know if it was to Dr. Hannaway or who, or 

if we even remember the question at this point. I do not think we 

do. 

It has been a great hearing. It has been an exhausting hearing. 

I am going to close us out now, but again, I want to thank our witnesses for your excellent, excellent testimony, for your patriotism, 

for caring about our best asset, which is our children, for doing it 

in an objective way, and I have a million of questions on the meaning of the word ‘‘objective,’’ and we will get to that at another hearing. 

Clearly, I want the record to reflect that the witnesses before us 

were all here in good faith with expert information, and it gives 

this particular subcommittee chairman confidence that this is being 

done, even with the limitations of an old law, being done in the 

best way humanly possible, and I look forward to working with you 

all as well as every member of this committee to bring us up to the 

21st century. 

With that, seeing no further business in front of the committee, 

we are now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:16 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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