Rare News Desk
Indiana is designing a database to digitally store information about individuals’ schooling to improve vocational planning efforts.
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“It sounds so sensible: We’ll talk to our friends the big companies, find out from them what sort of training they would like their employees to have before they’re hired, revamp our education system to provide it, and enjoy the benefits of an improved business climate,” said Jane Robbins, a senior fellow at the American Principles Project. “But this corporatist model is incompatible with free enterprise and individual freedom.”
The Indiana Network of Knowledge, or INK for short, will ostensibly improve the state economy by rolling out job training programs based on in-state college students’ majors and certifications. To do this, it will electronically link students’ files between the state Department of Education, Commission for Higher Education, and Department of Workforce Development.
Expanding Data Collection
Over the last ten years, states have expanded longitudinal data systems.
According to a Workforce Data Quality Campaign report, this effort gained significant momentum after the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 passed, providing $250 million in federal funding to states.
Although the Hoosier State is now one of 18 states to have created legislation adopting such plans, author of the House Enrolled Act 1003, state Rep. Steve Braun (R-Zionsville), says he crafted a plan that takes other states’ workforce data plans to the next level.
”There’s nobody currently that is looking at the future job market effectively and using that to inform the education system,” said Braun. “That is obviously the greatest value in terms of closing the skills gap because it really aligns the education system with the job market.”
National Economic Planning
It started last September when the National Governors Association Chair Mary Fallin announced the bipartisan organization’s 2013-2014 initiative would be “America Works: Education and Training for Tomorrow’s Jobs.”
“Governors are uniquely positioned to foster stronger connections between education and the workforce because within states, they are the sole individual who has responsibility for both public education and economic development,” Fallin has said in reference to the program.
In March, Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed the Indiana bill into law.
By July 15, Pence will appoint an executive director to a five-member agency that will oversee a long-term study, collecting elementary and high school state test stores, SAT and ACT results, college degrees, and salaries.
Still, some fear the program opens a Pandora’s box to the government’s control of private data.
“The government simply has no right to track my child throughout his life to see where he works, what he makes, etc. I don’t care if the tracking would yield valuable information for economic planning; I don’t care if the large corporate donors support it,” said Robbins, a mother of two adult children. “In a free society, my child’s career choices (as long as they’re legal) are not an appropriate object of government scrutiny.”
Security Concerns
Others are concerned with proper security measures being put in place as to minimize any hacking or thefts.
“This requires a crystal clear legislative purpose—data may be used for these purposes and no others; it requires a clear legislative mandate for strong privacy and security, including legal liability for failure to follow that mandate,” said Fred H. Cate, the director of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research at Indiana University’s Bloomington campus.
Setting in place those security and privacy standards is something that should have been done at the time of writing the bill, he said, but is currently missing.
While the plan includes multiple security steps to repel hackers and will not contain a person’s Social Security number or criminal records, no system is 100 percent safe and much personal information is still vulnerable, Robbins said.
“It’s irrelevant whether the student data is ‘anonymized,’ because in this era of Big Data and data-matching, there is no such thing as anonymization. Individuals will be identified, and the data will be hacked. It’s a question of when, not if,” Robbins said.
State officials appear to be willing to take that risk with other people’s money and information.
This story was originally published by the School Reform News, project of the Heartland Institute. Click here to view it.
