Smarter Balanced Offers Tips for Monitoring Students on Social Media

deutsch29: Mercedes Schneider's Blog

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) offers the following tips to SBAC schools for monitoring students on social media. The excerpt below is from a single-page document entitled, “Guidance for Social Media Monitoring During the Field Test.”

The SBAC-suggested keys to successful social media “test security trolling”?

1) Set up a school social media site, and encourage students to join.

2) Search social media sites by keyword.

Click on the document below to read for yourself. (Click on image to enlarge.)

There is more to this letter than is shown in the image above. The full document can be read here.

Also, here is the section of the letter missing from above. Click on image to enlarge:

The sneakiest component of this “monitoring” is the potential use of a school social media site to track students without their knowing.

School social media sites should include disclaimers that those “following”…

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Aside from Kilroy, has Earl Jaques responded to anyone else about his offensive comments?

I know several people who emailed or called Delaware State Rep. Earl Jaques about his extremely offensive comments about parents who opt their kids out of standardized assessments.  Has he responded to any of you?  I know he hasn’t responded to anything I have said.  I guess I am too far below him…

Kilroy posted a very long article today about parent opt out and how it is an agenda for some who are utilizing it to help themselves.  He was not talking about parents, so let’s not rush to hang Kilroy!  But as part of the article, Kilroy wrote that he spoke with Delaware State Rep. Earl Jaques about parent opt out:

Rep Jaques, I enjoyed our sidebar chat after the combined board meeting. I know you mean well but now it the time to be a leader not a follower. Markell is playing legislators to save his own political ass. Work with the parents, teachers, schools and other legislators to plan for a future that will seen an implosion of the current wrongheaded Washington / Markell agenda. You represent the people not the governor ! 

While Kilroy and I agree with many of the reasons he is speaking out like this, I do not think Earl Jaques meant well at all with his comments in a public newspaper.  I think he meant to condescend and offend parents who know their children better than anyone in pursuit of God knows what with Governor Markell.  I had a very long response to Kilroy’s article, which you can see here: https://kilroysdelaware.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/delaware-testing-opt-out-the-lies-and-hidden-agenda/#comment-64186

While some may think it is best for the opt out movement for Jaques to keep talking, which I partly agree with, I don’t think he should be the Chair of the House Education Committee which will be in session very soon to discuss House Bill 50 which would legally give parents the right to opt their child out of the state assessment.  So I will continue my iPetition:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/we-want-delaware-state-rep-earl-jaques-to-step

Lavelle & Sokola Face Off While Markell Explodes

Word around the town is Delaware Senators Greg Lavelle and David Sokola exchanged words at that New Castle school district meeting yesterday.  It’s beginning to look like the WEAC recommendations have ruffled a lot of feathers lately.  And the power struggles begin anew in the 148th General Assembly.  My little birds are also telling me about another power grab occurring in our state between two sides.  One team is feeding right into the hands of the other team who are just sitting back and watching it happen.

Meanwhile, our Common Core Smarter Balanced loving Governor was very angry about the RCEA and CEA press conference on Thursday night.  Education has been his baby and someone snatched that baby. Even though he stole the baby from its original owners, he didn’t like the snatch back.  This is after an already bad week for Jack when he was forced to use the words “opt out”.  As well, he had to hear all the talk about his latest whipping boy and his very stupid comments about parents and students.

We have a lame-duck trying to quack, but nobody is liking the noise.  The cracks in the foundation are getting bigger and bigger, and it is all about to crumble.  Just go to Delawareonline’s Facebook page and look at the recent comments concerning education.  Aside from the Delaware DOE employee and a couple other strays (like one person who was in charge of a human capital project), most of the commenters are well aware of what is going on.