National News
Private workers seeing student info need background checks
May 01, 2015 posted by Steve Brownstein
A new bill introduced in the New Jersey Assembly says students need protection from employees securing the PARCC tests.
The bill (A4345) would require any employees of state-contracted companies to undergo the same background check as public school employees before they can gain access to students' personal information.
It was introduced because of concerns about third-party searches for PARCC test leaks, including those posted on students' social media pages, bill sponsors said.
"If we are going to give these individuals a window into the social media lives of our students, then we should ensure that they are law-abiding citizens who will not use this access and information for nefarious purposes," said Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-Essex), one of the bill's sponsors.
Under New Jersey's contract for the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exams, a subcontractor of testing company Pearson has been scouring the internet for potential test security breaches.
Any suspected breaches are then sent to Pearson, which until mid-March had been cross referencing names on those social media accounts with a list of students taking PARCC.
The bill would prohibit the Department of Education from entering into a contract with a private entity if the services involve access to student information until the employees who will have access to that information have undergone a criminal history records check.
Those employees would have to pay for the background check, according to the bill, and the state would not be allowed to enter into a contract with that company if any of those employees have a disqualifying crime or offense.
"Making criminal background checks mandatory for these employees is a minor inconvenience when you consider the potential for peril," said Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-Essex), another sponsor of the bill.
Pearson spokeswoman Stacy Skelly said the company has no comment on the proposed legislation.
PARCC test security measures drew criticism in March after the state Department of Education contacted Watchung Hills Regional High School District about a student's PARCC-related tweet. The American Federation of Teachers launched a petition demanding Pearson stop online searches for test breaches and the chairman of the state Assembly Education Committee called the searches "unacceptable."
Pearson and Caveon Test Security, the subcontractor conducting the searches, have maintained that the search pulls only from publicly available web pages, which anyone can see.
Caveon searches for keywords, such as the titles of reading passages, and no one scans individual student's social media pages looking to see what they are posting, the companies said. Caveon has said it does not use any student information as part of its search process.
New Jersey is paying $96,574 for the service, and the Department of Education has said the searching is necessary because posting a test question on social media is "akin to handing out test questions on the steps of the school."
The PARCC consortium, a partnership of states administering the standardized tests, asked Pearson last month to stop cross referencing names on social media accounts associated with suspected test breaches with the list of students taking the tests.
That decision was made "in the interest of proactively addressing any perceived concerns" about the pursuit of PARCC security breaches, PARCC spokesperson David Connerty-Marin said.
The security measures were the subject of an Assembly Education Committee inquiry last month, and Committee Chair Patrick Diegnan Jr. (D-Middlesex) pledged to introduce legislation on the issue. Diegnan is the third sponsor of the bill.
