ALBANY, N.Y. December 20, 2013 – New York State United Teachers today applauded 50 Assembly Democrats who signed a letter calling on State Education Commissioner John King to put on hold plans to share sensitive student data with InBloom, a private, non-profit company which has a State Education Department contract to store and manage some 400 pieces of data about each individual student.
NYSUT is allied with parents’ groups and is strongly backing legislation that would strengthen privacy protections for student data.
“I very much appreciate Speaker Silver’s leadership and those in the Assembly who have signed this letter,” said NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi. “Clearly, there is still a long way to go to get the privacy protections that parents and teachers want for New York’s students.”
NYSUT Executive Vice President Andrew Pallotta noted “the privacy of student and teacher data is of paramount importance. SED’s plan to upload sensitive student data into InBloom’s ‘cloud’ deserves much more scrutiny and oversight. This is one more move in the right direction to protect and serve the students of New York state. We thank Speaker Silver and the Assembly for taking up this important issue.”
New York State United Teachers is a statewide union with more than 600,000 members. Members are pre-K-12 teachers; school-related professionals; higher education faculty; other professionals in education, human services and health care; and retirees. NYSUT is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and the AFL-CIO.