Editorial Note: This is the first post on Education & Liberty by Dr. Eric Wearne, of Georgia Gwinnett College. Welcome to Dr. Wearne! 

C.S. Lewis’ underappreciated Space Trilogy, about a man who travels around our solar system ends with a book titled That Hideous Strength.  The entire Space Trilogy, and especially its final installment, deserves to be much, much more widely read; the books present a window into academia (especially the social sciences), Christianity, modernization, romantic relationships, and so much more.  In That Hideous Strength, the villains of the story are housed in a new research institute dedicated to the “improvement” of humanity through social and hard scientific research: the National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments, or N.I.C.E.

Recently, Glenn Beck has spent time arguing against the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) on his television and radio shows, describing the CCSS effort as akin to the N.I.C.E. (actually calling it “the scariest thing we’ve found yet”).  This description of some of the N.I.C.E.’s new technology sounds eerily analogous to Beck’s fears:

The N.I.C.E. marks the beginning of a new era – the really scientific era.  Up to now, everything has been haphazard.  This is going to put science itself on a scientific basis.  There are to be forty interlocking committees sitting every day and they’ve got a wonderful gadget –I was shown the model last time I was in town – by which the findings of each committee print themselves off in their own little compartment on the Analytical Notice-Board every half hour.  Then, that report slides itself into the right position where it’s connected up by little arrows with all the relevant parts of the other reports.  A glance at the Board shows you the policy of the whole Institute actually taking shape under your eyes.  There’ll be a staff of at least twenty experts at the top of the building working this Notice Board in a room rather like the Tube control rooms.  It’s a marvellous gadget.

Beck has mentioned religion, family voting status and health care history as data points (among many others) that could be collected on people, starting at a very young age, for twenty years, or as long as someone is in school of any kind. He ascribes a lot of this to the 2009 stimulus and specifically to Race to the Top.  When I worked for a state education policy agency, I helped manage public school data reporting.  I helped specifically with responses to the stimulus, and was involved with improving the state’s data capabilities for research purposes.  Data on religion, family voting status and health care were never asked for or collected by an education agency, as far as I’m aware.

Still and yet…there are reasons to be aware (and wary) of Big Data as it relates to our schools.  The Gates Foundation is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to improve data collection systems.  And, as I have written elsewhere, we should absolutely be vigilant with growing data collections as they relate to our and our children’s civil liberties.  Educational technology companies are constantly seeking ways to access and to use finer and finer grain data, often for use by government agencies or school systems.  How long will it be before the first researcher suggests we outfit entire classes in Google Glass, so that we can gather data on what teachers are doing and what students are paying attention to at any moment?  Anyone horrified or surprised by such a suggestion should pay closer attention to how inexorably Big Data works.  Teachers and parents, ask yourselves if you are interested in this kind of future.

Actors at the state level are generally seeking to improve their data collections to make them more accurate, efficient, and useful.  For example, in Georgia it has historically been difficult to accurately track students as they move from the K12 public school system into the University System of Georgia or the Technical College System of Georgia.  Many students move back and forth between USG and TCSG.  One could argue that it is not the state’s business what a particular student’s education path looks like, but it is clear why those agencies would reasonably want to improve their own performance and efficiency by doing research in this area.  Most, if not all state departments of education could certainly stand to shrink in size and budget, but if we are going to have them, then data collection and reporting are appropriate roles for them – to a point.  (And, lest we forget, it’s not as if the private sector is particularly interested in protecting privacy.  See Google, Target, Facebook, Apple, etc.)

Ultimately, it is not particularly helpful to gin up fears about things that aren’t happening.  But Beck is right to be concerned about the future, even if some of his current particular complaints are overblown; we have not been vigilant enough about data privacy and related civil liberties.  Large organizations – public and private alike – are increasingly data-hungry, and seek out whatever advantages they can get by using our personal data.  Americans are becoming more and more willing to allow policy and personal decisions to be made based on Big Data.  Improving the efficiency and accuracy of our data systems can help inform policy decisions.  But as Reason’s Jacob Sullum notes, “Privacy is expected when it’s protected, and it’s protected when it’s expected. We need to expect more, or we will end up with less.”  We should be vigilant, and not grant state agencies—or private entities – too much latitude in collecting or using our data, or our children’s data, without explicit consent.  They should not be allowed that hideous strength.

The introduction of the Common Core State Standards (“Common Core”) is poised to transform education policy. Common Core is a state-led effort to establish a single set of standards for grades K-12, in Language Arts and Mathematics. Since their introduction in 2010, 45 states plus the District of Columbia have voluntarily adopted these standards. 2012-2013 is the first academic year during which some states have begun implementing Common Core, and some have begun assessing students using the Common Core.

While past efforts to institute national standards have failed, this Common Core effort has succeeded in bringing states together and, for the most part, the coalition has held.

Whether the Common Core reforms in particular succeed or not, this does raise a question regarding standards and schools. One major complaint against Common Core is that it will constitute a loss to parents and students, who previously had more freedom to decide what should be learned, as well as a loss of local control over what is taught in schools.

That’s a legitimate complaint. It remains to be seen whether national standards turn into a full-blown nationalized curriculum. It also remains to seen whether Common Core will expand to other subjects, such as social studies or science. It remains to be seen how stakeholders react when the first test scores are released. So, you might worry that Common Core can be steamrolled into something where there is one set of standards, one curriculum, one set of textbooks, and one set of tests that all students must take in order to graduate in the United States.

While the federal government doesn’t actually have the power to prescribe a national curriculum, the collusion of states in this matter has shown that states are largely willing to share one set of standards. So instead of placing blame with the federal government, how about looking at the states that have agreed to Common Core?

If states are willing to give up their individual standards for a national version, should then the states collectively be able to prescribe educational standards? In my opinion, some of the arguments about local schools losing control over their curriculums are a non-starter since, well, this was the case already. In the recent past, instead of the standards adopted being Common Core, they were just Nevada Standards of Language Arts or Maine Standards of Mathematics.

But we can and should ask: would it be better if standards were be developed by individual schools, at the local level? Granted many standards would be similar, such as ensuring students can read English and do basic arithmetic, but local control would provide flexibility in adapting to the community, with it particular economic needs and changing circumstances.

Having standards written into state law makes them very difficult to change. Even when they are brought up for alterations via political processes, it opens up a floodgate, with special interests groups battling to determine which changes will be made (for instance, as during the California Math Wars of the 1990s). There is also a tendency for states to lower standards as many did during this past decade, whether for political reasons or to ensure that most students can pass the required exams.

Why not allow individual schools to set their own standards? They can create their own unique standards, or mix and mingle with other schools or universities as they see fit. Let parents evaluate a prospective school’s standards and judge for themselves, choosing schools whose curricular offerings will benefit their children the most. From the competition amongst schools, standards that make sense and work for parents and students will emerge. Maybe they will be fairly uniform across schools and states, but maybe they won’t.