The Social Security numbers of some kindergarten children in Texas are being given to a private company for the purpose of storing reading scores. Two wrongs occur to me here: Possible identity theft and funds used to create data bases for five and six year olds.
Texas school districts are handing over Social Security numbers, dates of birth and other sensitive information about the state's kindergarten students to a private software company without permission from the children's parents.
State education officials who set up the unusual arrangement insist that the information is safe. But some educators and parents worry about sending student Social Security numbers to a private company hired to store kindergarten reading test scores.
OZ Systems, an Arlington software company, has received at least $2.3 million in state money to create databases of preschool and kindergarten student records.
Take a breath. That seems like a lot of money to me. I'm thinking that much money could go a long way towards educating young children instead of storing and analyzing data.
Anyone who has ever been around young children knows that they all learn at different rates. Some kids are just ready to read sooner than others. It's kind of like talking and potty training. Children will do things when they are ready.
I'm not saying that reading shouldn't be taught and encouraged in kindergarten, but spending money to keep up with test scores from this age group just seems silly. My son admitted to me that he just "filled in the bubbles" on a reading test in second grade. I confronted him when I received a rather alarming call from the school. He took another form of the test and did okay after realizing that his guessing strategy had caused his teacher and his mother a great deal of stress.
How accurate are these tests that are being stored using the Social Security numbers of children? In today's world where we all worry about identity theft, is this really necessary? Maybe there could be a better use of $2.3 million dollars!