Students targeted for data collection and product marketing through PARCC, Google Apps for Education

Washington Post reports that "schools have become 'soft targets' for companies trying to gather data and market to children because of the push in education to adopt new technology and in part because of the rise of computer-administered Common Core tests". The Post cites the National Education Policy Center's new annual report titled “Learning to be Watched: Surveillance Culture at School". The report expresses concerns about privacy, commercialization of student lives and companies exploiting student vulnerabilities: "Although companies that collect, sell, analyze, and buy data may not know children’s names (though they probably do), that hardly matters if they have the information and tools necessary to model everything about those children — including their interests, social networks, personalities, vulnerabilities, desires, and aspirations — and if they have personalized access to children, via their electronic devices, to shape them." The report also observes that Americans are, “to some extent being socialized to ignore and tacitly accept the collection, organization, and sale of information about us”: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/05/17/schools-are-now-soft-targets-for-companies-to-collect-data-and-market-to-kids-report/