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Ohio - - Statewide Student Identifier System Announced
The Ohio Department of Education has announced a "Statewide Student Identifier System" to be implemented this coming school year. The new system is intended to track test results based on the race and gender of children. School districts will collect specific data about each child, including the child's name, birth date, place of birth, gender, native language, and ethnicity ("black," "white," "Asian," etc.). The new system is intended to strip all personally identifiable information from students, allowing policy makers to track them only by a number. When a similar system was implemented in Massachusetts several years ago, home schoolers were surprised to find districts asking them for information not required by law, such as the child's middle name. We anticipate that many Ohio home schoolers will find their districts requesting new information this year. While some home school families may wish to participate in a statewide database of this sort, most will prefer to preserve their privacy, especially in light of the troubling "Big Brother" aspects of such a system. It is essential that school districts understand that home schoolers are not public school students, and that home school records are not to be collected for any statewide database. Each district that demands a child's middle name or place of birth as part of the home school notification process may be presumed to include home schoolers in the Statewide Student Identifier System. If home schoolers submit to the school district's demand for this information, they encourage the inclusion of all home schoolers in this database. Long ago Edmund Burke said, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." For Ohio home schoolers this fall, the price of liberty means not providing a child's middle name and place of birth. Our resolve in the face of this request will preserve our independence in an ever more computerized age. Source: 08/08/02 Scott W. Somerville, HSLDA Staff Attorney
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