NEPC Launches Education Interview of the Month Podcast Series

BOULDER, CO (September 21, 2017) – In the inaugural 30-minute podcast of the NEPC Education Interview of the Month, Lewis and Clark College Emeritus Professor of Education Gregory A. Smith examines student privacy issues with University of Colorado Boulder Research Associate Faith Boninger, co-author of Asleep at the Switch: Schoolhouse Commercialism, Privacy, and the Failure of Policymaking.

Join Smith and Boninger for an engaging conversation about the digitalization of education, why current policy is insufficient, and what policymakers, administrators, teachers and parents can do to protect children’s privacy.

Boninger notes that student privacy is a vital issue because “Schools and districts are paying huge sums of money to private vendors and creating systems to transfer vast amounts of children’s personal information to education technology companies. While this is happening, policymaking to protect children’s privacy or to evaluate the quality of the educational technology they use ranges from inadequate to nonexistent. This is why we have a number of recommendations for strengthening oversight of the education technology used in schools. For example, we recommend that before technologies are adopted in schools, independent third-party assessments of their validity and utility, and of the potential threats they pose to students’ well-being, be conducted and addressed.”

A new NEPC Education Interview of the Month, hosted by Gregory A. Smith, will be released each month from September through May.

Don’t worry if you miss a month. All NEPC Education Interview of the Month podcasts are archived on the NEPC website and can be found here.

Coming Next Month

In October, Greg’s guest will be Alyssa Dunn, author of Activism through attrition?: An exploration of viral resignation letters and the teachers who wrote them. Greg and Alyssa will discuss what can be learned from teachers’ resignation letters about working conditions in contemporary American schools.

Stay tuned in to NEPC for smart, engaging conversations about education policy.

The National Education Policy Center (NEPC), a university research center housed at the University of Colorado Boulder School of Education, produces and disseminates high-quality, peer-reviewed research to inform education policy discussions. Visit us at: https://nepc.colorado.edu

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