As Long As We Have Bias, We Need Data - And That's A Privacy Issue
2 min read
Bias in schools manifests itself in various ways, ranging from the school to prison pipeline, disparate discipline based on race starting in preschool, to corporal punishment applied to students of color, to higher diagnoses of learning differences based on race, to teachers showing stunning disrespect toward their students and communities.
Data captures these trends. Reliable data collection paired with sound data analysis is one way to ensure that these stories - these realities - are not erased from our collective memories.
In some privacy circles, there is pushback against storing things like discipline data and learning difference data because there is concern that, if this leaks out later in a person's life, it could be used against them in a way that would put them at a disadvantage. However, without accurate data that tracks trends over time, quantifying the impacts of bias - and how bias plays out along racial lines, and how bias has a direct and negative feedback on the lives of students - becomes impossible. Reliable data, and sound analysis of that data, is indispensable in identifying problems related to equity, addressing those problems, and assessing whether any interventions actually work.
To put it another way: one parent's concern about the potential damage that could be caused by an as-yet unrealized data leak is another parent's proof of racial bias in their child's life. When I see privacy advocacy from groups that are anti-immigrant, anti-voting rights, anti-lgbtq, anti-women, anti-science, I see efforts to reduce the efficacy of sound data use to identify and address real and pressing issues of prejudice and bias.
This aspect of the privacy debate is rarely discussed. Many of the current conversations of data only address one facet at a time. One of the contexts that privacy advocates need to address and embrace is that bias within schools is real and ongoing, and that accurate data helps us understand - and hopefully address - these issues. Privacy advocacy that ignores entrenched bias - and downplays the role of data to address that bias - will remain ineffective and incomplete.
