BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, Chair
2015-2016 Regular Session
ACR 120 (Mark Stone)
Version: April 7, 2016
Hearing Date: June 14, 2016
Fiscal: No
Urgency: No
NR
SUBJECT
Data trusts: at-risk children
DESCRIPTION
This measure would recognize that the Legislature supports the
development of safe and secure data sharing between public
education, social service, and research entities through the
Silicon Valley Regional Data Trust as it pertains specifically
to at-risk, foster, homeless, and justice-involved children and
youth and their families, in order to better serve, protect, and
improve the futures of these Californians.
BACKGROUND
Despite California's commitment to provide high-quality public
education for all students, students in California's public
schools generally fail to meet proficiency standards. In 2015,
the results of a new test on student performance revealed that:
Of more than 3.1 million public school students tested in
English statewide, only 44 percent met or exceeded standards;
in math, only 33 percent met that threshold, according to the
state Department of Education, which released the new scores.
Scores at Bay Area schools generally mirrored the statewide
results, as performance correlated with family and community
wealth, language ability and ethnicity. [?]
"The alarm bells should be going off all over," said Matt
Hammer, who leads a nonprofit education advocacy and school
incubation group, Innovate Public Schools, in San Jose.
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"What's going to happen to children who aren't doing math at
grade level?"
Among these students is another group that consistently
underperforms: children in foster care. Yet, until recently,
education reform efforts to address the specific needs of these
children have been rare. In large part, this is due to the fact
that California (like many other states) has little statewide
information about the education and performance of youth who are
in the foster system. Challenges related to the availability
and sharing of information between the education and child
welfare system are common, resulting in the needs of these
students often going unrecognized and unmet, leaving them far
behind their classmates in academic achievement. (See Barrat, V.
X., & Berliner, B. (2013). The Invisible Achievement Gap, Part
1: Education Outcomes of Students in Foster Care in California's
Public Schools. San Francisco: WestEd.)
Established in June of 2015, the Silicon Valley Regional Data
Trust (SVRDT) is a tri-county collaborative of the Santa Clara,
San Mateo and Santa Cruz County Offices of Education, Social
Services, Justice, Mental and Public Health agencies and the
University of California-Santa Cruz. SVRDT was designed to
coordinate regional working groups charged with developing
standards to use when sharing data to better serve at-risk
youth. As part of its first year work plan, SVRDT engaged
consultants to guide various working groups, assist in the
development of the information sharing, and work with regional
agencies to develop and gain approval of interagency data
sharing and other legal agreements. In addition, SVRDT has
recently formalized a Memorandum of Understanding with the Santa
Clara Office of Education, which will establish the data
warehouse that will store data from the partnering public
agencies.
This resolution would publicly recognize that the Legislature
supports the development of safe and secure data sharing between
public education, social service, and research entities through
the SVRDT to better serve at-risk youth and their families.
CHANGES TO EXISTING LAW
Existing law provides that, among other rights, all people have
an inalienable right to pursue and obtain privacy. (Cal.
Const., art. I, Sec. 1.)
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Existing case law permits a person to bring an action in tort
for an invasion of privacy and provides that in order to state a
claim for violation of the constitutional right to privacy, a
plaintiff must establish the following three elements: (1) a
legally protected privacy interest; (2) a reasonable expectation
of privacy in the circumstances; and (3) conduct by the
defendant that constitutes a serious invasion of privacy. (Hill
v. National Collegiate Athletic Assn. (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1.)
Existing law recognizes four types of activities considered to
be an invasion of privacy, giving rise to civil liability
including the public disclosure of private facts. (Id.)
Existing federal law requires an operator of an Internet Web
site or online service directed to a child, as defined, or an
operator of an Internet Web site or online service that has
actual knowledge that it is collecting personal information from
a child to provide notice of what information is being collected
and how that information is being used, and to give the parents
of the child the opportunity to refuse to permit the operator's
further collection of information from the child. (15 U.S.C.
Sec. 6502.)
Existing federal law , the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy
Act, restricts a school that receives federal funds from
releasing educational records (or personally identifiable
information contained therein) of students without the written
consent of their parents, as specified. Existing law also gives
the parents of students who are or have been in attendance at a
school the right to inspect and review the education records of
their children. (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1232g.)
Existing law prohibits an operator from knowingly engaging in
targeted advertising to students or their parents or legal
guardians using covered information, as defined, amassing a
profile of a K-12 student, selling a student's information, or
disclosing covered information, as provided. (Bus. & Prof. Code
Secs. 22584 and 22585.)
Existing law requires an operator of a commercial Web site or
online service that collects personally identifiable information
through the Internet about individual consumers residing in
California who use or visit its Web site to conspicuously post
its privacy policy. (Bus. & Prof. Code Sec. 22575.)
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This measure would state that children in California would
benefit from a reliable and secure data sharing environment that
would assist social service providers and public education
institutions in best responding to the personal circumstances
and needs of students and families and would allow researchers
using aggregate data to better support these efforts.
This measure would state that the mission of the Silicon Valley
Regional Data Trust (SVRDT) is to serve as a pilot demonstration
site for addressing the needs of diverse communities using a
comprehensive data-informed approach that provides quality
services and promotes a healthy, safe, and prosperous community
while safeguarding sensitive personal data.
This measure would recognize that improved collaborations
between agencies can help address the complex challenges of
serving vulnerable California children and their families.
This measure would recognize that the County of Santa Clara is
currently participating in the FosterVision Project with the
Santa Clara County Office of Education to share data about youth
between schools and the county in the interest of improving
services to foster and juvenile-justice-involved youth with
appropriate protections to safeguard sensitive data.
This measure would state that the establishment of information
sharing agreements through a tri-county regional data trust
utilizing the Santa Clara County Office of Education Data Zone
as the hub in partnership with the University of California,
Santa Cruz, will help ensure that data systems are interoperable
within and across agencies and sectors by adopting common data
standards, definitions, and language to best serve the children
in those counties.
This measure would recognize that, in order to safeguard the
privacy of California children and families, it is essential
that the data trust strictly adhere to existing state and
federal law requiring the protection of personal information and
data pertaining to students and at-risk youth and follow data
security industry best practices in the interest of protecting
California's most vulnerable youth while allowing appropriate
data access and sharing.
This measure would declare that the Legislature supports the
development of safe and secure data sharing between public
ACR 120 (Mark Stone)
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education, social service, and research entities through the
SVRDT as it pertains specifically to at-risk, foster, homeless,
and justice-involved children and youth and their families, in
order to better serve, protect, and improve the futures of these
Californians.
COMMENT
1.Stated need for the bill
According to the author:
California has a variety of high-needs students enrolled in
public school, including foster youth and justice-involved
youth, who have consistently poorer educational, social, and
correctional outcomes than their peers. Additionally,
California schools have an achievement gap between some
categories of students that, in spite of much study, have
remained persistent and at times has even widened. However,
the state does not consistently track or measure how many
high-needs students in certain categories attend public
schools, what their needs are, where they are enrolled, how
well they fare academically, or what they do when they leave
the educational system. As California looks for ways to help
students who are more likely than their peers to experience
negative outcomes, the state should test new approaches to
appropriately share information between social service
providers, educational service providers and research
institutions in order to help individual students receive
tailored services, as well as to provide critical aggregate
data to researchers.
2.Maintaining student privacy
The right to privacy is a fundamental right protected by Section
1 of Article I of the Constitution of California, and the
information of students is specifically protected under both
state and federal law. Federal law prohibits public schools from
releasing educational records without the written consent of the
parents, and requires the operator of an online service or
Internet Web site to provide notice to parents regarding how any
information collected about a child is being used and
additionally give the parents the opportunity to prohibit
further collection of the information. (See 15 U.S.C. Sec. 6502
and 20 U.S.C. Sec. 1232g.) California has additionally created
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prohibitions against online operators amassing a profile of a
K-12 student, selling a student's information, or disclosing
covered information. (See Bus. & Prof. Code Secs. 22584 and
22585.)
This measure would declare the Legislature's support for the
development of safe and secure data sharing between public
education, social service, and research entities through the
Silicon Valley Regional Data Trust (SVRDT) to better serve,
protect, and improve the futures of at-risk, foster, homeless,
and justice-involved children and youth and their families.
Staff notes that at this time, SVRDT is in the planning stages,
and has not yet begun sharing student information, nor does the
pilot project that SVRDT seeks to implement have a known start
date. To date, SVRDT has spent considerable time and energy
identifying national experts to secure data sharing agreement
and design secure data infrastructures. Until evidence suggests
otherwise, existing privacy protections that have been enacted
on the state and federal level will govern the information that
SVRDT seeks to share and store as well.
In support, the sponsor writes, "SVRDT's mission is to provide a
secure information-sharing environment, which stimulates change
in the culture and practice of how data is used by education,
health, and human services, in collaboration with researchers
and the private sector to develop actionable and impactful
solutions to critical educational and social problems."
Support : Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
Opposition : None Known
HISTORY
Source : Silicon Valley Regional Data Trust
Related Pending Legislation : None Known
Prior Legislation : None Known
Prior Vote : Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee
(Ayes 9, Noes 0)
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