Know Thy Neighbor

Anti Fed Ed Warriors ~ we must be on guard at all times and keep our eyes open.
Another popular Diva post, “Whoa, Neighbor!“, reveals an example of who is promoting community engagement programs with the goal of peering further into our private lives.  Keep an eye out folks, you don’t just hand anyone the keys to your home.

~ posted by MK for the Diva

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Whoa, Neighbor!

Anti Fed Ed Warriors, what I’m about to share happened to me this past weekend. I got a seemingly harmless piece of mail. It was geared for my neighborhood and looked like a great way to get involved. I mean, after all, how many of us know to fight our War Vs the Core, we need to be locally minded first, then, venture out.

ESSA In Our Communities:

Below, is the letter I received. Notice how it states we can keep up with crime, safety, find our pets, etc. Nowhere do you see ‘school’ or “education”.

But, after digging into just who/what “Nextdoor” is, I found it’s VERY much in education. To the point it’s partnering with schools to breed community engagement. Something ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) embedded as a mandate.

Where in ESSA is the ‘community engagement’ language?
You’ll find ‘community’ 170 times.
You’ll also find community is involved in Sections 4001-4206 (21st Century Community Learning Centers); Sections 4501-4506 (Family Engagement), and, Section 4611 (Ed Research, Sub-part 2 Community Support for School Success), Section 4624 (Promise Neighborhoods), Section 4625 (Full service community schools), and ‘community colleges’, which are written throughout the law.

Back in 2018, I showed you how NC (where I live) has annual conferences to embed the community in education. In that article the Community in Education Conference was centered on ‘building capacity’ via ‘innovations’. This year’s was “personalized learning”.  Look in your State for similar programs.

The Nextdoor Company:

Warriors, you can access the website here.

From their Press Release section: “Headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., Nextdoor is a privately held company with the backing of prominent investors, including Benchmark, Greylock Partners, Tiger Global Management, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and others.”

So, how did I find Nextdoor in our schools? I did a general search.

The NY Times published in 2018, how the company can be used in politics. We know politics and education intertwine.

In 2015, the Tennessean published that Metro Nashville Public Schools became the first school district in the nation to partner with Nextdoor for a broader sense of community involvement in education.

If you look at one of the co-founders of Nextdoor, you’ll see she’s got ties to both Harvard and Microsoft, two huge CCSS Machine member groups. You’ll also see service on a MA school board.

When you think about the need for verification of address, that should alarm you. Why? It means your home address is being tracked. It’s not a far jump to remember that these on-line companies also can benefit from the smart devices students bring home which have been issued at schools.

Also consider that since FEMA and NOAA are also CCSS Machine member federal agencies/programs, it’s not a far stretch to think HUD (also among the federal CCSS Machine member agencies) will become involved with address and home ownership verification.

While it doesn’t appear Nextdoor is that creepy yet, it never hurts to be proactive. I do know that there has been talk about one day down the road, Nextdoor could be among internet providers. We KNOW that means massive trouble as far as personal data, especially when combined with school partners.

This “How Stuff Works” article points out that Nextdoor has had issues with racial profiling, but it working on it. The article also explains how services like Nextdoor have a niche market. How will privacy laws like FEPA (Foundations for Evidence-based Policy-making) factor in? What about the bullying aspect? If racial profiling’s an issue, how in the name of all that’s holy, will school partners prevent terrible behavior? What about hacking the neighborhood or school information?

To answer some of these questions, as well as to learn (page 7) how NextDoor owns your data once it’s supplied, the Ga Tech Study will be handy. In the GT Study are 13 references to data.

In 2017, CNBC reported Nextdoor was worth over $1 billion dollars in venture capital. Warriors, venture capitalists HATE local control in education. At least the CCSS Machine member venture capitalists like Netflix, Global Silicon Valley, etc.

Speaking of GSV (Global Silicon Valley), Nextdoor is among the Top 10 performers of  the GSV portfolio. So, all that data and those privacy concerns ARE a big deal after all!

Below are just a FEW of the education related groups also in the GSV portfolio. Since Nextdoor is too, I connected them for you.

If you’d like to see all my previous research and articles on GSV, go here.

One last thought, Warriors, Nextdoor and police departments partner together in several cities. Have you seen the large net law enforcement has, thanks to ESSA’s ‘school safety’ mandates? “Law enforcement” is embedded 6 times. Most are the student’s safety, but, we also know that lots of data sharing will take place. Again, with laws like FEPA, law enforcement agencies were given an increase in the amount of information they can collect and share. FEPA is also a back door to removing our 2nd Amendment rights.

(Source)

Closing:

Warriors, in this day and age, take NOTHING at face value. I’m glad I did some digging into my neighborhood ‘watch’. Now that you know, warn someone who uses Nextdoor. Talk with someone considering it. They’re in for much more than a simple, ‘let’s be neighbors’ chat.

                                                       (photo from grumpycats.com)