John Trudell espoused a policy of non-cooperation. To his way of thinking, when confronted by oppression, it is our responsibility look for ways to gum up the system. This week my wrench-throwing target was Naviance, a subsidiary of Hobsons, a company that promotes itself as a college and career readiness solution.
The Philadelphia School District entered into a five-year, $1.5 million contract with Naviance in 2015. The William Penn Foundation and the Philadelphia School Partnership, both proponents of school privatization, pitched in with $750,000 to cover half the cost. An article from Inside Philanthropy stated the software is “essentially, a high school guidance counselor in a website form.”
It is a program that seeks to replace human interaction with digital ones, which is bad enough, but the company also builds its bottom line collecting data mined from students’ tender, just-forming identities starting as early as middle school. The software deploys intrusive surveys and “strengths assessments” to develop robust profiles used to track kids into career pathways.
I would have fared poorly in such a system. I was a humanities-loving art history student, who took up a graduate degree in historic preservation with a focus on cultural landscapes. Over time, and with the guidance of friends who helped me open my eyes and look hard at the world, I developed an analysis that led me to become a radical researcher intent on exposing purveyors of predatory digital disruption.
Of course the point of Naviance is to preemptively erase people like me. It won’t do for scrappy, critically thinking, non-cooperators to remain on the board when gameplay begins. The “college and career readiness” enforcers expect everyone to passively accept their assigned slot; to be grateful to even have a slot; so grateful they won’t risk imagining another future or challenging the status quo to create an alternate reality. Which is exactly why our family refused to allow our high-school daughter to create a Naviance account two years ago. Parents in other states are doing the same.
But now, as a senior, she had to figure out how to get transcripts to apply to college. In a growing number of school districts Naviance holds families hostage. If they refuse to set up an account and complete all the surveys their children cannot graduate, request letters of recommendation, or have transcripts sent. Naviance, a private company whose profits are manufactured from the student data they collect, is becoming a gatekeeper to college admission. Plus, our district paid them $750,000 (plus the $750,000) for the privilege! Below is a comment on a recent blog post to that effect.
After several email exchanges with school district officials and a productive meeting with our daughter’s lovely human (not web-form) guidance counselor, we came up with a plan to do the application process sans-Naviance. We’d do it the old-fashioned way with embossed seals, paper copies, signatures across envelopes and snail-mail postage. Sure, she’ll have to pull her submissions together a bit sooner to give us a buffer in case something gets lost along the way, but in exchange we’ll enjoy the peace of mind knowing her “strengths” remain beyond the reach of Hobson’s predictive analytics.
Below are two emails I sent to the Chief Information Officer of our district with Superintendent Hite copied, as well as the Head of Student Support Services. It explains our thinking and affirms the stance we took was not just for ourselves, but to keep the door open for others who desire to pursue the same course.
If you can opt out of Naviance at Masterman, you should be able to opt out of Naviance anywhere in the School District of Philadelphia and be supported in your decision to do so. Support your school’s guidance counselor. Opt out and demand funds used to pay these data-mining companies instead be used to reduce counselors’ caseloads and free them up to spend more quality time with their students.
Our Concerns About Naviance
Email dated September 20, 2018
Dear XXXX,
I think you were looped in later, so I wanted to make it clear to all involved that our desire to opt out of the Naviance platform is grounded in concern over:
1) use of student data to create profit streams for private companies
2) use of data to generate profiles of students that may in fact cause them harm, especially given its use of surveys and strengths assessments
3) outsourcing student services to private companies when public funds would be better spent expanding access to HUMAN counselors in our schools
4) Naviance, a private company, becoming a de facto gatekeeper for access to post-secondary opportunities
See the excerpt from a market report for Hobson from 2013.
“Hobson is also developing a third business line – data and analytics – which focuses on this data, much of it proprietary, that flows through its solutions at both K-12 and HE (higher education). The recent acquisition of National Transcript Center (NTC) from Pearson enables Hobson to capture data along the student lifecycle by facilitating e-transcript exchanges…The company’s acquisition of Beat the GMAT in October 2012, together with its College Confidential business, also supports Hobson’s strategy in creating communities with strong underlying data, which has a value to HE institutions and CAN BE MONETIZED.”
Most people don’t take the time to dig into the corporate underpinnings of the online platforms their children are supposed to use, but in this case it does merit serious consideration. Naviance is owned by Hobson, a division of the Daily Mail and General Trust in the UK. Lord Rothermere, former owner of the Daily Mail, consistently gave positive press to Hitler throughout the 1930s link.
Hobson is also based in Cincinnati, Ohio, which is quite interesting in that that is also the corporate headquarters of Knowledgeworks, one of the primary advocates for a shift to a learning ecosystem model. This model seeks to replace schools with drop-in centers, badged credentials, and a combination of digital and out of school time learning opportunities. I have seen the data fields for Naviance, and it appears this platform is aligned to such a model. As a person who values the importance of neighborhood schools as physical places, this worries me greatly.
Among the primary responsibilities of public school districts is the management of student records and support of students in accessing those records. I feel strongly this is a responsibility that should not be delegated to a for-profit, third party company that has a stated interest in expanding their market share through data-mining children. While some families may find this “service” a convenience, we do not.
Our daughter has two institutions to which she intends to apply early action. Those deadlines are the first of November. She is in the process of finalizing her materials now, but we need to know how we can transmit official copies of her transcript and her letters of recommendation to the institutions to which she is applying outside of Naviance. We need to have this information by the end of September.
I very much appreciate the School District leadership’s assistance in helping us with this matter.
Sincerely,
Alison McDowell
Post-Meeting Follow Up Email
September 20, 2018
Hello everyone,
I just wanted to share an update. XXX and I had a very productive meeting with XXX this morning. There is indeed an embossing stamp of approval for printed transcripts and provisions to obtain paper copies of letters of recommendation in sealed envelopes. I very much appreciate the school’s flexibility in accommodating our desire to pursue the college application process outside this platform, and we have a plan over the next month to pull everything together for her early action forms.
That said I want to re-emphasize that the School District of Philadelphia would do well to revisit its contractual agreements with Naviance, given the fact that their business model is fueled by student data. The amount of data being poured into this company, including sensitive behavioral data, is extremely troubling given its historic origins. It is imperative that adults do all they can to protect the children in their care from being harmed or used as a profit center. Many families do not have access to the background information I do and may not be aware that they have the option to apply to colleges outside of this third-party platform. I hope the district would extend the same level of support to other families that choose to opt out of Naviance.
As a parent and taxpayer I would prefer to see public funds used to reduce caseloads for school counselors so they have more time to spend with students. XXX has been great to work with over the years.
Once again XXX, thanks for your time today and your knowledgeable input. We look forward to coordinating with you as we plan XXX’s next steps.
Sincerely,
Alison McDowell
Examples Of Naviance Gatekeeping
Required to receive cap and gown. Link to source below, here.
Required to apply for honors / AP courses. Link to source below, here.
Required senior exit survey. Link to source below, here.
And here.
And here, etc.
Thank you so much for this information. My child will be entering high school soon in a district that uses Naviance. This gives me information for opting out. Thank you so so much!
I’m happy to help. Each one teach one. Please let others know what you know. This company does not have the interests of our children at heart. It is about profit and control. Good luck!
You are spot on with your response.
Our small private school uses Naviance. I wonder what our cost was? I will need to ask…
I have given up the fight for Child#1. She remains in public HS and is entrenched in ALL the crap (she refuses to believe me about the creepiness of all of this and will have to learn the hard way). Child #2 has been pulled and started private HS this year….NO Naviance and plenty of counselors and advisors that meet with the boys regularly. Yes, he has to say a prayer every morning and go to mass once a month, but I can honestly say that we are spending our money on a school that cares for children as human beings and not as data points. All the private schools in the area are now full with children fleeing the public school systems in the area. We live outside of DC in MD. We have every bad reform that comes out of the stink tanks of DC. Our education system is corrupt to the core, test centric, common core aligned and data rich. The rich parents here just don’t get it…..they love test scores! they love competition! They refuse to see that learning is not a competition and test prep is not an education. I can’t fight that mentality anymore. Thank you for always confirming what my gut feeling is always telling me.
It is time for the community to come together and open more of these opportunities. It can be done and it can be done very inexpensively.
Thanks for your perspective Lisa. All of this is so hard. I’m glad we can commiserate. It does seem Maryland is headed down this road at a good clip. I suspect Caret has something to do with it. https://www.ridge-lane.com/team/robert-l-caret
Well, we had Hite here in PG County and now he’s in Philly. Lillian Lowery (came from DE) was our State Super and then moved to Ohio and is now at Knowledgeworks. Dr. Joseph was in DE with Lowery and then came to take the asst Super job in PG Co….now he’s doing destruction in Nashville. We got Renee Foose in Howard Co and she was given a paid “retirement” with benefits to leave after creating a mess. Dallas Dance Baltimore County Super just got out of prison for failure to disclose $ on his income tax….but that was the only thing they could make stick in court (he did so much more). I think the key in our situation is Lillian Lowery….she’s a trained Broadie. I don’t know how much Caret has to do with it….I think at the college level, it is Loh who is doing the most damage at UMd? I can’t wait until child #1 graduates in 2 yrs!
A poignant line, and truly scary: “Of course the point of Naviance is to preemptively erase people like me…” That word preemptive is so EXACT for what has been happening to schools/kids/teachers over the past decade: take out the possibility of problem resistance before it can even think of being problem resistance.
Thanks. I do feel this is true. People are being conditioned not to think and not to question.
Hobson is listed on ERDI’s website as an ERDI partner client. Parents in schools that use Naviance should be asking what their superintendent/thought leaders got in return for contracting with Naviance. For example, were they wined and dined, special evening outing, or honorarium of at least two grand for their ERDI gig?
I did not know that. Good point. Thanks!
Is there any way you can do your magic research and find out if Naviance is connected with the student loan service “Navient”? I know Naviance is owned by Hobson, but Navient is the split off of Sallie Mae and a financial gut in our area is reporting on many problems with Navient. I would just like to know if there is a connection.
https://wallethacks.com/navient-student-loan-servicing/
It just seems odd that the names are similar and one feeds into the other?
Did you ever get an answer on this? I had the same question. And my kid who was forced to use Naviance was in catholic school, whereas her twin in the public high school had traditional counselors. All the damn surveys contributed to hla mental health breakdown during and after her senior year.