I have been digging more into contracts with the Commonwealth of PA and research studies being performed in the k-12 setting. I’ve noticed that certain universities pop up over and over again in the research. Carnegie Mellon, University of Pittsburgh, Penn State, and California University. Those seem to be the most involved in research projects, educational apps, and programs implemented into the schools. This peeked my curiosity once I discovered the SMART IRB.
SMART IRB (Institutional Review Board) is a program instituted by the NIH to do human research studies across multiply sites. One study and a blanket approval for many different institutions. I wrote an article about SMART IRB’s that goes into more detail of what it is and how it ties into human research. What I learned is schools seem to be one giant research lab with all the data being collected and sent off, to who knows where.
I decided to look up any contracts on the PA Treasury Department website. I started the search with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). CMU is involved with Elizabeth Forward School District (EFSD), through the PL² program. It is a program that EFSD received a grant for from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The initial grant was for $75,000, another one in April of 2021 for $15k, and they extended the project on February 23, 2022.
I found the contract with CMU, titled “Super Computer Contract Grant.” In the contract it made $500,000 available for this research project. Under appendix A, the research project is described. Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC). The 21st Century curriculum, plays into the World Economics’ Fourth Industrial Revolution. All of this data collection, algorithms, and personalized learning is collected to place students in a job that they have deemed fit. This grant is for RESEARCH, and if you have reviewed the SMART IRB information you would find that CMU is a participating institution, so they can implement this research across multiple school districts.
The STEM program is pushed heavily in EFSD, like many other districts. Below, you can read about the STEM program and their partnership with CMU. This is just a small example on how STEM is pushed in schools, they have summer programs as well.
CMU has a Human-Computer Interaction Institute and you can review research projects they have made public.
In 2019, Remake Learning wrote an article about the pilot program and the schools where they were implementing it. Did the boards know that this was research and our children were used for the project? Did they send out consent forms? Did they even know what this program would lead to?
So how does personalized learning connect to the research grant for Super Computing? Personalized learning is using the apps downloaded on the school device to collect your child’s personal information, tracking their answers, monitoring their searches, tapping into their cameras, and documenting their personalities. That information is then collected and shared with third parties, READ PRIVACY POLICIES. All the surveys they take on how Covid has affected them, on their sexuality also play a role into the collection of data for personalized learning. While your superintendent might be selling it to you as a good thing, they are not giving you full transparency and your boards are dropping the ball on doing their job. Once you sign on to that device or app you are consenting. It is your job as the parent to read through everything and ask questions, the schools are using your lack of knowledge to push their agendas. You have every right to opt out of research programs.
The biggest concern I’ve found, is the language in the SMART IRB. They have a NIH Federalwide Assurance (FWA), which gives a free pass to schools from liability for the research programs implemented under SMART IRB. This is not just in PA, but across the nation. ONE MASSIVE RESEARCH PROJECTS ON OUR KIDS.
At the University of California in Berkley, they have guidelines to follow for research involving children in schools.
Essentially this is stating that it is possible to do research if it is minimal risk and avoid parental consent. When your school superintendent is speaking on new and innovative ideas and programs they are implementing, most likely they are giving you “informed consent.” They are satisfying the requirement by telling you about it. Be very careful of the words and phrases they use. It’s sometimes more of what they aren’t saying.
Also the NIH’s article titled “The SMART IRB platform: A national resource for IRB review for multisite studies” raises some concerns. It states that there are participating institutions OUTSIDE of the U.S.
THIS NEEDS TO BE LOOKED AT BY LAWYERS AND USED TO EXPOSE THE AGENDA BY THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM, UNITED NATIONS, AND THE GOVERNMENT. OUR LEGISLATORS NEED TO END THE DECLARATION OF EMERGENCY. ANYONE SPEAKING ON CHANGING THE EDUCATION SYSTEM NEEDS TO LOOK MORE INTO THE SMART IRB. This article is just touching the surface of questionable actions our government, schools, and universities have taken.