Alex Newman interview with Katie Allen, Policy Advisor for Truth In Education.

0:00Hello, my name is Delmar Eldredd, host of the Clicket Advice, and today I want to share with you an interview that Alex Newman did with Katie Allen, who is a policy advisor for Truth and Education. And this pertains to the right now the government schools are using artificial intelligence on so-called educational apps to collect data on your children. So let's take a listen, and I think this is going to be very interesting for parents, and it should be very concerning to them also. Well, so the government's school system is a dumpster fire. If you don't know that, if you're one of the fringe minority that's perfectly satisfied with what's happening there, I don't know how we can help you. You probably ought to come out from there or whatever. Right, if you're living under, but it's actually far worse than we can even imagine. And one of the organizations that is doing some really, really significant and deep research into what's happening in the government school system, and also the outside private contract

1:03that are vacuuming up your children's data and using it and weaponizing it and analyzing it with AI, that's Truth in Education. It's a group based in Atlanta, Georgia, it's a Christian organization, and they just released a couple of white papers doing some in-depth research on to the AI surveillance happening in the classroom, the mindfulness programs happening in the classroom, the big education industry. So I want to delve into that today with policy adviser Katie Allen at Truth in Education. She did a lot of this research, she's a mom of six, and so she's had a lot of experience with the education system. Some of the findings are just incredible. Katie, welcome to the program. Thanks very much for joining us. All right, thank you, Alex. I'm so glad to be here. So I want to start off with some of the work that you guys have just released recently, the gold mine. You talk about the AI surveillance that's taking place in classrooms already, right? I think a lot of parents are just starting to wrestle with this. I think this is maybe a hypothetical future threat, but it's already here.

2:03They're already collecting our children's data, and they're already using AI. Talk to us about what's happening and why we ought to be concerned about it. You know, so at Truth in Education, we're just like our name. We're trying to educate, and we understand that, you know, there's so much going on in education right now, but one thing that we just didn't hear a lot of conversation about was the data collection. And so we kind of dove into that, and what we found was really surprising, not just to us, but to some of the individuals we were talking to that also weren't aware of it. And I think we all are kind of aware that children have apps in education, and Google, G-Speaks, very popular. But here's what it realizes, those apps are collecting their child's data. So for example, and it's a wide range. So for example, one of the surveillance software programs that might be in your child's school is something that is uploaded to your child's computer, but it's also linked to your child's email address, so they're a school log-in IDE, and so it'll survey everything the child does at school. So any paper they write that's saved in that system,

3:04any chat that they have, all of those things, they get surveyed, and red flag algorithms sort of use it to flag what they would consider to be harmful or dangerous, and then they identify that student and take different steps. So that would be kind of one area of a bit, but it goes all the way over into kind of the visual observations, the visual surveillance, the facial recognition software, the emotional behavioral monitoring through a child's screen. And then not always those types of tools help. This is happening right now, right? This isn't like a simple thing. This is happening now. Well, just to give some examples, I mean, Gaggle is a very popular student surveillance app, or Burke is another one securely. These are apps that are being used, and they tie into kind of the education on the mindfulness meditation side. A lot of schools are using, for example, inner explorer, mind, mind-lips. I mean, these are things that parents, if they hear they're probably familiar with, and we're going to be releasing another white paper in March, kind of spoiler alert here, where we look at one that we found

4:05in Georgia schools called Clear, provided by Thompson Reuters, and actually allows designated school officials to do pattern of life analysis on things such as parental license plate IDs. And it's amazing. You think it sounds crazy, but one of the strengths of our white papers that we're doing, which are available, obviously, on a two-cent page on our website and then our set stack. But we take screenshots from these companies, where they show, hey, here's what we can do, because you have to remember, they're companies, right? They have a product, they're proud of you, and they want people to purchase it, so you go to their website, and they tell you exactly what they're doing. And so it's really just, I would say mind-boggling, how much is already being connected or collected, and then what is happening to that data? How is being tied into your student's school profile? So there's so much there. We're just, I feel like, really at the tip of the iceberg, but we are trying to get the word out to educate parents, so they can make informed decisions about their child's education, not only where their child is educated, but how to maybe opt out of some of these things,

5:06even in the public education system. Well, Katie, there's so many different areas that I want to talk about. We're going to run out of time long before we get there, so I want to encourage people to read these white papers because the information you guys have uncovered is astounding. But you mentioned several programs that I wanted to begin to, these whole mindfulness, these are buzzwords that I have felt across before, and some of my reporting for the new Americans, some of my reporting at Freedom Project Media, where I do my Newman report education block. And every time I see mindfulness, it's always associated with this Eastern mysticism, the new age, the kind of Hindu and Buddhist tradition, they've got all these kind of things that I think Christian parents, especially, would be concerned about. What's the tie-in hearing, and why is this invading schools, even in conservative states? You know, it's kind of the buzz word mindfulness meditation. It's kind of marketed as this secular solution to mental health problems. And they really focus on, oh, it's just deep breathing. Oh, it's just these things.

6:06They bring in the apps. And one thing you need to understand is when these apps are talking to children about their mental health. Like, for example, probably one of the broadest we've found was MindLip, which actually has kind of an AI incorporated chatbot that can really adapt to what that individual needs, which is kind of scary, if you think about it as a parent, that a mindfulness meditation app was able to adapt to somebody's needs on the spot. And it collects data. And then you have to wonder, when that data becomes part of a school app and gets incorporated into their school data profile for that student, that really blurs the line between kind of medical profiles, medical data. And so we're seeing a lot of concerns about, where is that line when you have mindfulness apps collecting mental health data about a student and put it in their school profile, that that's medical data. And now it isn't covered under medical data law. So I think we're really kind of getting into this gray area even from the legal side. But really what parents need to understand is these apps on a very kind of broader philosophical level

7:09are really teaching these kids that when you have mental health problems, you can go to an app and do some exercises as your solution. And as a parent, that is something that is a red flag to me all day long because I feel like we used to teach students that when you had a problem, you would go talk to your parents about it. You would, you know, you used to be encouraged that your parents were the person that the child could trust. And now we've seen words like, tell a trusted adult, well, who is that? You're used as mindfulness meditation app. And then we'll give you a survey to see how you're doing if it helps. And taking students, I think, from the children that should interact with their parents for their mental health and putting them into this, how can we gather data and categorize them and feed them into an algorithm that spits out what's the next thing for them to do? And that equals mental health. So I do think there's, you know, the legal side of it, there's the application side, the data side, but there's also the parental side of who's supposed to be raising this child and really guiding them in those really difficult times where they're having trouble in school.

8:10Yeah. And they aren't having trouble in school. I mean, the CDC's latest data on suicide among high school students is just astounding. That 10% of high school students, according to the latest data, attempted suicide just in the last year. About 20% seriously considered suicide, 40% experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, 30% reported toward mental health, most or all of the time in the prior 30 days. So we have a disaster here, ripping through our young people. But it doesn't seem like these programs are helping anything. In fact, to me, it seems like they're making everything worse. And the more they step up with the surveillance and the devices and the weird eastern new age programs, the worse for students again. I want to talk about what they're doing with all this data. You know, I did some big articles in the New America back in 2000 and I think it was 2012 when Common Core was just becoming a thing.

9:11So this is now like 14 years ago. And even then, they were talking about the, and they were setting up these state longitudinal databases that would share all the information across states, they would share all the information with multiple federal agencies, not just the Department of Education, but health and labor and all these different departments. And I don't think people kind of had a full understanding of what all this meant. Even then, the US Department of Education was bragging about like their facial emotional recognition and misinformation, cameras and stuff. What are they going to do with all this data? Do you suppose, Katie? You know, I think to even start that conversation, the first thing we have to do is remind people and parents have to recognize that their deal, these companies, their companies, their profit driven. They are, the education industry is, I think, far larger than anybody suspects. You think you're sending your campus gold again, education, but actually it's a multi-billion dollar industry. So, for example, right now, it's valued at $214 billion

10:11as an education industry. And that's projected to be $45 billion by 2019. And then when you get into kind of even more down into the data, the surveillance sector of the education industry markets itself as being an $8 trillion industry. And those are bare numbers. And so when you think about it, these companies are profit driven. So, they are incentivized to find problems and sell solutions. Now, they're not accountable to those solutions working. As we know by the N-E-U-P scores, I clearly show, like you said, mental health is declining, despite the presence of mental health apps. Students' scores are declining, despite the promises of, he's been education companies promising to 85-year product, your scores are going to go up this much. And so, they're clubbing this data, and you have to say, why? Well, clearly, there's a profit attached to it. And that's where I think parents really need to dig and so to we even understand. When you start hearing vocabularies, such as, for example, data driven, that's a very popular vocabulary word nowadays, right?

11:11Okay, well, parents need to be educated and be ready to say, who is data? Okay, well, it must be a student to say it in your child's data, right? Because it's in your child's computer at school. When you have your evidence-based, you have to turn around and ask, okay, who's studies? Who studies produce that evidence? Well, studies done by the company or their financial partners. And another one is, you know, innovation. That's a big buzzword in education right now too. Well, I would say the corresponding word to that is, that's mean means untested. That means that we're trying something new on these students. And we have no idea what's going to happen, but these companies are gathering data to develop the next product. So I think part of the long-term aspect of data is the financial profit of it. And even though they say they anonymize it and don't share it, when you read their own privacy policies, it is full of exceptions. I can read those some examples to you in a bit. But just, I think, even longer-term and this is going according to our March White paper

12:12is really the profile that it's creating surrounding these students. When you get all of this data, there are a lot of ties to kind of that social credit score that we're seeing have already rolled out in China. And we're having conversations about it. It almost seems like the West is going more and more in that direction where you can't trust society to make the right decisions because now we have no common morals and values now that we've removed Christ from everything, right? So the answer is, well, we just have to survey people and make sure they do the right thing. And we're kind of seeing schools as like the microcosm, almost an experiment at that. So I do think there's the profit company aspect of what they do with this data. But there's also, I think, kind of a larger trajectory of what this data is being used. And when you look at schools kind of through that light of the social credit profiling and testing ground, it really is a bit scary. But we're going to, you know, have a lot more about that in March that we're going to release. Now, I'm looking forward to that White paper as well. Folks, this is not a joke, right?

13:13And it's not something that's maybe going to be a threat in 10 or 20 years. This is something that's here now. And even if you trust the current people in power at your local or state or federal level, who might be empowering for you? Ten years or 20 years. And what might they do with all that data? I mean, they're gathering data on everything you can think of. And then stuff that you can't even imagine, like how your children respond to certain stimuli that they're being presented with. What they call social emotional learning, which UNESCO tells us, is designed to move children toward a global citizenship. I mean, it's like a can of worms that just, the worms keep coming out and out and out. And maybe we're almost out of time. You're just got a few minutes left. I want to give parents some ideas on what to do about this. I'll start by saying, my opinion, I need parents. I think you need to get your children out of the system. There, I've said it. We've got a lot of resources. You can check those out. But Katie, what do you recommend for parents who are just learning about this?

14:13They're concerned. They don't want the government backing up all their children's data. They don't want these big education tech companies back giving up all their children's data. Are there ways to opt out in some states? How do you deal with this whole regime that's popped up? You know, we're kind of on the forefront of this whole aspect of education. And so opting out is, I mean, we're, we are getting parents to do that. And we're creating the opt out forms that are specifically for data. But it's kind of untruthed territory to be totally honest. We encourage parents to work with us at truth and education and submit the opt out forms. And we're here to help you. But one of the most powerful things a parent can do is ask the questions. I mean, first you have to realize, like we said, it's an industry. Your kids are part of a profit driven model. So whatever the company tells you, there's going to be caveats in the fine grant and you need to know those caveats and ask your questions accordingly to your schools. So for example, ask to see your schools contracts with the digital vendors and see what they produce and read those contracts.

15:13Ask for schools data privacy policy. I'm guessing they don't have one start having those conversations. And ask for a list of the third parties that your child's data has been shared with. That's very powerful as well. And ask what data is collected on your child? How is linked to their student profile? A lot of schools use like infant and campus, for example. Find out that merge between the apps used in school and your child's school profile. And of course, ultimately, I'm seek to opt out of it, opt out of sharing your child's data, opt out of even the platforms and the apps. And if you need help with that, we are info at truthineducation.org. We are happy to help parents and guide them through these processes because as easy as it sounds to ask your school a question, parents who have done that and going down that road are often find that it is not so simple, especially when schools have never been asked the question before and have never even put a thought into that they need a data policy on how to protect students' data. Because again, we're at the forefront of this. And so we just ask that parents start asking those questions,

16:13educate yourself, ask the questions, and truthineducation is absolutely here to help you. Yeah. So check out these white papers. They're really significant. I think it's something that we all need to understand. Even those of us who may not have children in the system need to know what's happening. There are over 60 million children trapped in the system right now, and this is enveloping them all. So go check out those white papers. You can also, if you go to JBS.org forward slash children, you'll see our, say, of our children from public schools program. It's an excellent action project and everybody can get involved with all kinds of resources we've got, especially shoes that we have done. I have to go lead on those exposing some of this and what the schools are doing. We've got the Freedom Project Academy. Mind K through 12 Christian Classical School. There's a lot of options out there. Endless resources for parents who want to try something else. You know, my wife and I, we eat homeschool. There's great programs like classical conversations, just a never ending array of research, also for homeschoolers.

17:14You can sign up for classes, Ella Carrick, through Freedom Project Academy. There's just really, really good options out there. Folks, you don't have to subject your children to this stuff. But even if you don't have children, even if your children are all grown and gone, this is something that's going to affect the bird society as the great Andrew Breitbart used to say, the politics is downstream from culture, which is absolutely true. But even more significant than that, that culture is downstream from education. What's happening in the classrooms today, is it's absolutely going to shave the hearts and the minds of the next generation. These will be the politicians, the CEOs, the voters, the decision makers of the future. So we can't mess around with this. We cannot allow this to continue unimpeded. We have horrible things happening, and we've got to be aware. Katie, I want to thank you for your research on this. Thank you very much for joining us on conversations that matter today. What's the best way for people to find these white papers and keep up with the research you guys are doing? Sure.

18:14It's truthandeducation.org. They're posted on our website. They're also posted on our truth and education subsack. And of course, you can always reach out to us info at truthandeducation.org and then Facebook, so we're on a variety of social media. So you'll find us. Excellent. Thank you again, Katie. Really, Katie. Really appreciate you coming on. And you, ladies and gentlemen, don't let this just be like an educational experience. Well, I think I learned something new today. Right? Now go back to what you're doing. We've really got to deal with this. It's not optional. We want to save our freedoms. If we want to save our civilization, if we want to save the next generation, we're going to have to do the trends, the issues that we're talking about. Okay. There's no shortcut. There's no way it's rounded. It'll just be absolutely the same stuff. It's going to be like a dot com. A bunch more.

19:28Just thank you all for listening. Until next time. God bless.