It's probably a good thing that my daughter is only a year and change away from graduation.

In operation just three months, the database already holds files on millions of children identified by name, address and sometimes social security number. Learning disabilities are documented, test scores recorded, attendance noted. In some cases, the database tracks student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school - even homework completion.

Local education officials retain legal control over their students' information. But federal law allows them to share files in their portion of the database with private companies selling educational products and services.

I wish this was a joke.  

It's not.

This is one of the greatest threats to your kids that has ever arisen, and I'm willing to bet that not one parent in a thousand even knows it exists, say much less has a clue as to the damage it can (and will) cause their children.

This is nothing less than formal abuse and ought to be felonious.  Concentrating this data on a national basis without the parents having control over its dissemination and use is an outrage and the utter lack of accountability when (not if) it is stolen or misused makes this something that is worthy of life prison and death penalty sentences.

You have no idea how valuable data like this is to people who would abuse it, from scammers to employers to medical providers to insurance companies to the government itself.

Worse, there is no guarantee the information in your kid's school file is accurate -- or reflects reality.

Witness the kid who was just suspended for disarming another kid who was about to SHOOT a third student in the head.  That suspension is in his permanent school record and may be used against him in the future irrespective of the fact that he stopped a forcible felony and is a hero, not a bad guy.

Years ago I did my part in putting a stop to a tiny little piece of this proliferation when I thwarted an attempt to collect and link shopping behavior to people and then sell it to anyone who wanted it without disclosure and the ability to opt out by the shopper in question.  The people who intended to do it at the time were well-aware that health insurers, for example, would find the number of cigarette packages -- or beer six packs -- that you purchased would be quite-valuable to those companies.

I won that battle but all it did was slow down things a little bit.  Today, of course, the "affinity cards" are linked to you and that great gasoline discount from your grocer isn't "free" -- it's given in exchange to data that is almost-certainly going to be used to screw you out of far more than the gas discount you allegedly receive.

We all have the right to consent to our data being used and even sold in exchange for something.  Today you consent to a lot of that, even though you may not be paying attention to your granting of that consent.

But children are not of age.  They thus cannot consent.  And it is a long-standing principle that a bargain must include something of at least putative value to both parties as consideration, or it's no contract at all.

There is no benefit to the kids in this paradigm -- only costs that are intentionally hidden from them but which, mark my words, will screw them in the future.

Mark this post and wait 10 years.  

Those kids who are being "tracked" now will find that they've been violated repeatedly by this data collection and sharing.

If your state is involved in this, and there are a lot that are, you need to get every last one of your state legislators out of office and all of the local school board members must be instantly ejected and shunned to the point of literal starvation. 

If you're in a state that is not participating, make damn sure they don't now or in the future.

If you're a parent and don't do those two things then prepare for your kids to throw you into the wood chipper feet-first when they figure out how badly you allowed them to be screwed.

I utterly guarantee that you will deserve it.

Disclosure: Long boiled rope futures.