Starvin Larry

A recent acquisition by an equity firm could be putting millions of school-age students’ data at risk. PowerSchool, the classroom management software used by 15 million students, was sold in June by educational software firm Pearson to Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm specializing in investing in companies that provide enterprise software for industries as varied as real estate, college sports, and agriculture.

While seemingly unconcerning on its own, this means PowerSchool—and all the student data it owns—is now in the hands of a company that has failed to join the 153 education companies that have pledged not to sell student data or use targeted advertising toward students.

The slow creep of private software companies into public education has accelerated enormously since PowerSchool was first founded in 2000. According to Education Week, public schools in the U.S. spend over $3 billion every year providing digital services to their students. Some companies, like Code.org and Khan Academy, offer individualized tutoring to help take the load off overpopulated schools. Others, like Google, have offered their own free versions of expensive digital tools similar to Microsoft Excel and Word.

The danger inherent in the purchase of PowerSchool is that its own massive trove of student data could likewise be sold as a commodity to marketers instead of being used to better improve PowerSchool’s services.

Of course, nine out of ten American teenagers use social media, so it’s safe to say much of our kids’ personal lives is not completely divorced from making software companies very, very rich. School data, however, often contains very specific information about grades, medical needs, and even disciplinary records. Companies trusted with this information need to be held to higher standards than the ones we’ve set for Facebook, Snapchat, Google, and Amazon.