Student Data Privacy, Digital Learning, and Special Education: Challenges at the Intersection of Policy and Practice.

Student Data Privacy, Digital Learning, and Students with Disabilities T rapid adoption of digital content and delivery systems, each with its own capacity to track, store, and analyze student usage, interactions, and academic outcomes at both a highly detailed and granular level, has emerged as an area of widespread opportunity, but also of concern. The comingling of various student data sets (demographics, usage, and achievement) now possible as the result of data interoperability standards has raised the specter of dangerous and privacy-invading misuse, simultaneous with the potential for customizing education for every student. Most Internet-enabled digital learning environments can record timely information on students: where they are, what they are doing, how they got there, how long they stayed, and where they went, as well as formative and summative details of their academic achievement. Research utilizing data from digital learning environments has the potential to improve teaching and learning in unprecedented ways. For students with disabilities, this information can provide unique insights into the impact of curriculum and school reform efforts on the progress of these students. Digital learning systems and the data they collect offer a timeliness and specificity that can be otherwise impractical or impossible to acquire. In optimal circumstances, digital data analysis can cross-reference student demographic information (age, disability