Predictive algorithms are infiltrating schools — here’s why that’s a good thing

A few weeks ago a story broke revealing that the New Orleans Police Department had been using a predictive policing tool supplied by CIA-backed data mining company, Palantir, to identify gang members. The software identified ties between gang members and non-gang members, analyzed criminal histories, crawled social media, and finally, predicted the likelihood that individuals would commit violence. Predictably, outrage ensued. But this use of predictive analytics to identify risk is hardly new: it’s been used in numerous US cities, in counterintelligence operations, and — here’s the twist — in schools. ‘Risk identification’ has become a highly in-vogue term in…

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