The federal government is proposing a new means of tracking secondary education achievements — or the lack thereof — by following high school graduates as they work their way through the collegiate system. Students’ personal information, including Social Security numbers, would be collected by higher education institutions in compilation with marks of academic achievements (namely grades) and reported to Washington so that high schools may be better assessed for the quality of students they are able to place in the collegiate field.

We object to this proposed new tracking system, realizing that the inherent invasion of privacy coupled with the surely lofty price tag simply cannot be balanced against any foreseeable good in assuring “no child is left behind.”

There is a fundamental separation between high schools and their graduates that seems illogical to attempt bridging. Although various testing standards at the secondary education level are good measurements of the performance of schools, it is bizarre to judge schools by the achievements or failures of their students after they graduate.

The reality is colleges have the ability to radically mold students in any number of fashions. Many of the extraordinary accomplishments and ills achieved by the alumni of a given high school are largely the product of their institution of higher education than of their pre-collegiate years. The anecdotal accounts of previously poor students who become wildly inspired by a freshman professor are as numerous as those of previously stellar students who leave their hometown and fall victim to homesickness, dorm-room drugs or any number of other grade-lowering influences.

Realizing the minimal contributions of such a tracking system, our concerns about the privacy infringement and price tag grow all the more grave. As students travel abroad, transfer from college to college, enroll in summer courses at other high education institutions and consider taking years off, the number of parties required to efficiently handle a Social Security number and other sensitive personal information grows alarmingly high. To further require the reporting of this information in concert with marks of academic achievement simply raises too many potential incidents of mischief or incompetence.

Additionally, this system would surely come with a price tag. And while the funds may have already been set aside as a part of the No Child Left Behind program, we firmly believe these dollars can be best served through either governmental reallocation or return to the taxpayers. United States citizens should not be forced to pay for an Orwellian system so fundamentally misguided in purpose.

We do, however, recognize that non-citizens are already asked to pay for such a system, and to SEVIS we do not object. But in this proposed domestic context, the federal government is dangerously overstepping it bounds. Frankly, we’d rather big brother not be watching.