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Predicting H.S. Dropouts With Pervasive Databases
rhadamanthus writes "As seen on the Houston Chronicle: 'With a new computer database available at every campus this fall, teachers can keep a virtual eye on every student and identify those at risk of leaving. For the first time, educators can look up a student's attendance, discipline, immigration status, grades, and test scores at one source and use that information to predict dropouts. ... "All students will know someone is watching them, tracking them, and is interested in their success," school board member Laurie Bricker said at a press conference today.' Hooray for surveillance in the HISD."
Most high schoolers need a kick in the ass once in a while.
Nobody gave me a kick in the ass, and just look at my spalling!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
instead of surveilance, they could just use the market. Say maybe a government-funded futures market on who's going to drop out...
> Who the hell assumes noone is watching them in high school, anyways?
I know Charles Noone, and he's usually watching the grade school, not the high school. From the bushes. Oh wait, you meant no one. Never mind. Sorry about that Charles.
Student Attendance: Frequent Mental Absence ...
Discipline: KUNG-FU, Monkey Style
Couldn't resist...
This is terrible. Our kids should be free to drop out of school and seek their own path in life, whether it's cleaning out the grease traps at Jack In The Box, schlepping lumber at Home Depot, driving a garbage truck, or even selling pharmaceuticals on street corners, without nosy school administrators trying to force them to "learn" or "go to college". Where are our priorities?
From the Houston Chronicle article:
[quote]
District officials also are considering a plan to assign an adult to each student.
[/quote]
I've got news for the district: the plan is already in existance. They're called "parents".
Besides, can you imagine the expense of paying a salary for each person who is watching a single child? Thousands and thousands of salaries for adults!
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
Word on the street is that at some schools, there are even more powerful computers tracking the students. From time-to-time, these computers are brought together in a closed-door kind of LAN party. There, information about the students is exhchanged and processed, and determinations are made as to whether or not the student is doing OK or if remedial action is necessary. IIRC, they call the computers "brains" and the meetings are "parent-teacher conferences". Very spooky.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?