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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."
Somebody sure is watching and tracking individual students, but they're definitely not interested in the student's success -- collecting all this data together and using it to generate mass "trends" will likely end up in having various kids who are doing well being sat down and had a talking-to by the school's guidance counsellors about not dropping out, merely because they don't fit the trend. Same thing happened with kids who may fit the "school shooter" profile.
There's no excuse for this data collection -- but hey, schools and prisons are the two places where new privacy invasion is tried out before being installed in mainstream society.
Basically this looks like they're beefing up their data controls, and centralizing existing data - as opposed to invasively gathering more data and infringing on privacy. What exactly is the problem, then???
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I can understand the fact that schools do need to track such information, but my question is do they erase the data afterwards? I really don't want those records floating around after A. I graduate, or B. I do drop out.... granted I've allready graduated, but this is for the people who will be going into this system.
I am full of goo... black evil goo
Remember, children, "Big Brother loves you."
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
Come on guys. It doesn't take a giant computer and wonderous code to tell which kids are likely to drop out of school. Anyone that cares to notice could say. If teachers and parents don't care enough now to notice, a big blinking computer light isn't going to help any.
I can see the dialogue going like this:
Teacher: Our extensive data indictates you may be thinking of dropping out--
Student: FUCK YOU, BIG BROTHER! I'M OUTTA HERE!
Wow, a lucrative publishing contract! I don't have to be evil anymore. --Meteor
They didn't mention race as one of the features in the equation, even though there is (unfortunately) by no means an equal drop-out rate among the various races represented in US schools. Is this to sanitize the article, or is race really ignored in the database (surely making its predictions less accurate than what would be possible)?
I can speak to this a little bit, as I actually used to teach high school...
You see, schools make money based on the number of students that attend every class period. If a student drops out, that's less money the school is getting. The school at which I taught went nuts looking for dropouts. School-wide PA announcements were made regularly asking if anyone had heard from various students, or even seen them around town. They don't care if the kid is in class getting educated... it's all about the money.
Also, if too many students dropout, your school gets flagged as low performing and you lose money that way, too. Any tactic the school can use that is inexpensive and provides an easy, scattershot approach to keeping as many kids in classrooms as possible will be used.
The great thing to administrators is that they can keep the kids in class, get all the money, and they still don't have to spend it on teachers. School administration generally uses budget surplus to control departments and hammer teachers into submission or force them into retirement.
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
Ya know, it's funny. We here on slashdot are always talking about privacy at home and at work, but when it happens to a group of people that we consider to be in a lower status (eg in high school instead of college), we are all for the big brother concept.
I'm going to give an example, but let me put it in perspective first. In school, you don't get paid. It's not your job. It's your daily life. You meet new people and make friends there. For the sake of being evenly sided I won't go into saying that you're forced by society to go there. This compares nicely to an adult's social life and what places they frequent, so let's go from there.
This would be the same thing as the owner of the (insert hangout place here, club, diner, bar, etc) having a declared record of everything you do thewre, when you do and don't go, where you're from, what you like to do with your time, and assorted other things. Said owner then uses said information as demographics to, instead of changing the service to suit whatever new styles might be going in and out, predict when you are going to leave and give you a small reason to stay. Nothing so great that you want to stay, just barely enough so you don't check out the competition.
But wait a minute, isn't that like invasion of privacy and all those mega corporations tracking your every move to attack you with the ads they want you to see, when they want you to see them? It is. And if you rationalize the use of this system on others, it's only a stone's throw away from coming back to bite you in the ass.
Work sucked, until it became unemployment, when it became slightly more tolerable. -Tet
Where is the database I can monitor to provide me with accurate, timely information to predict which schools are failing?
My idea was to keep a virtual eye on every school administrator and identify those at risk of reducing the quality of education at the school. I'd like to be able to look up the measurements of that person's effectiveness from one source and at a glance: test scores, attendence, discipline, and so on for all students that he or she is responsible for.
My idea was not to punish low performing administrators, but identify high-risk ones so that early intervention can be used.
The urban legend lives? Do we really need to pidgeonhole unlikeable kids as stupid kids?
Theres more genious out there than you think. I have friends that are very smart, but the school system didn't work for them.
School needs to change, but not like this.
God spoke to me