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."

Comments

Re:Why does attendance matter?

[GreyPoopon]

This is the problem. Kids are judged on stupid stuff, homework, attendance, how they dress, ability to sit still, ability to pay attention.

I think I need to spell out things a bit for you. The job of the High School is to prepare students to go out into the world and take a job, or continue on to college. Let's leave aside the argument about how academically prepared students exiting high school really are and look at your other arguments. In the job world, attendance, manners, dress and perceived attention span are very important. We all hear about how "cool company X" lets their employees wear whatever they want to, show up anytime, and ride skateboards through the hallways. However, we all know that this isn't the "norm." Most managers want to see their employees in their offices on time. The want to see employees paying attention in meetings. They get nervous when these characteristics aren't displayed, and employees who can't achieve these standards are frequently fired. Maybe it doesn't matter too much in economically good times, but during downturns, when jobs are scarce, this kind of behavior is important. High schools would be doing an incredibly bad job if they didn't enforce behavior that will ultimately make their students more likely to get a job.

You also mentioned homework. While I agree that some homework assignments are absolutely idiotic, the vast majority of it is for practice. Most students perform much better in all subjects when they do their homework. Countless times, I've heard teenagers complain about how bad their math was. When I asked whether they did their homework, they pretty much always answered "no" or "sometimes." Homework also gets students used to working independently -- a valuable skill for on the job.

Teachers spend more time trying to "Control" the students, than actually teaching students.

This is nonsense. At present, teachers expend very little time or energy on this. If the kid doesn't attend, they get marked absent. If the teacher doesn't like what they are wearing, they send them to the office. If the kids don't do their homework, it just gets factored into their final grades. Pretty much everything else is handled by administration (the office).

A teacher could spend all the class trying to get johnny to sit still

Depending on the grade, if the teacher can't get Johnny to sit still in about 5 minutes, Johnny should find himself in the office. In Kindergarten and first grade, this might be an issue, but learning to sit still and avoid distracting the other students is all part of the process. I certainly would have trouble hiring somebody who couldn't sit still.

Now, I definitely DO agree that the quality of education is severely lacking, but I don't believe that it is based on any of the reasons you listed. I think the single biggest problem with education today is lack of parental involvement. A strong group of concerned parents can probably fix most problems in their local schools. Since parents seem less concerned these days, you might come to the conclusion that this whole database thing is an attempt by teachers and administration to take over some of those responsibilities. I also agree that schools jump on the medication bandwagon way too quickly. Maybe Johnny can't sit still because he's bored to tears. Unfortunately, standard public schools can only target the median students. They are not suited for either the slow learners or the extremely gifted. However, there are alternatives for both groups of people. The difficulty is in diagnosing the problem and providing the right answer.