Slashdot Mirror
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.
instead of surveilance, they could just use the market. Say maybe a government-funded futures market on who's going to drop out...
Heaven forbid that a student get out of the wretched public school system and actually try to take his/her education in her own hands.
Public school, while good for some, has held me back due to the lack of qualified teachers, and terrible textbooks. Those of us who want a real education get nothing out of it.
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???
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Get those kids used to the fact that everything they do will be under a government microscope.
Will kids that grow up in a situation like this mind at all that it doesnt really end when they leave HS for the 'real world'?
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
Anyone else read this as "and is waiting for them to drop out"?
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
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 don't think "knowing someone cares about their grades" is going to be a big factor in affecting whether students drop out or not.
From the people that I've met in this situation, they either don't understand the benefits of a quality education, or they just don't care about how important it is. There are still others that both know and care, but may have a lot of other problems in life to deal with.
The first two groups can only be helped by convincing them how an education can help them later on in life. But the latter group is the one that this system might help if a person can be identified and they can get help with whatever other problems might be holding them back in school.
The only problem I have is, why the hell does it track immigration status? What does that have to do with the quality of their education; apart from language barriers, but even that has nothing to do with immigration status.
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
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
Sounds like they're not collecting any information they haven't always had -- just putting it together into a predictive model. And unlike some of the poorly-thought-out "school shooter" type of models, this is (a) predicting an event with a high enough prior probability that it might work decently (from a Bayesian perspective), and (b) targeting kids for extra help instead of punishment. At least if they end up implementing it the way they say they will.
> 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...
[quote] ...
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.
[/quote]
What does immigration status have to do with dropping out of school? Also, what business is it of the schools?
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
I work for a company that does candidate selection and succes prediction work for Fortune 50 companies.
This really isn't anything new, it's been used in the work force for many years now. Surveys my company cranks out, based on validated information can predict sales performance, turnover, likelihood of theft and other tid-bits of information about possibly employees.
It's all based on statistics and (in my field) I/O Psychology (Industrial/Organizational). The whole idea of reading habits in students and predicting their likelihood of drop out is no difference than what companies like ours use to predict turnover.
I'm just surprised it's taken this long to be put into use in other fields.
Here is a link for information regarding Biodata use and how it all works, for those who are interested.
How is this different from the FBI or local PD keeping an eye on when I leave for work, my salary history, and my career development?
The students are minors.
Here's a secret though.. DONT TELL ANYONE!
Schools have kept records of this exact same stuff for decades. This newspaper article is a fluff piece, probably some new school board member got elected and wants to blow his horn on their new computer.
But the notion of noticing a students grades or attendance suddenly dropped, and asking them whats wrong, well... that's happened before! EVEN WITHOUT COMPUTERS!
I cant believe this type of crap gets posted on slashdot. I mean seriously. Can they not tell when they're reading a small town PR piece?
This just in! School keeping track of students grades! Film at eleven.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
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
Schools aren't interested in keeping kids from dropping out for purely selfless reasons. My old high school didn't give a damn what went on as long as you showed up to be counted and didn't drop out. It, like most other public schools, got state and federal funding based on its attendance and drop out rates. I'm sure a few people genuinely want to help, but parading around like philanthropy is your only concern will help people not to trust you.
I graduated a year after the columbine fiasco, and my senior year I too was put on a list. Every time a bomb threat was called in, or 'random' locker search came time... I was on the list. Except for a few incidents in middle school I had a spotless record. The reason was because I stood up to the knee-jerk stupidity of new policy after everyone became afraid of their children. One example is, with the exception of the dock and the main doors, all doors were locked from both directions until an alarm was triggered. We also had to wear ID badges at all times. If we didn't, or interfered with lasers scanning us in the halls, we were suspended for a day. It's really useless, because the two at columbine would have had all the security to get in without a problem. The moral of the story: Most kids don't like being labeled or put on a list and respond poorly to it.
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?
Just my $0.02
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."
Many here have already stated this system doesn't collect anything new, just centralize existing data.
But what if analysis are done on a scoring basis? Then will this system eventually be used by colleges to consider a student's qualification for admission? It says it is used to predict drop-outs, but I'm sure it will have the capability to determine any student's performance as well.
I always stayed up until a few hours before I had to go to school last semester. I nearly failed French.
At the same time, I was working on an extremely educational (to me at least) programming project and some web sites.
Would my school's system see my drop in French test scores as a sign of impending doom? Would it correlate that with the departure of Jane Doe, who dropped out due to a pregnancy and accuse me of being the father?
Had I been sidetracked, I never would have had this site of mine on this slasdot article. I wouldn't have gotten a local computer store to invest time/money in my first commercial program.
You can't reduce anything as complex as a human being to mere comprehendable numbers. Anyways, this new system sounds like it'll be great fun to mess with.
(On another note, it's hilarious how schools are scared to put a picture of a student on the school's website without a notorized rights waver, yet they jump at the chance to make a national database of students.)
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
that the school recorded your attendence and test scores anyways...what's the story here? That they had the brainstorm to put that data into a database? My high school had that when I went there, and that was 5 years ago...
It takes more than a database and an expert system with forecasting to create the 1984 situation. If that were so, we have been living in 1984 for years (Insurance Companies).
It takes centralization of power to create a 1984 situation. Things like:
* Taking away freedom of speech
* Ignorance of the population
* Repressing human rights
will create 1984.
This database can contribute to oppression if it is in the hands of a very select few for the sole purpose of "criminal profiling".
If the database is used to make a more customized learning plan, including emotional counseling for hardships, this database can actually create a more intelligent population, improve the standard of living, and provide greater opportunities for the "at risk" individuals.
Finally, the database can help the education system learn from its mistakes and successes. This will create a robust educational system that is tailored for the individual student rather than stamping out more "bricks in the wall".
The database should be open to all interested parties, including the parents and students.
Also, add a few anti-discrimination laws and then it will be very difficult to oppress somebody by profiling.
If this is anything like how other school systems have developed this (and no, contrary to what the article says, this is NOT a one-of-a-kind system), it's not going to 'raise red flags' and automatically un-enroll you from classes, it will simply let teachers know that there is a trend with a student - and probably only then if the teacher actually puts the effort into looking at the data.
I would like to think that 95%+ of teachers are not the type to just blindly shuffle off a student because their test scores are low.
Sorry guys, but this is not Big Brother, it's not going to be a case where the computer runs the school, it's not going to be automatically doing anything to the students. It's a tool. Just like your hammer doesn't jump up and hit you in the head all on its own.
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
Yesterday I was appliying for something over the internet through a bank. I gave all my personal information - all ID#'s and bank card #'s I had and as soon as I was done step 2 they (the script on the page) downloaded my personal banking history and TESTED me on it - which account I had what trafi on at which perticular moth in a form of a multiple-choice. They have more information about me than I do... and as upsetting as that is, well - I already knew that.
... my art teacher said I did excellent...) but it's the idea I'm trying to get across
The problem is that this data that the schools are collecting may or may not leave the school board. (I assume it's the school board at the least doing this not each school by themselves, and if not the school board - maybe the govt. thet's even better)
At any rate, I don't think that the teachers, principals or guidance councilors will use this info to benefit (themselves) financialy. As with any data mining (think of your computer being mined) there's always reason's being given about why it's good and why it's constitutional and beneficial etc.. But let's face it 99% of the population (no I don't have anything to back that up) don't like the idea of data baing collected on what websites they visit, what brand of milk they buy, how much they pay for rent, what greades they had 20 years ago in H.S. and so on.
As I see it the problem is worse when people do look at H.S. stats and make biased - yes BIASED decisions about people whether this is hiring a student for a summer job or 8 years later when choosing a profession. Or how about a teacher enforces a seating arangement where the "DUMB" kids sit at the back because they're not willing to learn anything. None of you had a teacher that was bised about his sudents when going to H.S. I know I did.
Anyways - I've got plenty of examples (I can even draw you a picture
If you dont act a certain way schools and teachers go out of their way to label you.
Theres a whole array of labels, the most popular? ADD, then theres Bipolar, then theres Manic Depression, they basically have a label for anyone who doesnt act in the "normal" way.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
This shit is what I hated most about school, I would get judged more on my attendance, or being on time than my actual work!
I mean I could get all my work done, do a perfect job, but because I was late or had bad attendance suddenly none of it matters.
This is the prolem with school, attendance has absolutely nothing to do with learning, if I can keep up and do my work I shouldnt have to go to ever class. Just like if I do go to class I shouldnt HAVE to pay attention, this is what is destroying our school system. Teachers spend more time trying to "Control" the students, than actually teaching students. A teacher could spend all the class trying to get johnny to sit still, could waste time having johnny see doctors to see why the kid wont pay attention and sit still, and ultimately give johnny pills to make him sit still
All this time invested trying to get Johnny to act normal could have been time Johnny spent learning!
This is the problem. Kids are judged on stupid stuff, homework, attendance, how they dress, ability to sit still, ability to pay attention.
NONE of this has to do with this kids work, if the kid wants to space out and draw all class but still submits A quality work, why resort to drugging the kid, having all kinds of tests, running tests on a database, and giving the kid some sort of label?
Its all a waste of time.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I do not have a high school diploma (not even a GED).
I do have an AA from a junior college, a BS from a well-respected major university, a real job, and am starting in a program to get my MS (at the same place as my BS).
Get your parents to support you on it and leave high school. Enroll in a junior college (you'll need your parents to sign some stuff), get an associates degree (or at least look at and take what four-year schools expect you to have from the JC--most JCs will have some relationship with the nearby big schools and will have lots of guidance info about this), do reasonably well, and then transfer to a four-year school for the rest of your undergraduate college education.
If you're really ready to motivate yourself, skip jail (err, high school) and get a real education.
Then when the REALLY invasive stuff happens as they reach adulthood ( and when true rights and freedoms kick in ) they will be used to it and accepting of the practice. Give it 2 generations and it will just be 'normal' to be watched 24/7. Why not RFID tag them while we are at it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
A quick HOWTO in turning a democracy into a plutocratic fascist state:
The outcry was initially the collection of the data. We were told not to worry, it is for private industry's use and, besides, we don't have a constitutional right to privacy in business.
Now the outcry is the use of data mining and aggregation to take the data thus collected and use it to profile our private lives in minute detail, effectively creating a defacto, if hybrid, police-surveillence state. And you dismiss it as "they're not creating any data that's not already there", as though that somehow negates the consiquences of such behavior.
The initial public outcry against the collection of private data on private individuals was right then, and it would be right today were it not for the deafening silence of those who have recognize a battle long since lost.
The public outcry against the sale and exchange of data between private corporations (and government agencies) was right then, and it is right today, even if the number of voices has declined over the years.
And the outcry against aggregating and mining this data to microanalyze our individual lives is justified, appropriate, and dismissed at our own peril. This isn't the start of a slippery slope we're talking about here, this is another in a long series of runs down it we're skiing
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
it is meant to socialise the working class. I concur with the learned Enomar, the reason there is structure and deadlines and scutwork and all that is because that is the way 85% of the world's jobs are.
For the very bright kids, school matters little: they will always be entreprenurial
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
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.
And this is how it starts.
This isn't some prediction or slightly uncomfortable future, this is going to happen next year...and there's nothing anyone can do.
So what happens once this has been running for a few years? Right; students (the people most likely to become 'leaders') get used to it, and find this kind of 'oversight' normal. And once that happens, goodbye privacy due to the "if it's good enough for us/didn't harm us, it's good enough for everyone".
Be slightly uncomfortable.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
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"?
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
It really irks me how so much attention is being put on people for whom education is a waste of taxpayer's money.
The reason for this attention is the simple statistic that says high school graduates are better off than people who dropped out. The belief is that by keeping would-be dropouts in school their lives can also be improved. Unfortunately things just don't work that way. The reason why high-school graduates are better off has everything to do with their character and intelligence and virtually NOTHING to do with whether they have a high school diploma or not. These educators, in no small part because of their own need to feel important, have got the cause and effect reversed.
Spending time and energy trying to keep these people in school does nothing but worsen the educational environment for students who might actually stand to benefit from an education. The money would be better spent providing more challenging or comprehensive classes for gifted students since they are the ones who benefit the most from an education. Society itself has more to gain by investing in our best and brightest than it does from trying to rescue losers from their own self-destruction.
If only foolishness and stupidity were fatal, imagine how much better our gene pool would be.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Allow me to give some background. I teach in the Houston School District. First, schools in Texas are all rated by the state on several key factors including test scores and drop out rates. These ratings are very very important and are actually a factor in principal's salaries and bonuses. So, it was no real surprise this year to discover that many high schools with sterling ratings were actually lying about their drop out rates. Instead of coding kids as droping out, they were coding them as going to a private school or moving to another district. The reporters tracked down several of the students, well, ex-students, and proved that the school administration was lying. So, instead of 0% dropouts at one high school it was actually 15% ( I think, it was a high number). This greatly embarassed the school district. Now it must show that not only will it crack down on bad data, it will improve the drop out rate in the high schools. This is what they came up with. Actually, if used correctly, it can be a positive tool. At the high school level, a teacher might teach 6 periods of 20 students each, that's over 120 students. And we definately can tell the factors of what kids are likely to drop out. Hispanic immigrants, children labeled emotinally disturbed (they have a drop out rate of 50%) children with one or both parents in jail, children whose families move a lot. You can look on the database and see what risk factors the students in your class have. At the elmentary level, you have to have a written plan in place for some of those children. It's a way to hold teachers and adminstrators accountable. Of course, it can still be used in a heavy handed and stupid manner, but so can every other tool. And it's not like teachers don't already have access to the child's permanent record folder, which has this information in it.