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

Nobody's interested in my success..

[mrseigen]

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.

Re:Nobody's interested in my success..

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

"These are very tangible and reasonable criteria they're using to make these determinations."

As a part time university teacher I found out when one student was giving me trouble that he had been giving others trouble as well. I was not told of the trouble because that information would have biased my perseption of and treatment of that student. That is an important principle that may be violated here if "teacher" were to get ahold of that data.

Schools administrations would use the data for those things that were most important to them. This may include avoiding lawsuits, eliminating trouble makers. With limited budgets and overcrouded classrooms the insentives would be to diminish classroom size and be able to apply budget to where it would be most effective. You know the current political envirionment is one to privatize or business-tize all activity.

Now with that information would be very useful to at tracking teachers. Lets see, at teacher that has mass defections, well lets get rid of them. Or classes that have certain individuals attending, show scores dropping (trouble makers and cultural disruptors). The data mining capabilities are endless. But of course the adminsitrators would never think of using the data in these ways.

I am reminded of a story where a friend had a meeting with their boss. The boss offered them a project. They said they would like it. It was given to someone else. The reason was the boss said that even though she said yes, her body language said no. The same danger is here with the interpretation or "profiling" of individuals from scan data.

Kill them all and let God sort it out.

alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

instead of surveilance, they could just use the market. Say maybe a government-funded futures market on who's going to drop out...

Useful, yet frightening.....

[Scorpion265]

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.

and this is new how?

[Telastyn]

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.

oxymoron

[pjack76]

I don't think that telling students that you're watching their every single move is the way to build their trust. Teen angst can easily tranform the noblest intention into an invasion of privacy.

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!

Dropout rates

[bytesmythe]

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.

Predicting School Failures

[brre]

As a taxpayer and member of the community, I too am concerned with underperformance: schools that are not delivering quality education.

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.