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Student RFID Tracking Suspended from School
ewhac writes "As reported earlier, a Sutter County, CA, elementary school unilaterally took the dubious step of forcing students, under penalty of disciplinary action, to wear RFID badges with their name, grade, and photo. The RFID tags were read by sensors placed above classroom and bathroom doors (though the latter had been shut off). The system was ostensibly used to automate attendance-keeping. Well, InCom Corp., the company that provided the tech free of charge to the school, has abruptly pulled out, without explanation. The school superintendant claimed to be, "disappointed," at the development. However, some parents are not mollified, and vow to permanently keep such people-tracking technologies out of their schools."
They're children. Surely you want to track them. It's like the big complaints people have about having cameras in schools and people monitoring them. I tell ya, when I went to school we could have done with some of those cameras. Would have put a quick stop to all the anti-social lord-of-the-flies-esq behaviour that characterizes the school years of most kids.
How we know is more important than what we know.
They probably figured out that kids are smarter than they are when it comes to technology. I'm sure if I was in a school that used RFID (and 10 years younger) I would be able to do some mischief using that system by cloning other peoples RFIDs, making it seem they were in multiple places at once, or letting people skip school and have dupe RFIDs stay in the library etc. For the majority of students I'm sure things would work as expected, but some of those "troubled teens" or "geeks" would have a wickedly fun time with it.
How soon until we're incorporating them into our clothes?
On the other hand though, this system would be rather easy to beat, given that you could ostensibly duplicate your RFID. "How did Jimmy go to the bathroom AND stay in class??". Or just place your tag on someone you know is going to your class and skipping.
Honestly, we need better teachers, not a better way to keep the crappy ones locked in.
So here we have a case in which 2 opposing sides -- the public, and the publicly-funded government school -- are fighting over a technology that a private company has been selling and promoting.
The people paying for the system get pissed off about it. Company responds by having nothing more to do with the situation -- in other words, the company, recognizing the threat to their own future profits, is catering to the demands of the public.
Meanwhile, the government, represented by the school principal, still wants to act against the will of the public which is funding it.
Please, somebody promote socialism to me, and tell me that the government responds better to public demands than businesses do, or heck, even that the govn't has the public's best interests in mind. LOL!
The sad thing is, that because of vested interests (read: public school teacher unions), the parents are going to continue paying for this system they oppose. Welcome to the wonders of socialism and government, generally.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
"The school had already disabled the scanners above classroom doors and was not disciplining students who didn't wear the badges."
:)
Doesnt seem like that would produce much worthwhile info from the test now does it?
The privacy aspect sounds like kind of a non-issue at the moment
I say it didn't go far enough, instead of just RFID tags, full GPS should have been used, that way kids could be caught running in the halls, crowding round a toilet (that means someone is getting dunked), cutting in line for lunch and making-out in the bike shed (2 people should NOT be that close together). There would be a display with little dots showing their position at all times. You could even add sensors to this device to make sure its never removed, and a microphone and camera so you can patch in to any kid. Im certain the school would run like clockwork, no-one would be out-of-line, especially after the electric shock modules were installed.
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ACLU? Children don't have the same rights that adult citizens do. Random searches occur in many SoCal schools every day. Your locker can be searched, your backpack searched, your person sniffed by an intimidating German shepherd, school put into lockdown for hours so that children must relive themselves over a trashcan in front of their peers etc... any time the powers that be deem it's necessary for their health and welfare. The school effectively gains the same control (as well as responsiblity for safekeeping) that parents exercise over children.
What if one of these little kids went missing? This would allow literal alarm bells to sound in such case. Tracking attendance in classrooms isn't an invasion of privacy (tracking toilet uses is) because a normal register system does exactly the same thing.
I like the idea. However used on older kids and expanded to the entire school ground might be a little bit of an invasion.
However, I guess that with RFID this law has to be completed in one way or another. For instance by having the RFID sensors signalled, and their purposes indicated by separate colors.
Signature omitted in order to save space. Thanks for your understanding.
"Lets buy new computers NEXT year and this year we'll have money for a couple teachers."
It doesn't work like that. Between grants, unions, bonds, capital projects, federal funds, state funds, cookie sales and everything else; a school has to be careful how they spend money. The vast majority of money they get has limits on how it can be spent. Computer money certainly does not mix with teacher salary money. Even with computer money, you might be able to buy a room full of servers, but no HP Openview type software to manage them or AC to keep them from catching on fire.
From what I've seen, it will shake out like this...
1. Project is high profile, everyone jumps through hoops to make it look good for the public/superintendant, whoever.
2. Project loses lustre (ie, bed press, Incom drops out).
3. Project is neglected, never used, probably doesn't even function anymore.
4. Something happens where people from #1 expect to use system again (unknown student accused of crime, etc..)
5. Go back to #1.
Having consulted with a number of schools, perhaps I'm just a bit jaded. But I've seen it many times before.
>A couple of pops accross the arse never hurt anyone.
I went through a period where I wished I could prosecute my teachers for assault (the period ended about the time I realized most of them would be in their 80s, so I'm over it on practical, but not moral principles. I still would beat a few of them fucking sensless in their goddamned nursing homes, if I could, but at least I don't want to dig up their graves and defile their corpses anymore.)
FUCK THAT. (I'm totally serious.)
No kid of mine will ever wear a tracking tag at school.
If the school needs to solve accountability problems with electronic tags, then that school has problems that run a lot deeper than a few problem kids.
We have time honored methods of running schools that, when allowed to work properly, keep the schools running just fine with no technology necessary at all.
The problem we have today is threefold:
1. The lawyers have hampered the schools
2. Lots of parents either
- don't have time to give a fuck
- simply don't give a fuck
- are not aware they even have the option of giving a fuck.
3. Standardized tests and other high stakes "reform" programs inhibit the instructors ability to actually teach the kids something worth going to class for. (again, dead serious on this point.)
Fix those things and the need for these insulting tags will go away on it's own.
Blogging because I can...
During four out of my eight grade-school years, I had three teachers. One taught math and science; one taught social studies, history, and geography; one taught English. These weren't massive schools in some overcrowded metropolitan area, but a suburb of Cleveland that approximates typical middle America.
In this hectic environment, any kids who wanted to skip class probably could. That was in the 1980's - it's probably more chaotic today.
I think that model is on the upswing - and it's a good thing, since it dispels the myth that teachers are good at all subjects. But it does create a problem keeping track of students, which is why I can't complain about this.
And look at it this way: Taking attendance takes time. 10 minutes a day * 200 school days = an extra 33 hours of class time per year.
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
...graduated from HS in 2000.
When I was a senior, a tech company 'volunteered' to install a fingerprinting system for checking out books - the idea is that you have the librarian scan every book, you swipe your fingerprint in the reader, and you're off. It replaced good ol' barcode on the back of our (photo) student IDs (which we were supposed to carry always).
I happened to be in the library during the time that the system was launched, the suits there and all. I walked by, wanting to check a book out and they asked me whether I wanted to test drive this awesome new fingerprinting technology, and I said no to their face (the look was priceless). I graduated soon after and didn't look back, but I found out that all the fingerprints, in BMP form, were stored on an unpatched, networked windows PC in the library. (Oh, the fun I could have had; I could have delivered the fingerprints to the principal Veronica-Mars-style [flippantly] and gotten away with it too)
I don't have a problem with submitting my fingerprint as part of the moral character application to the bar, but for checking out a frigging research book at school?
Anyway, I also heard that they got rid of that later, because kids didn't want to use it. I'm all for phasing out shitty security-dangerous technology de facto.
I'm a pretty strong privacy advocate, but I simply can't understand the parents' uproar over this. Teachers take attendance, and hall monitors watch hallways between periods. RFIDs take attendance and watch hallway movements. What's the difference?
Taking attendance is one thing, its quite another to know each and every step someone takes.
Do you really feel this is the best way to teach kids about freedom? They are free yet are tracked every second of every day? (I'm sure at first it would be just the school..then expanded to the city level...b/c after all, those kids that walk home, we need to make sure they make it there.) That everyone in this country has rights...oh, except for them of course, they have no rights.
I think it also sends the message that no one can be trusted, nor can the child be trusted either. Again, is that the kind of message you want to send to children? That everyone is a potental criminal, even themself?
If thats the world people want (or think it is now), then thats truely sad indeed.
That was in the 1980's - it's probably more chaotic today
You just think it is? Do you have any evidence to back up your feeling?
And look at it this way: Taking attendance takes time. 10 minutes a day * 200 school days = an extra 33 hours of class time per year.
In my school we had something called 'assigned seats.' The teacher knew which seats should be filled, and if they weren't it was trival to figure out who was missing. It never took more then a minute...10 is absurd.
As I moved up, less teachers had assigned seating. They actually got to know you and could remember if you were there or not. Giving us the freedom to pick where we sat demonstrated that the teacher believed we could make that decision in a responsible way (sitting close if your eyes were bad for example). Some learning is done by giving a choice to a person...it teaches people to think for themselves. Where you sit may be no big deal to you, but as a kid, it probably means a lot more.
The school rules are that 1: the kid has to be in class and 2: the kid has to bring their ID card. Neither rule is being violated. If a microwaved card is no longer readable by their tracking system, that's not the kid's problem.