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To Curb Truancy, Dallas Tries Electronic Monitoring
The New York Times is reporting that a school district in Texas is trying a new angle in combating truancy. Instead of punishing students with detention they are tagging them with electronic monitoring devices. "But the future of the Dallas program is uncertain. Mr. Pottinger's company, the Center for Criminal Justice Solutions, is seeking $365,000 from the county to expand the program beyond Bryan Adams. But the effort has met with political opposition after a state senator complained that ankle cuffs used in an earlier version were reminiscent of slave chains. Dave Leis, a spokesman for NovaTracker, which makes the system used in Dallas, said electronic monitoring did not have to be punitive. 'You can paint this thing as either Big Brother, or this is a device that connects you to a buddy who wants to keep you safe and help you graduate.'"
I wonder which of these two conclusions the students will come to.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
I always joked that highschool was like prison. Nothing to do (with our poor education budget) but to wait to get out after you've served your 4 years. Now its really going to be true, thats really very sad.
Keep in mind a couple of things:
* The kids in the program were on the verge of being sent to the Texas Youth Commission, aka Juvenile Detention.
* Once you're in the TYC, you're likely to be beaten, raped, and held indefinitely.
When the choice is between being treated *like* a criminal, versus learning to *be* a criminal in Texas highly successful Criminal Conversion System, I think it's pretty obvious why any judge would choose to give the kid an ankle shackle instead of condemning him to (eventual) death.
Of course, the "choice" is mind-numbingly stupid. Now that the story of the TYC abuses has finally broken, maybe the next legislature will do something about the broken system that turns minor offenders into hardened criminals. Not likely, of course, because nobody ever got voted out of office for putting *too many* men, women, or children in jail.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
It is Big Brother, but according to the article it is only limited to students who ended up at Truancy court. To choose between having an option to continue school life under supervision, or spend your days in juvenile detention, I might just take the first one...
If the student is a truant then WHO CARES.
Give him a shovel and have him work for a living.
Forcing an extended artifical childhood on people is highly unnatural and
only leads to an obvious conflict between authority and instinct. If people
don't want to go to school then don't force them. Schools should be places
were those interested can get ahead, not some sort of prison. Treating schools
as prisons and daycare just undermines their alleged goal.
If you can't keep the truant interested than the school has failed to be relevant.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I was going to say that I have a problem with it no matter what, but on second thought, I think the question should go to the parents. Minors have limited rights, and if the parents want to monitor them using tools the state provides, in order to keep them in school, maybe that's OK. (Personally, if it were my kid, I would consider this a very desperate measure - it certainly doesn't foster mutual trust and respect.)
On the other hand, if this is forced on students without parents' consent, then it's a big problem.
Consider this: parents have a right to know where their kid is at all times; the school should only be concerned about that during school hours. When is the tracking turned off?
They have to start somewhere. If you look at the history of the US government over the past 100 years, this is exactly what you will see: small, seemingly harmless steps towards bigger and more powerful government that go unnoticed by the masses. Add up those 100 years of government expansion and today you've got a government that absolutely dwarfs the US government of only 100 years ago, both in revenue and power over the people.
Totalitarianism comes one small step at a time, never in one giant sweep.
Give him a shovel and have him work for a living.
Forcing an extended artificial childhood on people is highly unnatural and
only leads to an obvious conflict between authority and instinct. If people
don't want to go to school then don't force them. Schools should be places
were those interested can get ahead, not some sort of prison. Treating schools
as prisons and daycare just undermines their alleged goal.
If you can't keep the truant interested than the school has failed to be relevant. Someone mod the OP up... I couldn't agree with you more.
If the truant students would stay out of class, my kids could get a decent education. But no, they force these disinterested, undisciplined kids in to an already over crowded class room - and nobody learns anything. The teacher is there just to make sure everyone stays alive.
If they really want to scare these kids back into the class room - make them get a job from 8a-3p during school. After a few weeks of flipping burgers or shoveling cow shit - these kids might take school a little more seriously. And in the mean time they'll be paying taxes on their wages.
Profit!
Not the least bit absurd. Every person has the right to pursue their own happiness. If someone wants to be a complete screw-up, then it is a requirement of a free society that we let them be a screw-up.
Children are a somewhat different case because, in theory, they don't have all of the information that they need to make effective decisions about their future. Unfortunately, physical enforcement of what you think they should be doing isn't going to improve them, it's just going to let them know that they need to be trickier if they're going to avoid an oppressive state.
For children you have three paths. The first is to help them realize that cooperating with those around them and being productive is the most effective long-term strategy for pursuing their happiness. The second is to convince them that the entire world is a bunch of screw-ups that are only vaguely kept in order through threat of violence. The third is to let them screw up and take their lumps. Of the three, the second is actually the one most likely to result in violent, oppressive, and harmful adults.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
This is typical of the conservative punitive mind-set. It's also typical of people who don't learn: if they're doing something that doesn't work, their solution is to do it more and harder.
I am the parent of a teenager who, if we lived in Texas, might be subjected to this idiocy. The likely outcome if it were applied to her would be more resistance to authority, more risky behavior and a greater likelihood of catastrophic consequences, including inappropriate escalation of repression by dim-witted authorities.
Fortunately we live in a less pig-ignorant part of the country, so we were able to make other arrangements. They involved giving her more personal responsibility rather than imposing more restrictions and privacy invasions. For her this solution has worked. Another thing to keep in mind is that kids are different and what's medicine for one could well be poison for another. I don't trust a committee of state employees to be able to make this kind of assessment, and I trust them even less to make timely corrections if the approach isn't working.
What's lacking in all layers of the US government is adherence to the principle that people should be left alone unless they are doing something violent or predatory. Micromanagement like this is a symptom of deep pathology on the part of those doing the micro-managing. These idiots should be driven out of office and humiliated.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
Right. Since the government gets held accountable for allowing children to choose to be screw-ups, it's very natural to see this kind of response from them. They're doing everything in their power to satisfy the public's demand that the government do the parenting.
And if the government is going to be held responsible for the welfare of the children, and if the government is later responsible for supporting those children when they become unemployed adults, then they really ought to be permitted to use this kind of method to help. After all, being responsible for all of the children in the nation is a big task. They need some sort of tool for identifying, tracking, and measuring the status of each one.
Of course, if this is not the sort of thing you want the government doing, then put the responsibility back on the parents. Don't make "no child left behind" the issue that decides your vote. Don't vote for candidates who support widespread welfare programs. Because this is the natural result of that sort of thinking.