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Kids Who Skip School Get Tracked By GPS
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from the Orange County Register:
"Frustrated by students habitually skipping class, police and the Anaheim Union High School District are turning to GPS tracking to ensure they come to class. The six-week pilot program is the first in California to test GPS. Seventh- and eighth-graders with four unexcused absences or more this school year are assigned to carry a handheld GPS device, about the size of a cell phone. Five times a day, they are required to enter a code that tracks their locations – as they leave for school, when they arrive at school, at lunchtime, when they leave school and at 8 p.m."
Because kids who regularly skip school can be relied upon to willingly cooperate in keeping and activating their own personal tracking device.
All this will do is to condition these children to accept invasive tracking and surveillance. This is not a question of children's rights, it is a question of what those children will think is normal or acceptable in a decade, when they are adults.
Palm trees and 8
This, like so many other school programs, is an egregious violation of the students' rights. Yet, we allow it under the all to used "think of the children" guise. What it really results in is a bunch of people who are trained from childhood that violating their rights is OK if the right circumstances present themselves.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Threatening someone with jail time or fines if they don't volunteer is like saying there is a mandatory donation required to attend a free event.
Orwell was an optimist.
WTF? If this is about them skipping school, what does their location at 8PM have anything to do with whether or not they are at school?
I got nuthin
Maybe instead of treating students like cattle, schools should become more interesting and figure out why kids are actually skipping school.
I did all the time, until I was old enough to drop out, get a GED and head to college. I never missed classes in College because I was able to determine for myself what interested me and what goals I wanted to achieve.
This was because I had moved into a new school district that didn't really evaluate my needs, and instead stuck be in classes that were beneath the level of work I was doing in my previous school. I went from doing algebra and trigonometry to doing long division.
I'm sure that's not why all students skip school. I sure some are getting bullied, some are on drugs, and others are overwhelmed with their homework. Whatever the case, GPS won't solve the problems.
Threatening someone with jail time or fines if they don't volunteer is like saying there is a mandatory donation required to attend a free event.
They're not picking random kids off the street for this. These kids are already facing juvenile hall. They a had a choice: go to school or get in trouble. Now they have another choice: go to school and be tracked or go to juvenile hall. These kids already made the first choice so now they (and their parents) are forced to make the second choice.
I'm not thrilled with the program - I think they should just lock the kids up in reform school/juvenile hall/whatever. They have free will and they made their choice so let them live with the consequences. Maybe they'll learn from their mistakes, or maybe not.
No, it wouldn't. This parent would respond "It's 8pm in the evening, not during school hours, and it's none of your business where my children are."