Slashdot Mirror
Texas Schools Using Electronic Chips To Track Students; Parents In Uproar
An anonymous reader writes "Two Schools in San Antonio are using electronic chips to help administrators count and track students' whereabouts. Students at Anson Jones Middle School and John Jay High School are now required to wear ID cards using radio frequency identification (RFID) technology embedded with electronic chips in an effort to daily attendance records. The article said the Northside Independent School District receives about $30 per day in state funding for each student reporting."
Just saying.
Really... parents caring about what the school does? Unheard of.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Hey, why not just embed the RFID tags in them subdermally, in their ear, like cattle? There must be a fair bit of expertise for that sort of thing in Texas.
In other news, the last kid in John Jay High School to figure out they could just leave their ID card in their locker and stay in bed all day was mercilessly mocked and bullied by his peers.
I guess I should RTFA, but:
I don't know what that means...
I hope there is one of those Pinko-Liberal-Commie-Democrat-Basterds teachers on the faculty making the kids read 1984 and Fahrenheit 451.
And who says English Lit is worthless.
in my day the schools never took attendance. home room was for a quick break with friends. teachers couldn't care less if you were in class and never took attendance either
Somewhere in this school there's an Honor Roll student with a couple of dozen ID tags hanging around his neck and a wallet full of cash...
The relevant data: did they learn valuable skills?
The irrelevant data: did they attend every class, and take three (3) or fewer dumps a day, numbering fewer than 15 minutes each and not more than 42.3 minutes total?
Our society is in love with metrics, but in its mad dash, produces lots and lots of data that is actually not relevant to the task at hand.
If they said they were using these RFIDs to figure out exactly when and where pedophiles are snatching their kids, I might consider that relevant data, but emphasizing attendance is a surrogate for emphasizing learning.
Tie the RFID chip to a rat, and leave out rat treats on the floor in your favorite classes. You'll get a perfect attendance award.
(Adults are dumb.)
Somehow I think the students have turned in the product and are no longer the consumer in this case.
Brought to you by Team SPAM! where we believe: "Information in the noise!"
Another baby step along the road to condition us to accept permanent RFID tagging from birth and constant tracking and surveillance by the State, for our own good and safety, of course.
This doesn't seem unreasonable does it? When the kids are at school, the staff are in loco parentis, and so keeping tabs on the little bastards doesn't sound crazy. After all if one of them goes AWOL and turns up in a suitcase, the school's likely to be sued.
Of course if it's being used for data collection for behavioural profiling or resale, that's another matter, but if it's just for "this kid was here earlier but didn't answer roll call, where the hell is he?" or "it's recess and we need to get a message to this kid, where the hell is he?" that seems fine.
Steve Hernandez, whose daughter is a sophomore, objects to the tags, saying they are similar to the "mark of the beast."
"My daughter should not have to compromise (her) religion just because Northside Independent School District wants to get paid," Hernandez said.
are used in their parents badges when they go to work. Its how they open doors and clock in. Recalling from my youth, kids have had ID badges since about 1996, theyve had to be visually verified in most cases before you can leave the lobby and enter your class at the start of the day. somehow the texan that wrote this article thinks by saying "electronic chips" and "children" in the same sentence, im supposed to get outraged.
Good people go to bed earlier.
We are entering an era where children are raised more to the standards of "society" (i.e. government) than the parents themselves. My kind -- people who dare to think for themselves and reject coercive authority by default -- aren't wanted or needed in this kind of world. It probably sounds cynical to some people, but I think it's best that my genetic line ends right here. Good luck to the rest of you who continue the human race -- you're going to need it.
Wow, it's just like the teacher taking attendance!
Seems they still take a normal roll call:
Counting their attendance is one thing, but the mapping is kinda creepy.
Me and my co-workers have RFID-enabled badges to access our workplace and PCs, and it leaves logging trails for sure. No-one around here seems to be in an uproar about it.
Of course, here they have proprietary company property to protect.
There's more than one person that's supposed to be keeping track of those 1200 students.
I'd reckon probably about 450 people. (Class size of 30, 50 misc people, administrators, campus watch people, etc).
Besides. You stick all those 1200 people in a building, with maybe a dozen entrances/exits, so you don't need to watch each of them individually all the time.
This is how surveillance states gain ground in leaps and bounds over generations. Kids that are GPS tracked by their parents get used to being GPS tracked by authority and as adults, don't mind it or are less likely to *actually* fight it from a state/national authority. Same logic here, with RFID chip tracking.
..I laud this public school's initiative to make sure that they are tracking attendance. Obviously it's primarily about funding in this case. But it also provides documented evidence of whether kids are in class or not. This information can (and should) be passed on to parents.
Also, in Iowa back in the 1990's our Governor (R) had proposed a change to the state's welfare system called "learnfare". The idea was that a family's welfare check depended on the child's attendance in school. They received 100% of the check for good attendance and were penalized for poor attendance. The idea was that they wanted kids in 3rd, 4th, 5th generations of welfare families to get a good education and not be the next generation on welfare.
Now obviously school attendance doesn't necessarily mean good grades, or caring about your future. But still, it was a step in the right direction.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Kids will never think of having a friend hold their card while they go off to do whatever it is kids do nowdays.
Yes. School funding comes mostly from property and impact taxes in the area. It is distributed to schools according to their population (attendance).
Each child is worth a particular dollar amount per day to the school. Special needs kids are worth more money.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I'm sure a creepy school employee would love to know exactly when they can find your kids all alone. I don't understand why you don't have a problem with your kids being tracked, when you wouldn't like the same system for yourself. Also, if a parent is so worried about their children going missing then they can have their kid wear a tracking device that will track them off school grounds and actually be useful for finding them.
Waiting to see who would scream (and how loud) when states embed RFID tags in license plates. Drive under a couple of sensors along the highway too fast, get a ticket (and someone somewhere would justify a law that states the owner is responsible for the vehicle).
We're sorry, the phone number you have reached is imaginary. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and try your call again
The problem here is that if your kid's school tracks your kid this way on the school campus, your kid likely won't have a problem being tracked that way all the time when they are an adult. Schools are at least as much about social engineering as they are about education. So, unless your attitude is "I got mine, screw my kids." you should be outraged at a school trying to do this.
How hard is it to manually count attendance? You have a degree in education but you cannot to the occasional headcount? After a week you should be able to look at your class and recall the *names* of the faces you do not see and deduct that from your total class size. Don't get me wrong, I love technology, but this sounds like another excuse to spend taxpayer money, in addition to other nefarious motives which will undoubtedly be discussed in this thread.
than what every major employer does in the United States? I know when I go to work, I have to wear and RFID badge that gets scanned when I enter the building. I also have to use it to access certain areas. The last three places I've worked had similar systems.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Take ID card, wrap it in a towel, and set it on concrete, liberally beat it with a hammer.
From experience, it breaks the RFID chip and makes it stop working but leaves the card intact. Personally I hate these stupid chips and I have broken a bunch of them!
For all parents who are objecting to this (I would be too if my daughter was subjected to this), simply start up a fundraiser for some Student RFID blocking wallets. After all, we want our children to grow up knowing the responsiblity of owning an actual wallet, right?
Cheaper. Simpler. Effective training for their new roles in our brave new world. Might as well tag 'em too.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I guess in the new version, they'll all just get busted the second they skip out on school. That won't make for a very interesting movie.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
This is how surveillance states gain ground in leaps and bounds over generations. Kids that are GPS tracked by their parents get used to being GPS tracked by authority and as adults, don't mind it or are less likely to *actually* fight it from a state/national authority. Same logic here, with RFID chip tracking.
I don't think it will take that long. Tomorrow, some other parent will sue some other school district for their kid being kidnapped because the school should have known kidnappers were out there and done GPS-tracking preemptively.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
This was the most important line in the article:
"The article said the Northside Independent School District receives about $30 per day in state funding for each student reporting."
This is the only reason anything gets done at a public school EVER.
As an Indiana student from the *1980s* (to '91) it was often drummed into us (even as students) that funding levels were dependent on attendance and absentee levels.
As crazy as administrators and politicians have gotten since then about metrics I'm sure it is ten times worse by now....
Attendence in class probabaly is a pretty good indicator or metric of success.
Not saying that RFIDing folks is the right thing to do, however insofar as your arguement that attendence is irrelevent to learning, well I think it sort of falls down. If you don't go to class, it is pretty hard to "learn valuable skills".
I'm stupid why? Because I understand that there is a (huge) difference between Electronic tracking of every movement throughout the day vs pen and paper attendance taking? Excuse me for pointing out the flaw in your logic
The problem here is that if your kid's school tracks your kid this way on the school campus, your kid likely won't have a problem being tracked that way all the time when they are an adult. Schools are at least as much about social engineering as they are about education. So, unless your attitude is "I got mine, screw my kids." you should be outraged at a school trying to do this.
You must be a ball at parties...
"Why would I want to play a game that encourages me (and others!) to work out the best way to weaken the structure of a tower, leading to its inevitable collapse? The insanity! When we leave here, someone is probably going to go knock down some buildings on the way home, seeing as how we were all conditioned to believe its normal..."
Just play some fucking Jenga, and get yourself off the slippery slope. Not everyone careens helplessly down it.
Outdated. If the collars can't administer behavior-modification stimuli they aren't worth the trouble. Chains make too much noise when the serfs are doing what they're told. If dogs can get an "Invisible Fence (TM), so can humans. Advanced models could deliver transdermal "medication" for enhanced effectiveness.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
the mapping is kinda creepy.
Its to help the school shooters and child abductors who get the app installed on their phone. They need tech too, you know.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I would have fought this authority as a teenager. Now I'm sitting in a cubicle with an RFID tag around my neck.
:wq
You do realize that the school is getting $30 in state funding per day for each student in attendance, not paying $30 per day per student to whatever third party provides the RFID cards, right?
in Germany, we worry about educating the children, if they don't want to be there then so be it. We also train children to be more independent.
Examples with photos!
Wow, it's just like the teacher taking attendance! Except that it uses technology to automate the task, saving valuable lesson time. Clearly this is another example of government oppression.
Except that it tracks where they are in the school. So it's only the same as a teacher taking attendance as putting a license plate on your car is the same as having an RFID tag network that lets the government track your car everywhere you go.
The close tracking may not necessarily be a bad thing (car tracking makes stolen car retrieval easier), but I know I spent more than one class period tucked away in the band room with a girlfriend furthering our education in ways the school would not have approved of. Though her parents probably would have preferred it if we had RFID tags giving away our locations.
We had bars in the windows, ostensibly to keep up from falling out of the window. I graduated from high school 35 years ago.
Aren't these already in every US passport anyway?
Dog bark shock collars. Proles are meant to be seen not heard.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I did.
Here is a link to the text. Chapter one is where reality meets fiction.
If you prefer other formats than HTML, those are available, too.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Yeah... my problem with this is the same problem I have with warrantless wiretaps: the only barrier to abuse is the mood they're in. Oh, you're not "interested" in knowing where all of the kids are, today? Well, that lets me sleep well at night.
Before the FBI could do warrantless wiretaps, they'd have to go to a judge and have their evidence weighed, and then they'd get their warrant, and then there'd be a paper-trail. Now, they can skip the warrant and they don't even have to divulge who they tapped or even how many times they've used that power. Then, to calm us down, they assure us that they don't want to tap everybody's phones. Well, what happens when they come to work one day and discover that they now want to? That was they only barrier to abuse of the privilege.
So, how long before everyone accepts "tracking for the sake of getting all of the attendance dollars we've got coming to us"? How long after that until some enterprising individual says "Hey, we could use this to cut down on teen smoking by tracking where/when students go off by themselves to remote parts of the school" or "We can find out when students are taking too long in the bathroom"?
Why link the funding to attendance? Won't a crappy (underfunded) school lead to MORE pupils missing class?
These cards are only as good as the people using them. They do not give live feedback on where someone is, they simply are used to swipe into rooms. If I swipe in to the school in the morning then skip all day, return to swipe out at the last bell, the system thinks I was in school all day. There is no alarm that sounds when the cards are out of range or any nonsense like that. This type of system is used literally everywhere from private to government companies for access control.
They kinda taste like tasty wheat . . . . kinda . . .
Wow, it's just like the teacher taking attendance! Except that it uses technology to automate the task, saving valuable lesson time. Clearly this is another example of government oppression.
Dude can you carry my tag into class with you today while I skip? ..cool man u rock
Or does it work like patent law, where adding 'on a computer' to a well-established procedure turns it into something completly different?
If you don't think tagging people and tracking their every move electronically is oppressive there are other reasons to be against it.
Having something that can broadcast your location can be a risk to students. The same way wielding an American passport in foreign lands with an RFID chip can enhance your risk of being a target. Before you go off thinking I'm crazy ask yourself why passports now come with foil linings to block their own signals.
RFID need not be exclusivly restricted to a small area.. they can be activated over extended distances with the right antenna systems.
So, all this because they can't seem to count properly. Or perhaps the arithmetic is what throws them. Attendance = Students in homeroom + students with notes from band teacher + students who just left the office.
Or is the administration so dense that around the office is the best place to be when you ditch class?
Nah, they'll curse it for saying the student ('s ID card) was present and accounted for all day.
I do not know why so many refer to government as if it is this independent god-like entity running around and maniacally laughing as it forces people to do things against their will.
The government *is* the parents. I went to public high school, and went to a district that mandated school uniforms. This wasn't big government forcing it on me; it was my parents' contemporaries. I remember my parents asking at meetings why we needed uniforms (took out individuality, and was expensive!), but many other parents -- not the government -- responded they liked how clean everyone looked, and it kept gang paraphenalia out of schools. Hell, I knew *students* that claimed to enjoy having uniforms because they did not like having to think about what to wear every day.
My point is, do not blame government -- blame the parents. The parents are the ones pushing the standards, and government officials are trying their best (often times anyway) to appease what they think is the majority opinion. My school district holds votes on certain school policies, and it was what parents wanted.
If you are upset about rejecting authority, you should ask why so many parents are so authoritarian toward their own and other children. It is apparently what they want. Personally, I feel this is a phase because of fear of the future in the current economic and foreign policy climate. The youth are not near as accepting as you think. Growing up in this era has given them much different attitudes than their authoritarian parents. They are biding their time until they know for sure how to go about changing it. I would be a little more optimistic.
This is just about the dumbest comparison I've seen on slashdot. Kudos.
Given that the system knows where in the building students are and were, I imagine the parents will likely change their minds and praise the system if a student goes missing. They'll know when and where the student was the last time they were on campus, and I would assume through which door the student left.
What if they take the ID tag off or it is taken off of them and the misdirection complicates investigation?
Where is the outrage? I know this has turned into a forum to practice your online stand-up routine for most posters but how isn't this a gross invasion of a person's rights? /. use to be up in arms over anything that could be linked to invasion of privacy.
First it's schools, than the work place and next thing you know it's in your cars, phones, wallet. Do teachers not take roll call anymore?
I can not believe they have kids wearing id cards that can be tracked!!!! Has anyone thought about the right to privacy, this is inconceivable and goes against everything the US stands for. It's a good thing we let our kids use debit / credit cards and allows them mobile phone / computer access all the time, for a minutes it was almost as if they weren't already being tracked non stop and targeted. Nope thank god, but this id card that is the issue that we need to hear bitched about for weeks now.
Hanlon's Razor. Assume incompetence rather than malice.
I know conspiracy theories are fun, but you still look like a loon when you espouse one.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
If the school wants to improve attendance, why not:
(a) install a high-resolution IP camera with a vandal-proof enclosure in every classroom (above the teacher's head, facing the students),
(b) upload a high-res image every 2 or 3 seconds to a web server (no audio needed),
(c) and email each parent the daily schedule of his / her child, with clickable links so they can look in the appropriate classroom via a web browser, and verify the child is there.
In fact, it would be relatively straightforward to create a web-based interface so that you could enter the student's name, and the video feed would automatically switch over to the correct classroom camera depending on the time of day. Mom or Dad could just open a window on his/her computer desktop and keep an eye on Johnny or Susie all day long.
No doubt some teachers will freak out at the idea of a camera in the classroom, but I can't imagine that cameras would cost more, or be more intrusive, than an RFID system in the long run.
I'm sure most kids will be carrying around some electronic device these days. Whether it's a cell phone, Nintendo DS, or iPod, they call have wireless connectivity. Would the next step be to just track what the kids are carrying anyway? That would be the best way to prevent the "have one kid carry around a bunch of ID's at the same time" trick.
Pascual Gonzalez, Northside's communications director told NBC that he estimates the district has been losing about $1.7 million a year because of underreported attendance. He also said the RFID cost was $261,000 and should pay for itself within one year. Read more at http://www.latinospost.com/articles/5498/20121015/texas-schools-using-electronic-chips-track-students.htm#W4csmiPggMpRrop2.99
This to me is the ridiculous part, the RFID system is sucking $261k plus upkeep out of the budget, the school isn't earning the money it is taken out of education spending! Perhaps the state shouldn't have a ridiculous daily attendance funding mechanism and just pay based on enrolment and the taxpayer wouldn't need to waste $261k per school.
Flamebait? Please go re-read TFA, but substitute "inmate" for "student" and see if it still tracks.
About a year ago, our local parents got their collective panties in a bunch because the same company that provides food to the local prisons also supplies food to the local public schools. The "uproar" part came about because the prisoners' food was better than that delivered to the children. The prisoners had advocates for their diets, where the school administrators were more concerned with budget issues.
When the school administration is motivated by "$30 per inmate per day," they're going to enact policies that bias toward tracking attendance rather than policies that bias toward education. Why not just mark all students as "attending?" I'm sure that's been tried, and the State will have auditors to prevent abuse - hence the desire to have some method for demonstrating the attendee's presence. This is definitely a Camel's Nose issue, as once the tracking system is in place, the administrators will find other uses for it.
they had a number of kids run late in a band practice, with some others near the school office. They were physically present in the school but not in the "normal" count and so the school wouldn't have gotten money for them.
This is not to say that I agree with it...changing the procedures on how the "normal" count gets done should be sufficient.
Why is attendance even required? If I can learn the material without attending, isn't that better all around? Better for class sizes, don't have to feed me lunch, etc.
I guess some requirements are good. Maybe ... have to be there on test days, and like, 30% of the time or something for lectures.
But seriously. The problem with education is not attendance. I was homeschooled. I didn't even attend class. I learned my material from school books. I actually never graduated from High School, officially (took an equivalency test to start college). In college, I attended classes because I was supposed to, but some of them (economics, literature) weren't exactly that profitable uses of my time.
I know, it's cliche to say "I didn't go and I turned out fine" but I did. I'm employed, I double majored in computer science and music theory/composition, graduated summa cum laude, was active in various groups and activities (too many, according to some :) ), etc.
Attendance is not really a measure of educational success. Especially if you can attend perfectly, fail classes, and get moved on to the next grade anyway.
If you don't think tagging people and tracking their every move electronically is oppressive there are other reasons to be against it.
Yep, the show Numb3rs did an episode that way where one of the gunman (having entered through the broken metal detector that was down for maintenance) used the RFIDs to track certain targets...just wait until it happens in real life.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
I wish people like you would leave the country.. or at least go live in a socialist country for awhile and see if you like that worthless sardine can lifestyle.
1. Tracking performance negates the need to track attendance.
2. It's just as likely that repressive, overcontrolling environments with extremely passive-aggressive authority structures are what CAUSE school shootings. The amount of pressure in schools grows every day, and most of it is artificially imposed.
3. Over litigiousness is the root problem here. It affects more than just schools. Maybe the answer is for society in general to roll this back and force people to fucking deal with the realities of life instead of constantly searching for a scapegoat, even at the expense of rational cause-effect and reasonable recompense.
4. Logical progression doesn't justify anything. It's a predictor. This is the same shitty argument used in law concerning 'precedent.' It's a fallacy when used to justify more of the same kind of action. It's a form of circular reasoning.
5. People aren't necessarily ignorant. They're just not machines meant to fit the cogs of your 'Great Society.'
6. define 'bad things' please. This is the 'if you've got nothing to hide' argument. The problem isn't whether people do 'bad things', it's what authority deems 'bad' and how unchecked they are in enforcing whims. During my years in the public system, faculty abused their privileges and power all the time. why would someone pay attention and abuse? BECAUSE THEY CAN! It's an axiomatic component of human nature I guess: unchecked power corrupts. The last thing I'd want is to give this mindset even more control over my location or any personal data. If the goal is to educate, then track performance, and don't worry quite so much about attendance. Of course, if the goal is to get kids used to this kind of shithole society, then by all means...
7. yeah I know. People need to fucking realize that with life, shit happens, and sometimes there's no one person to blame. Unfortunately, it seems like you're the one following the 'zomg terrorist' bandwagon, or at least using the word to label people you don't agree with so you don't have to listen to them. Since most people who side with tyrannical authority are often extremely timid and insecure, I wonder if that's not the case with you.
A college (for 16-18 year olds) that one of my friends attended had a simpler version of this system -- student cards had to be swiped into a reader to show attendance. The teachers didn't care much about the system -- they're teaching adults, so there were fewer in loco parentis responsibilities, and the "adults" are supposed to want to be there...
My friend made good money for a while, swiping people's cards for them. At the time, the government paid 16-18 year olds from poor families to go to school once they were 16 (i.e. once school was optional), so for some students it was well worth faking attendance.
This sounds like the kind of committee-logic we can expect from our schools, government, corporations and media. I was amused at first by your example, then realized how likely lowest common denominator thinking ("dumbshit" mode) would be.
If the purpose is to make sure kids are on campus, they might just decide to put them at the front door. Then they could turn around to the parents, shareholders, government, whoever, etc. and claim "mission accomplished."
At which point, I'd find the kid with the best attendance record and bribe him/her to carry around a cloned RFID for me.
Yeah, the $30 per day per student adds up to a lot of money. Probably covers the school's operating costs for the year. But this will be a nice test to see how much hacking can be done to this type of setup. I am thinking the kids will do all kinds of things from planting RFID's in everyroom they are suppose to be in to actually to hacking the computers keeping the data, to hacking the transmitters to have a wider range. Cools stuff for industrious students.
Have gnu, will travel.
"What kind of lesson does it teach our children if they're chipped like cattle and their every movement tracked?" said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union. "It doesn't create the kind of independent, autonomous people that we want in our democratic society.
Says who? NYC thinks so highly of its "independent, autonomous people" that it wants to dictate how much soda they can buy in a single cup. I'd have a lot more faith in these pronouncements if the people making them applied their standards across the board and not just selectively to those things they dislike.
That's why it *is* important for parents of today...to be against this type of tracking....if kids today think this is normal...well, it then becomes the norm.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
... something to be in an amplified uproar about. So take the small percentage of kids who skip and divide the total daily cost of the program (including the cost of the ID cards) and divide that by the number of kids who skip on average for cost per skip student. Take the total cost and ask a Question: How many scholarships would that pay for? I do wonder if the number of kids skipping on average is higher or lower than the number of scholarships....
How is this contrary to what gr3yh47 said?
Start tracking early, evolve the tracking process, people won't complain as it evolves if they are used to it.
You just repeated what he said except in an insulting manner.
Teach these kids the power of civil disobedience, and show them what happens when everyone agrees to switch ID cards.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I believe the reason parents are so outraged, for those questioning why, is the good old idiom "give someone an inch and they will take it a mile."
It may start out as harmless attendance tracking, but where does it progress from there?
Last numbers I saw show the Seattle school system has more employees than students..
If you're curious what this costs , you can find yearly wage data online, but a couple of years behind.
Freedom of information takes time in Washington.
No brain, no pain.
FTA -- "There's a misconception that somebody's sitting in a room with a bank full of monitors looking at where 1,200 kids are here at Anson Middle School. That's not true," he said. "It's not even feasible. We're not staffed nor are we interested in knowing where all the kids are at a particular moment."
Every time one of these Orwellian surveillance nightmares pops up, one of the defenders says something like this. Constantly look at all the students? "It's not even feasible... we're not staffed [with enough people]".
Well someone needs to get these lackwits into the current millennium and tell them about these amazing fucking "computers" these days that can do all that automatically.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
If you're not popular and noticeable, you don't need to show up to class. Just pay another student to swipe your card for ya.
Wait, I'm going to end up in prison now for suggesting that idea. I didn't type this!
Wow, it's just like the teacher taking attendance!
No, it's just like the teacher following you around the school the entire time you're there. It's fucking creepy. If I had a kid in one of those schools I'd be raising hell, too.
Free Martian Whores!
The 1% who decide these things for the other 99% don't send their kids to public schools, so their kids won't be exposed to forced government surveillance. They probably think the 99% should be grateful that they (the 1%) pay to educate their dumb kids in the first place.
The mapping only covers the building. As a parent they SHOULD know where kids are. I know parents that would walk their kids to the door of the school... And then the kids would walk right out again. But it was all the parents fault the kid wasn't in school.
Of course on Texas the criminalize everything because that gives educators a free pass not to deal with social problems... And then the "lawbreakers" don't count in test scores and other metrics.
Also, this will give administrators a way to count kids in emergencies. At least to know where people are moving, combine with cameras can get kids out of the way.
They are not required to be carrying the ID when they aren't at school, so what's the big deal?
They could store it in their locker, and put it in their pocket in the morning and put it back in the afternoon.
It could expedite roll call, and in some cases, might even be able to increase safety of students while they are in the school.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It would have been $50, but the kickback money had to come from somewhere!
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Because there's a daytime curfew in effect during school hours on business days. If you're caught outside during a school day, a cop is going to stop you. I was a part of a school program that had irregular hours and my student ID card made explicit reference of this so that I could show police officers that I wasn't just skipping school.
Can someone explain the reason so many states do this day-by-day attendance accounting?
Shouldn't the budget for a school should be based on annual, or semi-annual plans? If a kid doesn't show up, one day, the class still goes on, the lights are on, the building is heated, the teacher is paid... seems like a lot of make-work do to this level of accounting...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Well, extending this brilliant system of paying the schools for students who are in attendance should obviously just be extended to pay the teachers the same way.
Seriously, though, there's something not being said here. Funding schools like this is stupid. Either there's a reason, like administrators were gaming the system (and should be fired) or the school district is entirely peopled with imbeciles.
> Schools are at least as much about social engineering as they are about indoctrination
FTFY. Specifically, numerous people have pointed out the problems of a public indoctrination system:
* The Underground History of American Education
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm
You can sue a doctor for malpractice, not a schoolteacher. Every homebuilder is accountable to customers years after the home is built; not schoolteachers, though. You can't sue a priest, minister, or rabbi either; that should be a clue."
" by 1840 the incidence of complex literacy in the United States was between 93 and 100 percent, wherever such a thing mattered. Yet compulsory schooling existed nowhere."
* A Mathematician's Lament
http://www.maa.org/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf
* Here's what schools don't teach kids: ..) so they repeat all prior mistakes.
1. Anything about money.
2. How businesses work, so that they enter the game with no knowledge of how it's played.
3. Basic psychology, so that even if they understand the game, they can be effectively gamed. Obviously, psychology would be very useful in raising kids.
4. Parenting, other than what they learned by living (courtesy of parents, teachers, ministers, coaches, police
5. Collaboration and team effort.
Here's what they learn.
1. There is only one right answer to each question.
2. Your success is entirely based on your grades and obedience/attendance.
3. There are no new ideas. Everything you know is in books, according to a curriculum approved by committee.
4. Creativity, taking your time and questioning authority and status quo are punishable offenses.
5. Sharing information with others is punishable by expulsion.
6. Ethics are OK to talk about, but in real life, everything's fair; just don't get caught.
You can see the result. Roughly 10% of people are "successful" and innovation comes from roughly 1%. 90% of work is meant to make the boss happy, and 10% towards customers, teamwork is unheard of and requires expensive consultants to achieve at a minimal level, and you're paid almost entirely for your paper certificates and longevity.
Reference:
From the book "Children Learn What They Live" by Dorothy Law Nolte.
Long before Slashdot commenters learn to RTFA, I fear.
I'm not sure he meant it in the same way you may have responded. I much prefer a less invasive method that either the RFID or the GP's post. Anything that requires participation from the parents is a good thing. (I'm making the generalization that increased parental participation in a child's education directly equates to the success/performance of the child.)
If you enforce point 1, "Tracking performance negates the need to track attendance." I think you've found the key right there, but that means administration and parents will have to demonstrate dedication and effort into the system. If you can "ace" all of your tests and not show up, good for you. The option for advanced/college credit courses might be a good thing to be offered.
On the other hand, if a student is performing poorly, force additional parental involvement, require more time be spent at school by the child for additional tutoring. If you make the community get involved, you'll likely get the best result. But it's not the easy way, so it's more quickly rejected.
This is right up their alley....
...or whatever symbol shuts them up.
The problem here is that if your kid's school tracks your kid this way on the school campus, your kid likely won't have a problem being tracked that way all the time when they are an adult.
Indeed. When my kids were little they never had ridden in a vehicle where they weren't belted in. We took a city bus one day, and they were terrified, because the bus had no seat belts.
Then they started school, and rode unbelted on the school bus for the next ten years. What happened after the drivers license when they were 16? 3 tickets for not using a seat belt.
Take this damned kafkaesque crap away and spend the money on seat belts for buses. It doesn't matter of the kids are just as safe while in the bus whether or not they're belted, not belting them in the bus may kill them when they start driving.
Free Martian Whores!
Or we could just not expect the state to be every child's parent, and the school to be the orphanage they are assigned to.
Define "tracking". If it is an RFID (near field, like HID cards) then this cannot be used to pinpoint some kid walking around town while he should be in school. Likely it is a card reader that must be swiped by the student... so big deal. We used this in university to gain access to labs. The uproar is more likely parents who just don't RTFA. Caveat; I didn't RTFA either :)-
- I stole your sig.
You must have missed the part ware I was responding to an individual who was already at the 90% mark of that slippery slope. Your already a generation behind for claiming that student tracking doesn't condition kids to be tracked as adults.
Thats quite a claim, any sources to back it up. Did a quick search and I would have thought if that were the case It would have been major news at some point, but google did not provide me anything that backed your claim up.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
And now I have to call utter bullshit:
1. Seattle Schools and Students
Number of students: 43,752
Number of schools: 97
2. Public School Staffing
Number of employees: 4,914
Number of full-time classroom teachers: 2,056
Number of students per employee: 8.8
Number of students per classroom teacher: 20.9
It's really hard to get away with pulling numbers out of your ass when people are willing to do research.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Okay, so you can speculate on ways that this school's RDIF program can be subverted or otherwise lead to problems, and you can go back and forth on this ad infinitum, but consider this. At some point, maybe not this year, maybe in a couple of years, maybe in five or ten, this school, or perhaps another, will hit upon a recipe for an RFID program that actually works. Once that happens, other schools will start to imitate the program. From that point on, there will be a population of students, growing every year, who will eventually become adults who are accustomed to being tracked. Now, we already have passports with RFID chips. U.S. citizens are not required to have a passport, but imagine that at some point in the future, in the way that Congress actually managed to pass the health care act (something that was considered unlikely by many), a law is passed, and later upheld by the courts, requiring every citizen to carry an ID with an RFID chip or some other tracking mechanism. If such a bill were proposed today, an uproar would instantly arise, but think ahead a generation or two, when a large percentage of the population is already used to being track, via their school IDs. At that point it is conceivable that tracking becomes a reality. Now, because power corrupts, it is inevitable that that the power that comes with tracking data will be misused by governments and other entities, such are corporations and criminal elements, able to obtain access. Accept this as a given, because the history of this country indicates that we will eventually reach that point. Well, what I am telling you is that all of us, the citizens, will be much safer if two things come to pass: A) Tracking is enforced, so that nobody, not a cop, not a judge, not criminal, can escape it. B) Tracking information is made publicly available, to prevent the power differential that occurs when some entities have access to information but others don't. Please read this carefully. IF YOU ASSUME that tracking will occur, eventually, you must realize that it is in your best interests for you to have as much access to tracking data as anybody else, and for you to be able to monitor the authorities and the criminals, rather than the monitoring being just a one-way proposition. To get back to this San Antonio schools, what the parents should be advocating, and insisting, is that all school officials be required to carry the same RFID chips that students carry, as a matter of fairness, and to help mitigate against abuse.
Apologies--I had line breaks throughout that post, but they disappeared.
As long as you want to use liberal numbers try the school district itself:
http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/cms/pages.phtml?pageid=192400&sessionid=bfe5de18d0105a321a2d35db265e56a3&t
District Quick Facts
Our Students 49,870+ students
--
Whoah, nearly 50,000 students now!
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Our Schools 95 total schools
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Now the counting gets fuzzy for some reason:
--
Our Staff (estimated) 8,000 total staff, 3,000 teachers
--
Holy union job batman, that's over 16 students per teacher and over 6 students per employee as listed on the current SPS web site.
There is something interesting about these numbers, a few years 'staff' numbers dropped drastically in the SPS reports.
It seems that a great many not directly working at a school just disappeared. They still have jobs and get paid from taxpayer sources, but it sure makes employee per student numbers look better.
--
So take your utter and your bull to some place where you can reconcile the magic staff numbers until they and you aren't taking tax payer money..
No brain, no pain.
Here are a couple more links:
School Employee Salaries http://wwwb.thenewstribune.com/databases/school_pay/
and a site that covers most of WA state type employees http://lbloom.net/
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If I recall correctly the lbloom.net info took a lot of court time to get access to this public data.
No brain, no pain.
Well, his language sounds pretty pugnacious to me.. People who think this way are common and are why authority gets away with what it does. If anything, they form one half of self-feeding system: they push for more invasive authority, which in turn demands more obedience training/indoctrination/learned helplessness, which spawns more of these people who then demand...
Yeah, why not grade on performance? Colleges used to dot his too, though now I think more of them are turning to attendance requirements for some odd reason.. Honestly, if you don't want to learn, there's nothing anyone can do for you and draconian prison rule doesn't encourage ANYONE to think much.
The interesting issue with this story is that the reason to track the kids is not to infringe on their privacy, but to ensure where they are so the school can get paid by the federal government!
.
As for lunch, seniors are allowed off campus for lunch if they are not failing any classes (except for jocks, who are allowed off campus even as juniors and no one seems to mind or call them on it) and there's enough time to get lunch if you're part of the first lunch period which starts a little past 11:15 am. These people can make it to In 'n' Out before the noon lunch rush. The second lunch period people are screeewed as the lunch rush lines make the burger place packed.
.
As for entry onto campus, there's a fence around the campus, and adults entering during school hours are also supposed to be checked in and authorized and not just wandering the halls. Though sometimes you'll see a recent grad (last year or two years ago) wandering in and looking high-schooly and not getting challenged. They don't really check IDs for entering if they think you're a student. Note that if you didn't sign in as a non-student, you won't be able to get back out as a signed-in visitor; they'll think you're a student and you won't be allowed off campus until the school day ends. Speaking of which, I better get going and get to school! ;>)
You misunderstood Jenga. The point is for you to remove pieces of the tower so it stays up and one of your opponents removes a piece and the tower falls.
So it's more like politics? Weaken the system and rig it to go tits up when it's the other guy's turn. That way he gets the blame.
Reporting attendance is a big deal if talking $30/day in state funding. It will tell if someone doesn't attend or is tardy in a class. Kids can't learn unless they are in class. Teachers can teach to empty chairs, but it doesn't do the kids much good if they aren't there. Still any amount of technology can't get the kids to engage. IMHO, teachers can teach, but the job of students are to learn. Good teacher help, technology is good, but learning can only be done by the student.
Anything that can get the kids to pay attention and buy into their part of the learning is the right thing.
From experience, the student 'wanting to learn' is much more important than technology or teachers ( but better teachers can make a difference compared to teachers that would rather be elsewhere).
But the state has problems with seeing their funding goes where it is used wisely, and Texas has chosen to withhold their funding if kids aren't there.
Historically there has been the golden rule and we haven't found a way around it.
It works in business, personal life, government, and education: The one with the gold, makes the rule.
... "When you pry the source from my cold dead hands."
"The article said the Northside Independent School District receives about $30 per day in state funding for each student reporting."
I'm wondering how that $30/day per student gets spent. At my old high school, 1500 students, that would have been $45,000 per day if all the fannies arrived in the seats (which they did, without such measures) ... enough to fund one whole teacher for the year... the school year is what, 150 days or so? for a school of that size, that's $6.75M dollars.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
How is that a conspiracy theory? It's pretty basic understanding that everything gets more advanced or acceptible by genrations because of the kids that grew up with (insert concept here) to be adults. It's plainly visible in music, 'morals', technological advances, and many other things, including what kind of surveillance we allow ourselves to be subjected to.
Yes, they are!
It's an extension of the corporate problem. They focus on quarterly results to the detriment of long term goal setting, planning, and investment, which is exactly why we DON"T need a businessman in the Whitehouse.
After posting several comments and not even reading the full original post nor the article, I've now done so and realized the most important questions: who gives the funding they mentioned? Why? Where does it come from and who made the decision? What is it spent on, and who benefits from that?
Sadly, a Libertarian cannot force his views on another, and freedom cannot spread as does the cancer known as religion.
So - Texas, the state of cowboys & leave me the %^&* alone is chipping students now !!! (for the sake of attendance, yeah right) I thought the GOP in that state wanted NO GOVT at all, and certainly nothing pertaining to BIG BROTHER, would ever, ever, ever consider such an invasive, socialist and dictatorial stance??? Perfect example of the GOP taking over education from actual teachers and educators & privatizing the hell out of everything, including the textbook debacle, then to be moving onto consideration of chipping students to track them. Who's in the Senate & House that's also in the back pocket of the tech companies involved for this RFID process? How many textbooks, $$$'s and other needed items were sacrificed to add this to the district budgets? Are they contributing to the current SuperPAC %^&* that basically has put the corrupted nail in our national political system? Why not use cool technology to block cell phone usage in the classroom, which is causing rampant problems in both public and private school? Put the same tech in hospitals that blocks access in certain areas, and do the same in schools. That way, kids can't use cell phones & can't be tracked when they're ON CAMPUS! Goal is attendance, so really, the RFID should only be tracking kids who are truant right??? Scents of a Civil War are already brewing and this does nothing but lend to the fight on either side - now that the GOP has been bought by the wealthiest in the world - what's next? Sniffing dogs that can detect recent sexual activity? I say - Do Not Tread on Me with Chips!!!
How about holding parents accountable to their kids to make sure they're their? Yet another parenting aspect being handed to the schools and teachers - what a joke? This is Texas right? So - Texas, the state of cowboys & leave me the %^&* alone is chipping students? I thought the GOP in that state wanted NO GOVT at all, and certainly nothing pertaining to BIG BROTHER. Perfect example of the GOP taking over education and privatizing the hell out of everything, including the textbook debacle, then to be moving onto consideration of chipping students to track them. Who's in the Senate & House that's in the back pocket of the tech companies involved? Are they contributing to the current SuperPAC %^&* that basically has put the corrupted nail in our national political system? Scents of a Civil War are already brewing and this does nothing but lend to the fight on either side Do Not Tread on Me with Chips!!!
So - Texas, the state of cowboys & leave me the %^&* alone is chipping students now !!! (for the sake of attendance, yeah right) I thought the GOP in that state wanted NO GOVT at all, and certainly nothing pertaining to BIG BROTHER, would ever, ever, ever consider such an invasive, socialist and dictatorial stance??? Perfect example of the GOP taking over education from actual teachers and educators & privatizing the hell out of everything, including the textbook debacle, then to be moving onto consideration of chipping students to track them. Who's in the Senate & House that's also in the back pocket of the tech companies involved for this RFID process? How many textbooks, $$$'s and other needed items were sacrificed to add this to the district budgets? Are they contributing to the current SuperPAC %^&* that basically has put the corrupted nail in our national political system? Why not use cool technology to block cell phone usage in the classroom, which is causing rampant problems in both public and private school? Put the same tech in hospitals that blocks access in certain areas, and do the same in schools. That way, kids can't use cell phones & can't be tracked when they're ON CAMPUS! Goal is attendance, so really, the RFID should only be tracking kids who are truant right??? Scents of a Civil War are already brewing and this does nothing but lend to the fight on either side - now that the GOP has been bought by the wealthiest in the world - what's next? Sniffing dogs that can detect recent sexual activity? I say - Do Not Tread on Me with Chips!!!
Hmmm really??? are you kidding me So - Texas, the state of cowboys & leave me the %^&* alone is chipping students now !!! (for the sake of attendance, yeah right) I thought the GOP in that state wanted NO GOVT at all, and certainly nothing pertaining to BIG BROTHER, would ever, ever, ever consider such an invasive, socialist and dictatorial stance??? Perfect example of the GOP taking over education from actual teachers and educators & privatizing the hell out of everything, including the textbook debacle, then to be moving onto consideration of chipping students to track them. Who's in the Senate & House that's also in the back pocket of the tech companies involved for this RFID process? How many textbooks, $$$'s and other needed items were sacrificed to add this to the district budgets? Are they contributing to the current SuperPAC %^&* that basically has put the corrupted nail in our national political system? Why not use cool technology to block cell phone usage in the classroom, which is causing rampant problems in both public and private school? Put the same tech in hospitals that blocks access in certain areas, and do the same in schools. That way, kids can't use cell phones & can't be tracked when they're ON CAMPUS! Goal is attendance, so really, the RFID should only be tracking kids who are truant right??? Scents of a Civil War are already brewing and this does nothing but lend to the fight on either side - now that the GOP has been bought by the wealthiest in the world - what's next? Sniffing dogs that can detect recent sexual activity? I say - Do Not Tread on Me with Chips!!!
The schools are paid by the fed (for lunch money, whatever else) based on student-days. If the student isn't there on Thursday, the school doesn't get paid for that student on Thursday. But they still have to spend lunch, class space, etc.
Let's track parents, to make sure they're taking their kids to school, and getting them a decent breakfast in the AM, as well as working with them on homework in the evenings! Kids only learn from who they're around most, typically parents - but unfortunately, that's long been replaced by SpongeBob, Halo, and Call of Duty - drilled into their squishy little brains since they were 3. No wonder Jonny is such a great artist, he only sees death and enemies every waking moment and dreams about them when not. Who's to blame (teachers, educators, the bus driver, Obama, GOP, politicians, Jesus?) Cmon - give me a %^&*( break!!! So - Texas, the state of cowboys & leave me the %^&* alone is chipping students now !!! (for the sake of attendance, yeah right) I thought the GOP in that state wanted NO GOVT at all, and certainly nothing pertaining to BIG BROTHER, would ever, ever, ever consider such an invasive, socialist and dictatorial stance??? Perfect example of the GOP taking over education from actual teachers and educators & privatizing the hell out of everything, including the textbook debacle, then to be moving onto consideration of chipping students to track them. Who's in the Senate & House that's also in the back pocket of the tech companies involved for this RFID process? How many textbooks, $$$'s and other needed items were sacrificed to add this to the district budgets? Are they contributing to the current SuperPAC %^&* that basically has put the corrupted nail in our national political system? Why not use cool technology to block cell phone usage in the classroom, which is causing rampant problems in both public and private school? Put the same tech in hospitals that blocks access in certain areas, and do the same in schools. That way, kids can't use cell phones & can't be tracked when they're ON CAMPUS! Goal is attendance, so really, the RFID should only be tracking kids who are truant right??? Scents of a Civil War are already brewing and this does nothing but lend to the fight on either side - now that the GOP has been bought by the wealthiest in the world - what's next? Sniffing dogs that can detect recent sexual activity? I say - Do Not Tread on Me with Chips!!!