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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."
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?"
It probably means that the teachers haven't a clue who their charges are and that the writer of the above passed through the system despite not attending.
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...
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.
Let's see here... You don't use capitalization and make use of sentence fragments. Sure, I'll believe that your teachers didn't care!
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.
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.
Kids will never think of having a friend hold their card while they go off to do whatever it is kids do nowdays.
I think somebody accidentally a word.
Capitals are the oppressors of the lower case. The lOWER cASE has as much rights as the Capital Case.
What his teachers tought him is that all are characters are equal! What you are trying to say is that some characters are more equal than others. Shame on you.
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.
Please get both of those words out of the discussion. They are neither the consumer or the product. Education is not a product to be consumed.
They are students! They are there to learn, to be curious, to ask questions, make mistakes, and get messy.
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
Or why not stop paying the schools by the student-days of attendance? Perhaps a more sane method of funding the schools, if you're going to have public schools in the first place, would work.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
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.
Lets take this to another extreme, Jimmy doesn't want to go to school, so his girlfriend sally who was in all his classes takes his badge with her and places it at his desk and turns in the homework she did for him. When Jimmy's teacher says Jimmy wasn't there, Jimmy points to his RFID and the fact that he turned in his homework. Jimmy's presence is his RFID, and seeing as it isnt embedded in his arm, he can be wherever his girlfriend wants him to be. Now say Jimmy is also in a gang and robs a liquor store while he is "in class", killing to clerk in the process. Jimmy now has an alibi because attendance is determined via RFID (and he turned in his homework).
Disagreeing with you does not make me a troll.
Hush yo mouf!
I jus talkin bout Jimmy
I'm not sure I like Jimmy.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
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.
When I was young, I thought Fahrenheit 451 was about suppressing books because government was authoritarian.
I read it more recently and realized it was because the people had democratically decided that books were unhealthy and interfered with watching Dancing with the Stars.
Then the police look into the alibi and determine that it's just a chip. They talk to the techs just to make sure their suspicions on the validity of chips for tracking is correct; they are not reliable enough to stand up in the court of law.
So they go to the school and ask the teacher and kids if they remember seeing Jimmy on the day of so-and-so. His girlfriend swears he was there, but they find her not to be a reliable witness - being his girlfriend and all. Others, however, only recall his badge sitting lonely at his desk.
The police then review the hallway security cameras, and put the feed next to the badge ID logs. Sure enough, when his girlfriend enters, two IDs are logged; hers, and Jimmy's. When she leaves again, two IDs are logged; hers and Jimmy's.
The police collect the information as evidence, take down formal testimonies, and write up a report as to Jimmy's claimed alibi.
Jimmy is found to have lied to the police, and the police find themselves armed with another argument in an eventual court case, and more leeway in the investigation. His girlfriend will be brought in for further questioning and may eventually be charged with aiding and abetting.
Whether or not Jimmy would be tried, let alone convicted, is another matter altogether. But his alibi would be shot down long before that.
Real life just doesn't always fit with people's idealistic views that all cops are stupid and/or lazy and/or corrupt.
Because we need a metric that can be measured with a daily KPI to show progress. This is what happens when you expect to apply "business rules" other places on society not based on monetary results.