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Texas School District Drops Embattled RFID Student IDs; Opts For Cameras
The Northside Independent School District (NISD) of Texas, has decided to drop their controversial student RFID card plans and settle on hundreds of cameras to monitor students. Apparently, the technology wasn't quite the attendance silver bullet administration thought it would be, as Slate's Will Oremus discovered. 'Northside Independent School District spokesman Pascual Gonzalez told me that the microchip-ID program turned out not to be worth the trouble. Its main goal was to increase attendance by allowing staff to locate students who were on campus but didn't show up for roll call. That was supposed to lead to increased revenue. But attendance at the two schools in question a middle school and a high school barely budged in the year that the policy was in place. And school staff found themselves wasting a lot of time trying to physically track down the missing students based on their RFID locators. "We're very confident we can still maintain a safe and secure school because of the 200 cameras that are installed at John Jay High School and the 100 that are installed at Jones Middle School. Plus we are upgrading those surveillance systems to high-definition and more sophisticated cameras. So there will be a surveillance-camera umbrella around both schools," Gonzalez said."'
Surveillance and regulations are innefective, education is the way to go. It fails with drugs, it fails with guns, and of course, it will fail to do anything to increase attendance in a middle school.
You mean, what the entire tech community said was going to happen, happened? Kids found ways around their stupid requirements and made them look like fools while some contractor got away with tons of public money?
It's like we need to establish the "If an average 5 year old can find holes in it" rule from the evil overlord list for public institutions.
And so if one silver bullet doesn't work, let's try another!
IMO, if students don't show up for roll call too often, you talk to them. Then you talk to their parents. Motivating them (children AND parents) is your job. Treating them like money cows, not so much. Likewise, you don't automate roll call*, as some schools have tried. It's about the children, so treat them like they're human. At least, that's my apparently unAmerican[tm] view of things.
* The roll call administration is something different again. But the actual call is to be done by person, thank you.
If the schools are focused on increasing revenue, something along the way is horribly broken.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Public schools are funded by the state
One of the criterion for receiving state money is attendance
The problem is low attendance, which results in less state money
They're trying to improve attendance in order to increase how much state money they get
Of course, the real problem is that state money is based on income rather than students actually learning anything.
It's hell teaching in most states because lawmakers, parents and administrators are competing to see who can prevent kids from learning the most.
You see this with a lot of schools. They become massive unmanageable compounds.
If the school is so big that you can't find your students in a reasonable amount of time even though they're on campus then your school is just too damn big.
Beyond that, there is a huge issue in our education system with putting the burden of attendance on the school or the teachers. How exactly is it the teacher's responsibility to make sure the students are in the class room? That is either the responsibility of the student or the parent. And if the student fails to show up or the parent fails to deliver the student... Fine. Find another school because you're expelled.
"But But, that will leave exceptionally stupid and disruptive children without even a marginal education."... And? So we should screw up the whole education system and force teachers to go play hide and go seek with various students just to raise an F- student up to a D- student? Not worth it.
Any meaningful test can be failed. If you cannot fail a test then it isn't a test. Life is full of tests. Will you get a job? Will you form some sort of life long relationship with someone else? Will you support yourself? Will you take care of your health? etc. The same is true in your professional career and the same is true in your education. Tests. Which you pass and fail. And not showing up to class is a failing grade.
End of story. Does that mean the school loses money due to poor attendance? Sure. But that's an accounting issue. Calculate things AFTER attendance not before. Then you don't lose anything. Or at least set your attendance projections at something more realistic. Scale back your projections by whatever percentage you over shot last year and you'll probably be closer to the ACTUAL attendance this year. What is the big problem.
You are not going to be able to save every kid. Stupidity is incurable. Get over it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Treat students like prisoners.
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I'd say that tying money to attendance is the problem.
That makes attendance a priority for the schools, which is wrong in itself. In a system without spare resources, prioritizing one thing will always mean de-prioritizing something else.
But also, the measuring of whatever criteria are used adds overhead, which already is way too high in schools.
Split the budget in two. One goes to every school based on the building mass and facilities they have. The other for education, and varies based on number of assigned students. If a large percentage of students don't attend, that leaves more money for those who does, which is good - that makes the school more attractive.
The younger you get them used to it, the better.
No sig today...
And so if one silver bullet doesn't work, let's try another!
How is drinking Coors Light one after another a solution to this problem?
is it a prison or a school?
What with the security checkpoints, lockdowns, forced searches of student property without permission...
That's a damn good question.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
This is horrible advice.
Kids are likely to like teachers who are friendly and let them get away with anything. Those who nag until they do their assignments or tell them to pay attention are not liked. But they may be way better pedagogues.
Thinking back to my youth, the teacher who was most universally hated was also the one whose teachings I remember the best today.
Texas education will surprise you, apparently. I know a choral conductor who recent took a job at a small Texas college. I asked her how many students were there, and she said "Oh, about 600". It's not a dedicated music college, so I expressed my surprise, and asked her if she could form a decent choir out of a student body of 600.
She said "Ah, but they're 600 Texans." Apparently music education is emphasized quite a lot in Texas K-12 schools, and far more students leave school knowing how to sing than in other states.
You forgot teachers' unions, who are also doing a fine job of it.
My high school had a powerful teachers union, was serving one of the poorer districts in the state, and on the whole a very good teaching staff. Some things that made a difference:
- Teachers had at least a 1-year probationary period in which they could be fired at the will of the administration. This meant that would-be teachers who proved themselves incompetent never made it into the system. That obviously didn't do anything about the established-but-now-doddering teachers, but it did mean that I was able to work with the administration to get rid of a chemistry teacher who couldn't do basic algebra.
- The teacher's union was smart about who it protected and who it didn't. Teachers who deserved to be fired due to gross incompetence or malice or stupid insubordination were not protected by the union. That meant that when the union went to bat for teachers that were getting laid off due to ageism or abusive administrators or politics (e.g. one administrator tried to get a teacher fired for talking about anti-Vietnam activism in a US history class), the city and the public were likely to back them up.
- The district I was in paid better than surrounding districts. That helped attract the best teachers, who (ceteris paribus) prefer getting paid better. In fact, we even had a couple of doctorates teaching high school in part because they could earn more than they would have at nearby colleges.
- Good people attract good people: Good teachers were attracted to that particular school because they knew they would be able to learn from their top-notch colleagues.
- As far as I could tell there was no drug testing. Some of the better teachers were widely known to be potheads, but they were never challenged on that basis.
I am officially gone from
Idiot administrators, bureaucrats, and politicians are certainly a problem that needs to be addressed (and I've seen a ton of them). But one of the biggest problems -- at least at my mother's former school and in her district -- (and this is from firsthand observation) is idiot teachers. The union defends their jobs with great ardor, and won't even bear the suggestion that they might be part of the problem. The union sticks up for all of their members, of course. Sometimes they defend good teachers against administrators who get in their way. But they also defend idiots against the few good administrators who want to get rid of them, and there are few worse things for a kid's education than an idiot in the classroom: a good teacher with a terrible administration can still get something done.
Perhaps the union in your mother's district is more benign and the teacher population is on the whole a lot better. This is just my experience with one district.
I'm worried about that too, but I calm down when I realize it might backfire. I was sent to Catholic schools from grade school to high school. I'm now convinced the best way to make sure a kid is agnostic or atheist when he grows up is forcing him to study religion in high school from your average high school teacher. Perhaps surveillance states in schools will be the best way to teach subsequent generations that it's a fucking annoying nightmare that should never be tolerated by people who consider themselves free.
I mean, our generations grew up without it, and we're giving a big fat "meh, It's probably a good thing, they say it is" to 1984 coming true. Maybe it's because we never lived it.