Big Schoolmarm Is Watching You
Francisco Vara-Orta writes at mySanAntonio.com:
Northside Independent School District plans to track students next year on two of its campuses using technology implanted in their student identification cards in a trial that could eventually include all 112 of its schools and all of its nearly 100,000 students.District officials said the Radio Frequency Identification System (RFID) tags would improve safety by allowing them to locate students -- and count them more accurately at the beginning of the school day to help offset cuts in state funding, which is partly based on attendance.
Northside, the largest school district in Bexar County, plans to modify the ID cards next year for all students attending John Jay High School, Anson Jones Middle School and all special education students who ride district buses. That will add up to about 6,290 students.
The school board unanimously approved the program late Tuesday but, in a rarity for Northside trustees, they hotly debated it first, with some questioning it on privacy grounds.
...The American Civil Liberties Union fought the use of the technology in 2005 at a rural elementary school in California and helped get the program canceled, said Kirsten Bokenkamp, an ACLU spokeswoman in Texas. She said concerns about the tags include privacy and the risks of identity theft or kidnapping if somebody hacks into the system.
Texas Education Agency spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said no state law or policy regulates the use of such devices and the decision is up to local districts.
"Safety" is typically the excuse used for yanking our civil liberties away. What people keep failing to see is that the most unsafe thing is giving up our civil liberties. Is that really worth knowing that Jennica went to 7-Eleven when she should have been in geography?
via ifeminists
Yet another great reason to carry a stainless-steel wallet.
a_random_guy at May 28, 2012 12:53 AM
Nothing that a few seconds in a microwave won't solve.
DrCos at May 28, 2012 4:16 AM
I can see how this will blow up for someone. I know that I was always half & half on carrying my wallet before I got my driver's license. I almost never carried my school ID. It went in a dresser drawer once they forced me to get it.
So the kid doesn't carry it and is counted absent numerous times: His house house is surrounded and the doors kicked in. His parents are arrested for his truancy.
The RFID tag burns out for any reason and is counted absent numerous times: His house house is surrounded and the doors kicked in. His parents are arrested for his truancy.
He hands the card to a friend who is in the same classes: He now has an alibi while he's out breaking into houses.
Kid is bussed in 25 miles. He forgot the ID at home. He is not admitted to school without proper id. So he either has to get a parent to bring it in or wander around the neighborhood all day. He is of course marked truant. His house house is surrounded and the doors kicked in. His parents are arrested for his truancy.
The kid just leaves his ID in the locker. Or slides it into ceiling, behind the bathroom sink, where ever. He hasn't seen the inside of the school for a month.
My high school had a 6 day cycle setup that was not based on the day of the week. I learned my sophomore year that with study hall, if the student didn't show up the first few weeks the teacher assumed you were in some other class or activity without reporting you missing. My Junior and Senior year I had two study halls during lunch time (ninety minutes) that I was free and clear. We had a closed campus that was porous as hell.
Technology is not a substitute for sense. Every time we make something fool proof, they invent a better fool.
Jim P. at May 28, 2012 6:50 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/05/big-schoolmarm.html#comment-3208080">comment from Jim P.I skipped most of my senior year of high school and I turned out okay. I'd gotten myself an internship at the local NBC station -- one meant for college kids. My school principal was so impressed that they said I could go to that Mon, Wed, and Friday and just come to school Tuesday and Thursday. Well, I had a good reputation (ill-deserved because I was a seriously lazy student and didn't take AP classes because I wanted an easy all-As ride), and managed to skip Tuesdays and Thursdays, too, thanks to my good-girl reputation.
Meanwhile, I read my ass off on my own and I guess I turned out okay. (Wrote papers at the end of the school year -- just knocked them off on the typewriter in about an hour per -- and got my As.) School in America was way too easy then and I'm guessing it's worse now, save for private schools.
Amy Alkon
at May 28, 2012 7:00 AM
Well my junior year I showed for the most part. How often I was unaltered is another question.
My senior year -- I turned 18 about 37 days in. I also had decided to join the USAF and was on the Delayed Entry Program by January of my senior year. All I needed was my diploma and did not give a shit about my GPA.
I don't think most of the school admin staff had a clue who I freakin was in junior or senior high. Again I learned to work the systems. Things like no excuse needed until after the third absence, my older sister who could forge my mother's signature for cash, turn in the minimum homework, etc.
Jim P. at May 28, 2012 7:46 AM
Aw hells to the no.
My kids would be yanked so fast they'd leave skid marks.
momof4 at May 28, 2012 8:15 AM
i rarely attended my JR year which was the year I graduated. Quiet kids with good grades can get away with anything. I just wanted to be adult already.
momof4 at May 28, 2012 8:19 AM
God forbid you're a straight-A honor student with two jobs.
You could go to jail for not sitting through the mandatory bludgeon-you-into-a-mindless-drone training.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-honor-student-jobs-jailed-missing-school/comments?type=story&id=16437893#.T8PMoY5yHww
"Judge Moriarty told KHOU 11 News that he intended to make an example of Tran.
"If you let one run loose, what are you going to do with the rest of them? Let them go, too?" Moriarty asked the TV station."
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at May 28, 2012 12:09 PM
Gog,
We actually did that the other day at Enough With Idiotic, One-Size-Fits-All Punishment In Schools.
But the Help Diane Tran fund is near $30K.
The petition to overrule the judge (www.change.org/petitions/honor-student-jailed-for-missing-school-ask-the-judge-to-cancel-her-fine-and-sentencing) is just shy of 26,5K signatures.
Jim P. at May 28, 2012 1:32 PM
I would not use that link to donate money, as it is not a secure transaction link.
drago at May 28, 2012 2:21 PM
Well the fund is over $100K and the petition over 252,100 signers and the judge dropping the charges.
I think that is a nice days work.
Jim P. at May 30, 2012 7:46 PM
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