Friday, February 11, 2005

Big Brother in the Elementary School

One of hte few issues that I truly get riled up about is education. Typcially, I come from the point of view that the more education the better. I am also interested in technology that will make schools either safer, more accountable and/or more effective. All three in one aspect is good.

The article, appearing on CNN.com, talks about an ID technology that allows for an elementary school to track their students through chips in their ID cards. What a superb idea!! I understand some of the privacy aspects as being real challenges, but knowing that you kids are where they are supposed to be is always a good idea. The parents who complain about invasion of privacy have no concept of what good parenting is supposed to be. A good parent is intrusive in their child's lives. Granted, a child should have some modicum of privacy, with a little more granted by the parents as the child ages. As a matter of course, children are not entitled to an unlimited right of privacy, particularly in the school setting. The limitations are both practical and legal. A child in school is expected to be in class, on time, and at least in theory ready to learn. On teh legal side of matters, a child may have his/her locker searched, and under certain circumstances and in certain states, they are subject to search themselves. However, kids do have some privacy rights, but an attendance monitoring system is not one of those instances. Kids, and their parents, have a reasonable expectation that the ID badge will not be tied to the schools computers that contain address, academic/grading, or other personal information, but they have no expectation that attendence records be completely private.

State and federal rules regarding recordkeeping, grading, and other forms of paperwork teachers and school administrators must complete, any method to ease their burden and free them up to teach is a welcome relief. In a moderate 25-30 kid classroom, calling the roll may take as much as five minutes and that means five minutes not spent teaching. If the system talked about in this article is reliable, by all means, I think is should remain in place.

CNN.com - Parents protest radio ID tags for students - Feb 10, 2005

No comments: