GPS, Maryland considering GPS tracking for truant students
By Paul Miller 
posted February 12th 2007 10:40AM
posted February 12th 2007 10:40AM
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GPS, posted February 12th 2007 10:40AM
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What are they going to do? Give the kids GPS enabled bracelets to wear? You'll have 10 kids skipping school with the geek of the class wearing 11 bracelets to not get his lunch money stolen.
Exactly. That's why these GPS tracking chips need to be surgically implanted into these teens with a long enough battery life so that if some of these teens decide to go down a path of crime later in life, they could be easily found as well.
lol... The pic really really made me laugh. :-)
So what we have is a $1 million dollar gov't grant project to put $50 tags around teenagers necks to track them from class to class. When the reckless kids break the tags, the state will have to grant additional $50 tags (you can't force the families to pay for them). When the teenagers leave the tags in their lockers, the system fails. Even if it flags lack of motion as "child on the lam," you'd have so many red herrings, it'd be pointless. Did I mention that it helps to actually hire someone to follow up on the program: You know, another IT guy and an administrator for the schools? Did I mention that the politician will look like a tool when it fails? Did I mention that I like to make long posts?
dang!
lol i live in maryland, and that'd be so funny. i used to skip class all the time, the whole school did. no one does anythign about it.
Just think no need for an Amber alert, we already know where your kid is and we now have who snatched them.
Being a parent until you are 18 this seems fine to me. It sure would have kept me out of a whole lot of trouble.
Society complains that school aren't teaching kids. Think about how hard it is to teach kids who don't bother to stick around? Obviously most kids aren't habitual truants, but those who are royally screw it up for everyone else, especially with NCLB forcing schools to be more and more responsible for controlling students who don't care. It's not like we can tie them to chairs.
The expectation is that children under a certain age are required to be in school, in some way (home school, alt ed programs, traditional school, etc) and those who are not need to be accounted for.
Who really can be held responsible when a 15 year old kids decides to skip school (we can't watch them ALL)? How about a 16 year old... who in many places isn't legally required to attend school?
Is GPS the best solution? I don't know about that, but at least it's something. Perhaps it is a better solution for repeaters.
I suppose when those kids have kids that are skipping school, I'd love to see how they deal with it. Suddenly the anarchistic tendencies don't seem as cool.
Why are the parents not supposed to be responsible for their juvenile children? Millions of tax dollars to possibly replace what good parenting should have instilled in the first place? How about parents actually disciplining their offspring? Thias sounds like a multi million dollar solution to a $10 belt problem.
Exactly, cade.
"They're not in control of their children . . . It doesn't make any sense to continue to beat on the parents."
as a parent, it sounds like to me that some of these kids just needs a good ass-whoopin' to get their attention . . . though they needed it about 10 or so years ago.
If a kid REALLY doesn't want to be in school, doesn't that mean that school is, you know... fucking miserable? I used to not go to school all the damn time. Not because I was a bad kid and I was off doing drugs or something, but because it was just a horrible place to be. These morons should consider re-evaluating their school system instead of thinking of more creative ways to enforce stupid rules.
Or, Aaron... perhaps YOU could become a community member who does something more than complain - offer ideas. If you're so smart about it, what could have happened in school to keep you there?
Amazingly, few people actually have answers that are actually legal, but they are quick to blame the schools. Schools aren't for baby-sitting, no matter how lazy or absent the parents are.
Or, Aaron... perhaps YOU could become a community member who does something more than complain - offer ideas. If you're so smart about it, what could have happened in school to keep you there?
Amazingly, few people actually have answers that are actually legal, but they are quick to blame the schools. Schools aren't for baby-sitting, no matter how lazy or absent the parents are.
Tinfoil bracelets, anyone?
Or perhaps you could stop pretending to know my life.
I live in a very rural area right now. Not the same place I went to school in. There IS no community here.
And yes, I absolutely blame the schools. Because once my mother and I went in to talk to them, things got better. They allowed me to go in later in the day, which helped me a lot. If I missed a day here or there, they didn't call about it. I was moved into some different, smaller classes.
Don't accuse me of just "complaining". The awful public school system is directly responsible for many of my worst years. But I've seen that it can be better, and that's why I know it can be made to work for everyone.
A) The reason I stopped going to school was that it was boring. I wasn't learning anything because the curriculum was designed for "most kids" and not for me. Whenever I tried to do something about it I received flak from 90% of my classmates for being different - and the teachers didn't care! So it didn't take long for me to get fed up and stop caring.
B) Do these GPS devices have external antenna connectors so I can hook up a quadrifilar helix antenna and hack around with it? Perhaps if the design allows for some modification a few kids who don't care will become interested enough to stick around and teach themselves..
I, for one, welcome our GPS-tracking overlords.
Uh...no.
As a maryland student, this is BS. Never going to happen...I hope...>_
Ahh Parenting 2.0, now we just await Robots to raise our children and our society should be in
tip-top shape! Why be a parent when your talking washing machine can do it? Just install one of those food/water dispensers that dogs have and you should be all set.
I support this legislation as the first step on the road to this brave new world:
http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF099AD-Truancy_Bot.gif#169
In all seriousness, Chris is right on. I forced myself to go to school every single day, back when, but past elementary school (Florida has a full-time elementary school gifted program), it was mostly just a miserable, pointless experience. A decade or so out, a college degree and Fulbright grant under my belt, and a couple of years spent teaching volunteer classes to NYC high school students, I'm still pissed about all the time that I had to waste back in the 11-17 years. You want to make kids stay in school? Make it a worthwhile experience. Kids are a lot smarter than people give them credit for, and if more time was spent trying to teach them rather than trying to discipline them, schools would see a lot more enthusiasm from their students.
I believe that an education should not be free... Make people pay for it... Maybe they would respect it a little more... Tax dollars mean nothing to a 14 year old kid......Though, I believe most teachers teach because they want to give something back to the community, the requirement of teachers to manage (remember, you can't fire these kids for not doing their job) 40 - 50 students an hour, seven hours a day five days a week (lunch and prep not counting) is a task in itself. Multiply that with teaching, the part that teachers are suppossed to have ample time and resources to do, and your asking a lot...Reduce class sizes and I believe that teachers would be more enthusiastic about creating more challenging and dynamic content. This is true because they would have a few hours in the evening to put this content together, not to mention actually have time to work with students on a personal level....
Done...
My company is getting ready to start selling a Gps track that is very small. It comes out in 5 weeks you are going to be able to track dogs, kids, cars, basically everything. It's called the all purpose tracker and the cost is $150 for the device and $50 month for the online tracking. E-mail me if you would like to know more