Vanquishing Villains in Our Schools
Warning: Invective Rich Rant Ahead
MSNBC is reporting in this article that a Sutter, California school is requiring radio-beaconed ids to be worn by all students. And imagine this...not everybody is happy about it!
SUTTER, Calif. - The only grade school in this rural town is requiring students to wear radio frequency identification badges that can track their every move. Some parents are outraged, fearing it will rob their children of privacy.
The badges introduced at Brittan Elementary School on Jan. 18 rely on the same radio frequency and scanner technology that companies use to track livestock and product inventory.
Which is insulting, at the very least!
While similar devices are being tested at several schools in Japan so parents can know when their children arrive and leave, Brittan appears to be the first U.S. school district to embrace such a monitoring system.
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The system was imposed, without parental input, by the school as a way to simplify attendance-taking and potentially reduce vandalism and improve student safety. Principal Earnie Graham hopes to eventually add bar codes to the existing ID’s so that students can use them to pay for cafeteria meals and check out library books.
You know, because it is so hard to take attendance. All of that calling of names and listening for the "here", and then making a checkmark in a book. It takes all of two minutes. Lazy bastards! And who out there thinks that making kids wear an ugly billboard around their necks is going to make them respect their environs more? Isn't it more likely to lead to rebellion and further desecration of the walls of learning? Sometimes Technology isn't the answer!
But some parents see a system that can monitor their children’s movements on campus as something straight out of Orwell.
Well no shit, Sherlock!
“There is a way to make kids safer without making them feel like a piece of inventory,” said Michael Cantrall, one of several angry parents who complained. “Are we trying to bring them up with respect and trust, or tell them that you can’t trust anyone, you are always going to be monitored and someone is always going to be watching you?”
Yes, yes, I think that is EXACTLY what you are telling them.
Cantrall said he told his children, in the 5th and 7th grades, not to wear the badges. He also filed a protest letter with the board and alerted the ACLU.
Good for him! I wouldn't let my kids wear them either!
Graham, who also serves as the superintendent of the single-school district, told the parents that their children could be disciplined for boycotting the badges — and that he doesn’t understand what all their angst is about.
Apparently this school district is run by the dumbest asshat in the world. How obtuse can you get?
“Sometimes when you are on the cutting edge, you get caught,” Graham said, recounting the angry phone calls and notes he has received from parents.
Sometimes when you attempt to treat children as though they are your own little jews to be rounded up, marked, and imprisoned in this manner, some people will call you a dictating, ignorant, asshat.
Each student is required to wear identification cards around their necks with their picture, name and grade and a wireless transmitter that beams their ID number to a teacher’s handheld computer when the child passes under an antenna posted above a classroom door.
Welcome to the feedlot. You will now be known as inmate # 758425.
Does anybody else see this leading to kids running black markets where they carry your id to class so that you can go smoke crack on the sidewalk in front of the 7-11? Why can't the teachers of this nation take a personal interest in their pupils? Learn their names? Notice when they aren't in class instead of relying on what some handheld device tells you? Suppose one kid shows up with 29 ids in his backpack...are those kids absent if the computer doesn't say so? Then, of course, there is the matter of framing some gradeschool enemy. Suppose some 6th grader talks to your boyfriend. Then, you get your friend to steal her id and frame her for cutting class, graffiti in the Teacher's Lounge, and stealing donuts from the lunchroom.
Graham also asked to have a chip reader installed in locker room bathrooms to reduce vandalism, although that reader is not functional yet. And while he has ordered everyone on campus to wear the badges, he said only the 7th- and 8th-grade classrooms are being monitored thus far.
Because the school system needs to know when you pee or insert a tampon.
In addition to the privacy concerns, parents are worried that the information from the badges could wind up in the wrong hands and endanger their children, and that radio frequency technology might carry health risks.
GRRR.
Graham dismisses each objection, arguing that the devices do not emit any cancer-causing radioactivity, and that for now, they merely confirm that each child is in his or her classroom, rather than track them around the school like a global-positioning device.
You see, it can't be that bad. Besides, it is wrong to question the Supreme Emperor.
The 15-digit ID number that confirms attendance is encrypted, he said, and not linked to other personal information such as an address or telephone number.
Yeah, 'cause that's what's bothering people, not your systematic attempts to turn our children into nameless zombies who eat whatever you feed their brains and regurgitate it upon command. If they won't regurgitate, or won't wear their badges, send them to the gas chambers. This guy really is a Nazi.
What’s more, he says that it is within his power to set rules that promote a positive school environment: If he thinks ID badges will improve things, he says, then badges there will be.
“You know what it comes down to? I believe junior high students want to be stylish. This is not stylish,” he said.
Well, they are ugly...but fashion falls way low on the list when it comes to personal privacy, safety, and I don't know...individuality and self-esteem and respect. What an idiot! We aren't talking about parachute pants...we're talking about putting a tracking system on our kids, turning them into little automatons. Am I completely alone in my outrage? Shout out! Tell them that this vile practice is the same as having to wear a star on your coat!
This latest adaptation of radio frequency ID technology was developed by InCom Corp., a local company co-founded by the parent of a former Brittan student, and some parents are suspicious about the financial relationship between the school and the company. InCom plans to promote the technology at a national convention of school administrators next month.
You know, some of my issues with this would be addressed if the superintendent and the teachers would consent to having a similar device inserted into their bowels. After all...we need to know where the teachers and administrators are at all times too. How do I know some sex-starved teacher isn't attempting to molest my 12-year-old? How do I know the administrator isn't playing peeping tom in the girl's locker room? Fair is fair!
InCom has paid the school several thousand dollars for agreeing to the experiment, and has promised a royalty from each sale if the system takes off, said the company’s co-founder, Michael Dobson, who works as a technology specialist in the town’s high school. Brittan’s technology aide also works part-time for InCom.
Ah...so now we learn the Superintendent is getting a kick-back. I still vote that he get his own receiver inserted into his nether regions!
Not everyone in this close-knit farming town northwest of Sacramento is against the system. Some said they welcomed the IDs as a security measure.
“This is not Mayberry. This is Sutter, California. Bad things can happen here,” said Tim Crabtree, an area parent.
I didn't realize that Sutter was a veritable South Central. I'm still opposed, do you hear me? I am pissed off! Not enough is being said about this! SCUMBAG! HITLER! NAAAZZZIIIII!
So tell me readers, are you too outraged?
