4 ms·
I went to a high school with metal detectors, reinforced doors, armed guards, dogs, cameras, central electronic locking, road and pedestrian checkpoints, and, y
by hapless 14y ago
I went to a high school with metal detectors, reinforced doors, armed guards, dogs, cameras, central electronic locking, road and pedestrian checkpoints, and, yes, ID badges. As a high school student in the late 1990s, I was more closely monitored than your average prisoner.
So my takeaway from the article is pretty specific: Bullshit. Carrying a school ID badge with an RFID chip on the school's campus is no great injustice. It's trivial compared to the routine degradations inflicted on a public school student.
Somehow, this makes it to court, while the routine problems are ignored. It's OK to treat students like prisoners, right up until new technology is involved. The RFIDs are the scary part, not the guards, weapons, bars, and locks.
- mitchty 14y agoAs a counterpoint to you and someone that went to high school at the same time in the US. I experienced none of what you did.
- hapless 14y agoMy high school was in a wealthy area with ~4,000 students. Economies of scale apply. When this becomes the "standard of care" at smaller schools, you'll just see other budgets slashed to provide these dubious "services."
- brown9-2 14y agoMine had 1600 students and probably a higher median income and none of those things. I would guess problems of crime have more to do with this than economic status or size.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- acuozzo 14y ago> My high school was in a wealthy area with ~4,000 students. That "standard of care" you experienced seems more appropriate for an inner city public school than one in a wealthy area. Food for thought.
- lnanek2 14y agoSame here. We had mandatory ID cards, a school police force including a drug dog, regular locker searches (which regularly turned up drugs), trouble for students that didn't attend including suspension and not passing, etc.. I read the article and really don't see it as any different from my old school requiring us all to have our IDs constantly. So it has an RFID instead of a number to read off. Big deal.
- theorique 14y agoWhere are these schools where these things are allowed and encouraged? Seems like it would be extremely expensive (in terms of money and student/teacher time) and disruptive to learning.
- hapless 14y agoMidwestern suburban paradise. Median income for the school district is $52,000. That's enough higher than the surrounding county that they can afford quite a lot of expense and disruption. It was certainly not driven by poverty or crime. I'm sure it's worse now, 15 years on.