Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems • Hacker News Board

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#101

Post by danmg » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:14 PM UTC

esaym wrote: post #94

danmg wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The school district I graduated from, around the same time, hired some consultant who used Brazosport, TX as the role model on how to improve their NCLB related standardized test scores. It did not turn out well.

Brazosport (in the mid 1990's) had very good scores on the standardized tests. But that was literally all they taught. And this was the TAAS test which had very little content in it.

This is the straight up propaganda they were selling: https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-2001-04-01-3363949-story.h... .

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#102

Post by jdietrich » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

momokoko wrote: post #26

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #2

"The local Brazosport Independent School District had recently hired a company called Social Sentinel to monitor public posts from all users, including adults, on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. The company's algorithms flagged Lafrenais's tweet as a potential threat. Automated alerts were sent to the district's superintendent, chief of police, director of student services, and director of guidan…

Unfortunately, it's pick one. Either: 1. Allow for potential bullying and sexual harassment and other things kids put each other through. 2. Monitor every single thing they do and police them at all times. We as a society need to make a choice. You cannot have a perfectly safe and positive environment at all times for children(and adults) without constant and detailed monitoring. My guess is that the correct answer l…

>I'm shocked how insane and unrealistic the people downvoting this are. I feel so unbelievably bad if any of you have children or vote on any policy that has to do with children. Awful people. Just awful.

If you see people disagree with your opinion and conclude that they're awful people who are unfit to vote or raise children, you might want to spend some time reflecting on whether you're being reasonable.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#103

Post by rgrieselhuber » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:19 PM UTC

ilikehurdles wrote: post #90

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sure is a lot of assumptions and accusations.

Most of the comment was spent explaining the counter-arguments to your own accusations. Homeschool helicopter-parents have thought that public schools are a dumpster fire for as long as they have existed. Parents absolutely do not have the skills alone to give their children a well-rounded education, period. That some people can even think this could ever be different is a testament to the low quality of education an…

Show me an accusation I made? I don't see any.

> Parents absolutely do not have the skills alone to give their children a well-rounded education, period. That some people can even think this could ever be different is a testament to the low quality of education and media in the US.

That's why you don't do it alone. You get involved with co-ops, sign them up for classes, use established curricula, and more.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#104

Post by faissaloo » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

I was (and still am) against the monitoring, restriction and limiting of student devices at school. I find it deeply disturbing that children are going to be monitored when they aren't even on school grounds, it's nightmarish. Every day homeschooling my future children looks exponentially better.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#105

Post by esaym » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:00 PM UTC

danmg wrote: post #101

esaym wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazosport (in the mid 1990's) had very good scores on the standardized tests. But that was literally all they taught. And this was the TAAS test which had very little content in it.

This is the straight up propaganda they were selling: https://www.mcall.com/news/mc-xpm-2001-04-01-3363949-story.h... .

Wow talk about nostalgia!

Mrs. Sale was the elementary principal in the 1990's. She was nice, though I never got sent to her office in elementary school. My trouble years started after 5th grade. In 5th grade my teacher was Mr. Davis. The only man teacher in the elementary. There were plenty of rumors going around about how he had the hots for Mrs. Sale. And in the article's date of 2001 and with the new name of Mrs 'Sale-Davis', I guess the rumors were right!

I was a Karankawa in 7th grade and a Mayan in 8th. I never knew what the purpose of the 'pep rallies' were. Just figured it was what all schools did. I don't even know what was talked about, I was just happy to get out of class. Sometimes my buddy and I would try to pick up rocks on the way to the gym to throw at people from the stands. Or a couple of times we'd sneak to the bathroom and hide out there but that was really boring. I did think it was somewhat strange that we organized our grades and classes into Indian tribe names. Gang violence was all around us and it seemed to be an inappropriate parody.

Even more interesting is the resistance in 1992 it speaks of with some teachers quitting over the new ideas. I know in the early 1990's, several teachers and counselors moved from Brazosport to its rival a few towns over 'Brasozwood'. Perhaps that was the reason. I only knew of that because I briefly attended Brasozwood in the 8th grade and later in life found a collection of year books from the two schools and was perplexed that many of the administrators I knew from Brasozwood were listed in the Brazosport year books of the 1980's.

>"Brazosport is unabashed about admitting it teaches to the test."

I guess the question is, "but is that right"?

"I know you're heading to the bathroom to tuck in that shirt," she tells a 10th-grade boy, who smiles widely before ducking into the men's room." <-- heck that was probably me!

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#106

Post by esaym » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:11 PM UTC

panzagl wrote: post #95

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and led to more positive interventions in your education You mean actions that are arguably beneficial on paper but in practice amount to the school telling the at-risk student to respect my authority ? That stuff never works in practice when the party the at-risk person doesn't respect/care about is the same party or has sufficient/control or incentive alignment with the party doing the intervention.

So you're saying you were beyond all influence so they just should have left you alone? At that point they should have expelled you- did you ever think of the damage you were doing to the rest of the school population by your actions? edit- did not realize you were not parent poster, though I think this holds true.

>At that point they should have expelled you-

That is an interesting point. "Get rid of the bad so the good can flourish". Which is opposite of the "equity" doctrine so popular over the last year.

I don't know what 'expelled' means in your definition. I was kicked out of the normal high school and sent to an 'alternative placement center' full of troubled youth several times. That was part of the reason I never failed a grade in high school.

The alternative center had very few teachers and had students from 6th grade through 12th. In the math and english classes, they were combined with students from high school and middle school. So when I'd get sent there, I'd have failing grades in math and english, but then in the alternative center, I was given 6th grade level work which I got all A's on and saved me for the year.

If you got kicked out of the alternative center, there was some kind of bootcamp type place you'd go to. Most of the kids I know that got sent there just ended up dropping out of school completely.

But all this is a contradiction. Many here are against homeschooling, yet when push comes to shove, no one wants trouble makers in the public school. But if homeschooling is bad and they can't go to public school, then what is left?

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#107

Post by spaginal » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:20 PM UTC

thrower123 wrote: post #69

momokoko wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can have zero tolerance for bullying and harassment, without 100 surveillance You absolutely, positively, cannot have that. Bullying is an all day every day thing with children. Especially boys. The only way you prevent it all the time is to never leave boys alone in a group with no monitoring or supervision. Edit: If you are downvoting or disagreeing with this, you are part of the absurdly unreasonable expecta…

Bullying seems to be such a massively larger problem these days, compared to when I was in grade school a couple decades ago. Or at least people are hyper-aware of it. I suppose part of it is that it's not really acceptable to turn around and punch somebody in the mouth if they are being an obnoxious shit anymore. If it is just allowed to slide, the harassment escalates over time, especially in an environment like a…

I think zero tolerance on both parties plays a large part into this.

I was mercilessly bullied in elementary school until I attacked my bully at recess in 6th grade. I’m almost 40 now and it still stands out as a pivotal moment in my growth into an adult. That one action stopped the behavior for good and I wasn’t severely punished for it. It also settled down the kid who bullied me.

I know now that schools can punish victims as severely as the bully, and I think it exacerbates the problem instead of fixing it. The bullies incentives don’t change, but the victim of it has substantially more to fear. Not only from the bully, but the institution itself if they fight back or get goaded into the confrontation.

Frankly, let the children fight it out and allow an environment to develop where children don’t tolerate the behavior and work on conflict resolution themselves.

Overt surveillance by adults isn’t a fix for it, nor is allowing it to develop to a point where a kid brings a gun to school to fix it themselves.

We’ve lost healthy conflict resolution in this country, and yes, physical fighting can be a healthy outlet to solve it.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#108

Post by Silhouette » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:31 PM UTC

Maximus9000 wrote: post #13

xfitm3 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm speechless. This is egregious and unacceptable. I'm thankful this kind of stuff didnt exist when I grew up.

> I'm thankful this kind of stuff didnt exist when I grew up. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard an adult say this phrase lately, I'd be rich! Did adults used to say this phrase 30 years ago? What are we doing to ourselves and our kids?

What are we doing to ourselves and our kids?

My instinctive reaction whenever I hear the phrase "think of the children" these days is along the lines of "I am thinking of the children, and I don't want them to have to grow up in the world you are trying to create, which is why I disagree with what you're doing".

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#109

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC

momokoko wrote: post #31

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its popular to create false dichotomies. Like this one. How about: monitor them sometimes and train them into good behavior patterns, so as to create a population of civil citizens You can have zero tolerance for bullying and harassment, without 100 surveillance. Like any civil society.

> You can have zero tolerance for bullying and harassment, without 100 surveillance You absolutely, positively, cannot have that. Bullying is an all day every day thing with children. Especially boys. The only way you prevent it all the time is to never leave boys alone in a group with no monitoring or supervision. Edit: If you are downvoting or disagreeing with this, you are part of the absurdly unreasonable expecta…

Again with the dichotomies. Understand that in one microcosm (school) it may have been like that. But in others it might have worked differently. So from one viewpoint, that's the 'only way' things can work. In my experience, it can work differently. I had 3 boys in public school.

Re: Schools Are Deploying Digital Surveillance Systems

#110

Post by Silhouette » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

cr0sh wrote: post #66

Maximus9000 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm thankful this kind of stuff didnt exist when I grew up. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard an adult say this phrase lately, I'd be rich! Did adults used to say this phrase 30 years ago? What are we doing to ourselves and our kids?

It's kinda crazy. We say this - but I suspect we are a minority. Simply because "we" (some of us - not I) are parents of kids in these systems, but there are other parents of our age with kids in these systems who like them just fine - and I suspect there's more of them. Otherwise - why would "we" let these systems exist, if "we" are glad they didn't exist back when "we" were in school? I also suspect that those pare…

Are we the strange ones? If it's all about numbers alone, we might be...

A lot of it is ignorance, I think, not in a derogatory sense but simply not understanding the nature of the technologies now being used, the potential consequences if they are abused or defective, and the other possibilities that might improve the situation. Not everyone is or wants to be a technical expert. Unfortunately, that includes the politicians and lawyers and regulators who are generally charged with helping average people to avoid complex threats they don't understand and can't effectively defend against themselves.

The problem is that in this case, there are also strong motivations for some powerful groups that do understand these technologies to exploit them, from making more profit for big tech businesses to increasing the powers of state intelligence agencies to intrude into ordinary people's lives. Rather ironically, these data-gathering organisations also tend to be unable to see the bigger picture, and without any similarly powerful organisations to challenge aspects of the technology that might be less desirable, politicians just hear about economic growth or better security or whatever other headline benefit, while the steady erosion of everyone's basic rights and freedoms continues.