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A NY School District Defies State, Plans To Proceed With Facial Recognition Test

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Re: A NY School District Defies State, Plans To Proceed With Facial Recognition Test

#41
post #18

The stated aims of the system are easily covertly expanded (and there is ample history to indicate that will happen) to turn the school into a panopticon, building a social graph and personality profile of kids as they grow up. To me this looks like an openly hostile act.

If it allows the school to accurately identify the most promising students it's worth it. How many kids with potential fall through the cracks now?

All[1] of them. All the kids. They all have the potential for fulfilling lives that contribute to society.

[1] Fine, almost all, there will be exceptions, but the goals of the education system should include making exceptions as rare as possible. At the very least I'll claim a belief that achieving a low enough rate of exceptions so as to make them negligible in practice.

Re: A NY School District Defies State, Plans To Proceed With Facial Recognition Test

#42
post #18

The stated aims of the system are easily covertly expanded (and there is ample history to indicate that will happen) to turn the school into a panopticon, building a social graph and personality profile of kids as they grow up. To me this looks like an openly hostile act.

If it allows the school to accurately identify the most promising students it's worth it. How many kids with potential fall through the cracks now?

Slightly better schools are worth this massive police state expansion? We could save many lives lost to crime each year if we forced everyone to wear ankle monitors all the time too - wouldn't that be even more worth it?

Re: A NY School District Defies State, Plans To Proceed With Facial Recognition Test

#43
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they outlaw burqas, they can face lawsuits over religious freedom.

Burqas are already outlawed in some parts of europe, it's dehumanizing and extremists symbol. Also by that ideology, women would not go to school anyways.

Many people wearing burqas—and perhaps most—indeed are the victims of such an ideology. But many aren’t, and so it is sensible to be clear that the burqa can be but isn't necessarily such a symbol.

Re: A NY School District Defies State, Plans To Proceed With Facial Recognition Test

#44
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they outlaw burqas, they can face lawsuits over religious freedom.

Perhaps so but there’s no legal protection when wearing such clothing for non-religious reasons, as would clearly be the case here.

What do you mean by non-religious reason? What about non-Christian holidays that are school days? Is that non-religious?

Has this been decided in jurisprudence?

Re: A NY School District Defies State, Plans To Proceed With Facial Recognition Test

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Mostly used as a prison" is a mischaracterization of that essay. The paper identified analogues between prison social behavior and school social behavior, and hypothesized that this shows that these patterns happen whenever a population is put in a society without their choice.

He literally call schools prisons: "What bothers me is not that the kids are kept in prisons, but that (a) they aren't told about it, and (b) the prisons are run mostly by the inmates." Source: http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

Public Schools force you to deal with a wide cross-section of society, especially compared to private schools (mainly mid to upper crust society) and colleges (people are there by choice, often after being part of the workforce and deciding to further themselves).

In many ways K-12 schools are run like prisons, with administrators playing god and throwing fits when challenged about their petty actions, students trapped in an environment not of their choosing, and society enforcing this structure.

I wish there were more diverse options for schooling, as I would've been much more interested in K-12 school had I been encouraged to dive into a subject, then asked to prove my knowledge, without the distraction of other subjects splitting my focus. College definitely offers much more flexibility in this regard, which has made for a much better experience.

Re: A NY School District Defies State, Plans To Proceed With Facial Recognition Test

#46
post #18

The stated aims of the system are easily covertly expanded (and there is ample history to indicate that will happen) to turn the school into a panopticon, building a social graph and personality profile of kids as they grow up. To me this looks like an openly hostile act.

If the kids are allowed to know their "social scores" many of them will compete to get the lowest to be cool. I kind of hope the administrators make this mistake. It would give me great Schadenfreude.

I thought only Communist China had social scores. Has it spread to the USA too?

Re: A NY School District Defies State, Plans To Proceed With Facial Recognition Test

#47
post #2

I look forward to hordes of teenagers pushing back against this - wearing hats, burkas, sunglasses, excessive makeup etc. etc. At least, I sure hope they will.

They will, but the school will just make policies outlawing clothing that covers facial features (or may have some already).

I’m pretty sure a simple grape inside each cheek will mess up the facial keypoint lookup

Re: A NY School District Defies State, Plans To Proceed With Facial Recognition Test

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He literally call schools prisons: "What bothers me is not that the kids are kept in prisons, but that (a) they aren't told about it, and (b) the prisons are run mostly by the inmates." Source: http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

Public Schools force you to deal with a wide cross-section of society, especially compared to private schools (mainly mid to upper crust society) and colleges (people are there by choice, often after being part of the workforce and deciding to further themselves). In many ways K-12 schools are run like prisons, with administrators playing god and throwing fits when challenged about their petty actions, students trapp…

Depends on where you went to public school. My southern Bay Area public schools consisted almost exclusively of well off students because of housing prices.

Re: A NY School District Defies State, Plans To Proceed With Facial Recognition Test

#49
post #31

Lockport is an old factory town on the Erie Canal, not far from Buffalo and Niagara Falls. The population is about 20,000 people. North of the city is orchards and farmland, south are the outer suburbs of Buffalo. It's not a place known for high tech, nor is it known for high municipal spending. The backstory of how this came about would surely be interesting.

A plausible story is that Lockport is the county seat of Niagara County, NY, which has three land (bridge) crossings with Canada, and therefore has significant USCIS presence throughout the county. I can imagine a joint task force involving county law enforcement and USCIS. Most schools in NY State have armed police (“school resource officer”) present. They probably all go to the same sporting events, drink at the sa…

Lockport is not the county seat of Niagara County. It's a dilapidated, failing school district that's experiencing a huge amount of wealth flight as it's situated ~10 mins from two quite prominent school districts.

Re: A NY School District Defies State, Plans To Proceed With Facial Recognition Test

#50
post #23

No problems from me. NY schools already have a security guard on duty that watches everyone coming and going through the front door. Its not always easy job, anything that can help them would be great.

> NY schools already have a security guard on duty that watches everyone coming and going through the front door.

Nope.

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