In Texas, GPS helps kids get to school
School officials in Dallas have started giving GPS devices to kids who regularly have trouble making it to school — so they can't pass off illegitimate excuses when they're truant. The GPS devices appear to be improving attendance for these students, and one expert notes in the Times article on the subject, “It’s far better than locking a kid up” — not to mention less expensive, despite paying for a full-time case manager to check in on students.
Still, some in Texas have complained about the tracking systems, saying the ankle bracelets used in an earlier iteration of the Dallas experiment, and currently used in a similar program in another Texas city, are reminiscent of slave chains. I, too, am uncomfortable with a program that eases kids to the indignities of being monitored electronically. On the other hand, perhaps if students at Brooklyn's Boys and Girls High School were part of a program like the one in Dallas, they would make it to school in time for the starting bell, after which, according to the Post, students complain they are sometimes barred from admission. (Boys and Girls is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit over illegal pushouts filed in 2005 by Advocates for Children, Insideschools' parent organization.)
2 comments:
We would like a variance to go to a school that has a 1st grade G&T program in Queens so the children won't bounce from school to school. So we need to call local Councilman to get him/her involve with the issue right away.
What is this 1984?
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