GPS Tracking Forced On Dallas Kids

Violating "No Child Left Behind" because you skip classes? That's a GPS trace tagging. Not a request. Judge mandated.

Briefly mentioned in the article is that 300 kids from this one school alone have to go to truancy court each year. It's either go to school (where learning is fun and edyookashunul!) or face the judge, kids. (Is my bias showing?)

Full article is here, but requires registration (NY Times). I'll give you the salient bits:

Quotes FTA:

Jaime used to snooze until 2 p.m. before strolling into school. He fell so far behind that he is failing most of his classes and school officials sent him to truancy court.

Instead of juvenile detention, Jaime was selected by a judge to be enrolled in a pilot program at Bryan Adams in which chronically truant students are monitored electronically. Since Jaime started carrying the Global Positioning System unit April 1, he has had perfect attendance.

“I’m just glad they didn’t take him to jail,” said Jaime’s grandmother Diana Mendez, who raised him. “He’s a good kid. He was just on a crooked path.”

Educators are struggling to meet stricter state and federal mandates, including those of the No Child Left Behind Act, on attendance and graduation rates. The Dallas school system, which, like other large districts, has found it difficult to manage the large numbers of truant students, is among the first in the nation to experiment with the electronic monitoring.

“Ten years ago the issue of truancy just slid by,” said Jay Smink, executive director of the National Dropout Prevention Center. “Now the regulations are forcing them to adhere to the policies.”

(...)

Kyle Ross, who runs the in-school suspension program at Bryan Adams, was skeptical of the electronic monitoring until he saw that it worked. “We’re always yearning for something tangible to use as tools to teach self-efficacy,” Mr. Ross said. “Everyone’s so overwhelmed. We’ll try anything.”

Dallas’s experiments in tracking truancy started three years ago. Last year, case managers used a G.P.S. system to locate a truant student on the verge of overdosing on drugs, and they discovered that a student had skipped school because he was contemplating suicide.

Ricardo Pacheco, 18, who is no relation to Jaime, said electronic monitoring had helped him get on track last year, despite advice from his friends to “just yank it off.”

“It was easier to come to school each day, stay out of the streets and be home every night,” said Mr. Pacheco, a father of two young children and a former gang leader. Now he is about to become the first male from his father’s side of the family to graduate.

(...)

Across the state, in Midland, county justice officials started using electronic ankle monitors last summer to track about 14 of the most chronically truant students. The officials hope to double the number of students monitored next year.

(...)

Dave Leis, a spokesman for NovaTracker, which makes the system used in Dallas, said electronic monitoring did not have to be punitive. “You can paint this thing as either Big Brother, or this is a device that connects you to a buddy who wants to keep you safe and help you graduate.”