[Moogs]

I love all the big talk about Texas freedoms and rights and guns and don't mess with Texas (don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-gun -- just talking about the image they put forth to everyone else), and they're one of the first if not the only state in the union, requiring their students (in a pilot program aimed at wider implementation in the near future) to wear radio tags.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20957587

I have to say, Mark of the Beast or no, that is a terrible freakin' idea and if she had any brains she and her lawyer would've contested it on Constitutional grounds, not religious ones. I'm pretty sure wearing a radio tag so you can be tracked is an abridgment of basic liberty.
The shit people come up with to "fix educational problems" is baffling.

IT'S THE PARENTS, dumbasses. Not the mean teachers, not the teacher's union, not the beat up text books, not the crowded classrooms, not the video games, not the lack of modern computers in every classroom, not the social media, not Dr. Phil, not one damn thing the politicians suggest as they beat around the bush to avoid offending voters.... it's PARENTS. Either teach your kids from a young age to be curious and take pride in learning and pride in their work, and to deal with the occasional failure by learning from it and not shaming them, or watch them flounder and fail. THE END.

Radio tags. This country is so fucked up sometimes it defies description.

[RowdyScot]

In Texas, the education issues aren't just the parents. There's that whole made up history and science book thing, too.

[Moogs]

Yah that's true in Kansas and other places as well, but that's all secondary. If your kid does not have a curious mind and is not willing to put in work to understand what he or she is being taught; it's over. We have an entire generation of parents in this country that won't acknowledge that and look for excuses like it's the school's fault their HS kid makes 6th grade grammar mistakes, can't explain the Bill of Rights, can't tell time on an analog clock, can't do basic algebra without a calculator or multiple choice, etc.

The case of the school who screws up the education of the very curious and diligent student is exceedingly rare, while the case of the student who screws up all the perfectly good information being taught to them because they're too busy dicking around with their phones 14 hours a day and other distractions, is exceedingly common. And the root cause of that problem... is parents.

[chucker]

Blaming education problems solely on one instance (parents) is equally simplistic as blaming them entirely on another (teachers).

[Matsu]

It takes a village to raise an idiot.

[Dorian Gray]

The self-esteem thing is wacky. According to the chart on this page, over three-quarters of American students believe their "drive to achieve" is higher than average. Also:

"Twenge adds that while the Freshman Survey shows that students are increasingly likely to label themselves as gifted in writing ability, objective test scores indicate that actual writing ability has gone down since the 1960s."

In fairness, many lives in the past were blighted by the opposite problems of paltry praise and harsh corporal punishment. My dad got the best score in his primary school in his leaving test, but he was routinely beaten by teachers at secondary school (a grammar school), which among other system failures led to his dropping out at sixteen.

The truth is children need good (and knowledgeable) parents and good schools, and the lack of either almost guarantees they won’t reach their potential. Schools would ideally level the playing field to advance social mobility, but they don’t and seemingly can’t. You can throw money at schools, but children from poor backgrounds will still do much worse than their rich classmates.

[Moogs]

There's a difference though between reaching your maximum potential (perhaps a mediocre school's reputation could prevent that by itself and I don't deny it), and a kid who could reach 85 or 90% of his / her potential (true of virtually all high schools -- the base of knowledge is there if you want to learn it), but doesn't come close because parents never instilled good habits.

Anyway this is about dog-collaring kids with radio tags in teh great Free State of Texas but there's little excuse to be made with most of these kids and their tardiness / attendance / apathy / lack of skills, beyond parents who really dropped the ball between ages 4 and 10 roughly. If you're kid isn't somewhat a self-starter and doing homework on their own and stuff like that by age 10 or 11, they're in deep shit.

I realize that all kids have their disinterested and spastic moments from week to week, and that they need balance of work and play and all that. But that's not really the problem here either. When you start talking about scores and skills dropping badly for an entire generation, across teh country, it's no longer about this school district or that union, or this type of text book method. It's about a larger, societal force. Namely, the one I stated. Radio collars (OK radio IDs) won't keep an irresponsible, apathetic kid from fucking up.

[addabox]

It's the Twitter, I'm telling you.

[Wraven]

Why all the animosity against Texas? We're not all knuckle dragging Neanderthals. Generalize much guys?

[Moogs]

You're the one person in Texas we like.

No but seriously you have to admit there are an awful lot of "Don't tread on me, Secede from the Union" types in Texas (more than most states) and talk all the time about how seriously they take liberty and the Constitution, etc. Then they put radio collars on their HS kids. LOL It's surreal to me but maybe I'm the only one.

[Dorian Gray]

Originally Posted by Moogs Then they put radio collars on their HS kids. LOL It's surreal to me but maybe I'm the only one.

I’m surprised too, from what little I know about Texas, but what’s the difference between these radio tags and a teacher doing a roll call before starting class?

[_Ω_]

Originally Posted by Wraven We're not all knuckle dragging Neanderthals.

Not all, but you have your fair share.