Predicting H.S. Dropouts With Pervasive Databases 467
rhadamanthus writes "As seen on the Houston Chronicle: 'With a new computer database available at every campus this fall, teachers can keep a virtual eye on every student and identify those at risk of leaving. For the first time, educators can look up a student's attendance, discipline, immigration status, grades, and test scores at one source and use that information to predict dropouts. ... "All students will know someone is watching them, tracking them, and is interested in their success," school board member Laurie Bricker said at a press conference today.' Hooray for surveillance in the HISD."
Nobody's interested in my success.. (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no excuse for this data collection -- but hey, schools and prisons are the two places where new privacy invasion is tried out before being installed in mainstream society.
Re:Nobody's interested in my success.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice FUD here. But assuming you're looking at say attendance and grades (or test scores), how can this information be improperly used? If Johnny has had 100% attendance, and suddenly it drops to 50%, why wouldn't you want to call Johnny in and ask him if everything is ok? Or if Sue's test scores drop suddenly, why wouldn't you want to talk to her to ask her if anything is wrong. Your "shooter" profile is completely off target here (forgive the pun). These are very tangible and reasonable criteria they're using to make these determinations. Now if they said that they were going to track how much a student ate, or if their clothes suddenly fit into some "radical" category, then I might have agreed with you. By your argument, we should'nt test and grade, because after all, these mechanisms "profile" students.
Re:Nobody's interested in my success.. (Score:2)
I wouldn't be concerned that people are/are not tracking students. You're tracked by your credit card purchases, your web usage, etc. However, I would be concerned that school officials will use this system as a crutch and eventual
Re:Nobody's interested in my success.. (Score:3, Interesting)
In most states they can't do that. Most states have constitutional guaruntees saying that each and every person has a right to a HS education.
Also, I would imagine that if you really had Mono and were a good student up to that point you would inform the school and make some attempt to keep up with your work from home/hospital...
You're taking what this will do way too far (Score:3, Insightful)
I would like to think that 95%+ of teachers are not the type to just blindly shuffle off a student because their test
Re:Nobody's interested in my success.. (Score:5, Interesting)
As a part time university teacher I found out when one student was giving me trouble that he had been giving others trouble as well. I was not told of the trouble because that information would have biased my perseption of and treatment of that student. That is an important principle that may be violated here if "teacher" were to get ahold of that data.
Schools administrations would use the data for those things that were most important to them. This may include avoiding lawsuits, eliminating trouble makers. With limited budgets and overcrouded classrooms the insentives would be to diminish classroom size and be able to apply budget to where it would be most effective. You know the current political envirionment is one to privatize or business-tize all activity.
Now with that information would be very useful to at tracking teachers. Lets see, at teacher that has mass defections, well lets get rid of them. Or classes that have certain individuals attending, show scores dropping (trouble makers and cultural disruptors). The data mining capabilities are endless. But of course the adminsitrators would never think of using the data in these ways.
I am reminded of a story where a friend had a meeting with their boss. The boss offered them a project. They said they would like it. It was given to someone else. The reason was the boss said that even though she said yes, her body language said no. The same danger is here with the interpretation or "profiling" of individuals from scan data.
Kill them all and let God sort it out.
They already do this crap. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you dont act a certain way schools and teachers go out of their way to label you.
Theres a whole array of labels, the most popular? ADD, then theres Bipolar, then theres Manic Depression, they basically have a label for anyone who doesnt act in the "normal" way.
Re:Nobody's interested in my success.. (Score:3, Insightful)
A database is a tool, just like a teachers attendance book. It quantifies the attendance, the teacher doesn't have to think "gee Tommy hasn't been in class much." They can think that, then look it up to quantify and verify there perception. It can also be used by administrators to make sure that the teacher isn't dropping the ball in these cases.
What's interesting is that most people's proble
Re:Why does attendance matter? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hold it. First you're railing against keeping track of attendance because it shouldn't matter if you show up or not, just so long as you can do the work. Now you're g
Re:Nobody's interested in my success.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Most anything that makes it easier for a teacher to do their job is OK in my book. (yeah, yeah, someone is going to take this to some extreme and say I'm advocating guns in classrooms or something. piss off in advance.)
Dismissiveness is recpipe for a totalitarian state (Score:5, Interesting)
A quick HOWTO in turning a democracy into a plutocratic fascist state:
The outcry was initially the collection of the data. We were told not to worry, it is for private industry's use and, besides, we don't have a constitutional right to privacy in business.
Now the outcry is the use of data mining and aggregation to take the data thus collected and use it to profile our private lives in minute detail, effectively creating a defacto, if hybrid, police-surveillence state. And you dismiss it as "they're not creating any data that's not already there", as though that somehow negates the consiquences of such behavior.
The initial public outcry against the collection of private data on private individuals was right then, and it would be right today were it not for the deafening silence of those who have recognize a battle long since lost.
The public outcry against the sale and exchange of data between private corporations (and government agencies) was right then, and it is right today, even if the number of voices has declined over the years.
And the outcry against aggregating and mining this data to microanalyze our individual lives is justified, appropriate, and dismissed at our own peril. This isn't the start of a slippery slope we're talking about here, this is another in a long series of runs down it we're skiing
Re:Nobody's interested in my success.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in my senior year of high school, we had some sort of tracking system that was based primarily on attendance. It flagged me as a student that was going to fail out, never mind my 3.9 GPA and my acceptance to Stanford based upon the entrance exams (untimately did not go to Stanford because I could not afford the $25k/year). I had a meeting with our vice principal telling me I was in serious trouble with my attendance. What a joke.
Re:Nobody's interested in my success.. (Score:3, Insightful)
It was that way at my school, too. I don't understand a number of those policies. And since my dad was the school board president, we had a number of heated debates about them.
Re:Nobody's interested in my success.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats just it schools want to put everyone into a little box or track. Intelligence doesnt matter, your work doesnt matter, nothing matters to these people except discipline, obedience, and being on time. You can be a complete idiot but if you do exactly what teachers say, you show up every single day, and you are on time for every class, you will pass, while the other kid who is a genius who doesnt do his homework, doesnt get to class on time, and misses school, this kid will fail.
Forget about the reason
Re:Nobody's interested in my success.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish I had just played their game sometimes and gotten better grades, but no regrets.
As to the mono example, I once had pnuemonia for 6.5 weeks while my parents thought I was faking it. That made for a lot of "rosonowski skips school to go lay down somewhere and slowly
School is not meant to benefit the smart (Score:3, Insightful)
For the very bright kids, school matters little: they will always be entreprenurial
good. (Score:2, Funny)
Nobody gave me a kick in the ass, and just look at my spalling!
alternative (Score:5, Funny)
Disturbing (Score:3, Interesting)
Public school, while good for some, has held me back due to the lack of qualified teachers, and terrible textbooks. Those of us who want a real education get nothing out of it.
Re:Disturbing (Score:2)
programming (Score:5, Interesting)
At the same time, I was working on an extremely educational (to me at least) programming project and some web sites.
Would my school's system see my drop in French test scores as a sign of impending doom? Would it correlate that with the departure of Jane Doe, who dropped out due to a pregnancy and accuse me of being the father?
Had I been sidetracked, I never would have had this site [osnippets.org] of mine on this slasdot article [slashdot.org]. I wouldn't have gotten a local computer store to invest time/money in my first commercial program.
You can't reduce anything as complex as a human being to mere comprehendable numbers. Anyways, this new system sounds like it'll be great fun to mess with.
(On another note, it's hilarious how schools are scared to put a picture of a student on the school's website without a notorized rights waver, yet they jump at the chance to make a national database of students.)
Nothing to see here, move along (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nothing to see here, move along (Score:5, Interesting)
If all the databases with personal information were merged some really really interesting things could be derived asbout you. Think about it. What if your bank thought that you were going to die in 15 years and wouldn't give you a home loan?
Some documents are declared top secret because they combine information available to the puplic in creative ways.
Re:Nothing to see here, move along (Score:5, Interesting)
The intention of predictive models is to find underperformers and work harder to engage them before it's too late.
The reality of predictive models is that it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If any of the counselors, teachers, receptionists, principals, or aides approach an underperformer with a speech about how they need to buck up before they drop out, all that many kids will hear is, "they know I'm a failure, so why try?"
For a small minority of kids, this gets even worse. We have discussed the profiling it takes to predict violence. This sounds a lot like the same arguments raised which lead to flame-out sentiments like "they know I'm violent, so I've got nothing to lose."
Re:Nothing to see here, move along (Score:2)
They would not create a new database with the intent of giving up on students. The faculty can give up on students quite easily based upon crude unautomated data collection.
If anything, this might be a tool to fight stereotyping of non-conforming and/or minority students.
Provided that this data is given the same care as all other school records, there is nothing of concern here. If any school records can easily be used for purposes other than educating the student, then there is a problem. But it has
Looks good, gotta catch em young you know. (Score:4, Interesting)
Will kids that grow up in a situation like this mind at all that it doesnt really end when they leave HS for the 'real world'?
Useful, yet frightening..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Useful, yet frightening..... (Score:2)
Re:Useful, yet frightening..... (Score:2)
nice spin (Score:3, Informative)
Anyone else read this as "and is waiting for them to drop out"?
Re:nice spin (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm picturing a "special retention class" into which the people who score high on this metric are segregated. In order to "keep them enrolled" they basically teach them how to calculate the area of a circle... year after year. After all, they don't want to overburden them with education and homework, because that might make them drop out. "And besides," they will say "the low-risk kids can now afford to cover more material while the ret
1984 (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, children, "Big Brother loves you."
and this is new how? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:and this is new how? (Score:2)
I think it's more than a "big blinking computer light". It's another level of safety in helping our kids. If the parents fail, then it is up to the teacher to exercise due diligence in this matter. And if the teacher fails to do that... then what?
Re:and this is new how? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have a problem with this, then you must be a terrorist.
Re:and this is new how? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:and this is new how? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:and this is new how? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or anyone who teaches at a well-funded school in an expensive suburb. But the kind of schools that would profit from this are the humungous, overcrowded, underfunded inner-city public schools where the overworked staff barely has the resources to teach properly, let alone monitor each kid's personal life.
oxymoron (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see the dialogue going like this:
Teacher: Our extensive data indictates you may be thinking of dropping out--
Student: FUCK YOU, BIG BROTHER! I'M OUTTA HERE!
Re:oxymoron (Score:2)
Ain't that the truth. Just look at some of the posts here. Ahh, idealism + ignorance.
Re:oxymoron (Score:2)
Oh yeah... (Score:2)
God forbid that a teacher has this information handy. Big Brother and all.
Just another example of the YRO section of this site becoming more and more irrelevent.
Funny... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Funny... (Score:2)
I mean this in no "politically correct" way (nor in a racist way), but, such a system would still show a difference between races in dropout rates (which will quite likely earn it a lot of heat a few years down the road).
Not for any "real" differences, but because of yet another false correlation- Namely, money and urbanization.
A far greater proportion o
Re:Funny... (Score:2)
It predicts something, though consider immigrants from East Asia and Central America: same immigration status, (let's assume) same socioeconomic class status, but clearly different dropout probabilities. This is one example among many where taking race into account (in addition to all the other stuff) would dramatically increase the accuracy of the system.
Re:Funny... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Funny... (Score:3, Insightful)
Racial Privacy Initiative (Score:2)
While I doubt it, perhaps Texas has already enacted some form of California's proposed Racial Privacy Initiative [racialprivacy.org]? Or they see it on the horizon? Or the policy represented
Leaving? For Guantanamo? (Score:2)
I hate children (Score:2)
Re:I hate children .... a modest proposal (Score:2)
A modest proposal?
Ha Ha
Wont help everyone (Score:3, Insightful)
From the people that I've met in this situation, they either don't understand the benefits of a quality education, or they just don't care about how important it is. There are still others that both know and care, but may have a lot of other problems in life to deal with.
The first two groups can only be helped by convincing them how an education can help them later on in life. But the latter group is the one that this system might help if a person can be identified and they can get help with whatever other problems might be holding them back in school.
The only problem I have is, why the hell does it track immigration status? What does that have to do with the quality of their education; apart from language barriers, but even that has nothing to do with immigration status.
Re:Wont help everyone (Score:2)
Because students who are immigrants are more likely to be terrorists...err...dropouts.
Re:Wont help everyone (Score:2)
You're missing the point. There are using this data to identify those that fall into the groups you mentioned. Since if your in those groups, you are more likely to exhibit those behaviours that they're looking for. Once you've identi
Re:Wont help everyone (Score:2)
I spent a year studying in Wales, and I had several hoops to jump through to remain in the country legally (Student Visa, proof
Dropout rates (Score:5, Insightful)
You see, schools make money based on the number of students that attend every class period. If a student drops out, that's less money the school is getting. The school at which I taught went nuts looking for dropouts. School-wide PA announcements were made regularly asking if anyone had heard from various students, or even seen them around town. They don't care if the kid is in class getting educated... it's all about the money.
Also, if too many students dropout, your school gets flagged as low performing and you lose money that way, too. Any tactic the school can use that is inexpensive and provides an easy, scattershot approach to keeping as many kids in classrooms as possible will be used.
The great thing to administrators is that they can keep the kids in class, get all the money, and they still don't have to spend it on teachers. School administration generally uses budget surplus to control departments and hammer teachers into submission or force them into retirement.
might work? (Score:4, Insightful)
In order to keep those average SAT scores high.. (Score:2)
Re:In order to keep those average SAT scores high. (Score:2)
rocket science (Score:2)
Houston ISD (Score:2)
Houston (Score:2)
I can see the hacked data now.... (Score:4, Funny)
Discipline: KUNG-FU, Monkey Style
Couldn't resist...
Fantastic! (Score:2)
Hooray, progress!
Cheers
-b
Immigration status? (Score:3, Interesting)
For the first time, educators can look up a student's attendance, discipline, immigration status, grades, and test scores at one source and use that information to predict dropouts.
[/quote]
What does immigration status have to do with dropping out of school? Also, what business is it of the schools?
Re:Immigration status? (Score:2)
I think "immigration status" is a clever euphemism in this instance for "ethnic background."
Re:Immigration status? (Score:3, Insightful)
What does immigration status have to do with dropping out? Good question. Why not study it to find out?
If you find out that 90% of a certain status are dropping out, you know where to fucus your attention. But, until you KNOW _if_ there's a correlation, there's no reason not to include the data.
As far as what business of the school's it is, that's a good flamebait subject, but more to the point...if it affects the school's ability to accomplish its task (education), then it certainly IS their business.
The system is called PASS (Score:2)
(I guess they felt that PASS was a better acronym then the actual acronym which is SPAS).
The system is part of the HSID extranet which is accessible on the web here [houstonisd.org] (you can read more about HSIDConnect here [houstonisd.org]). (Thanks for Google!)
John.
Not anything new (Score:3, Interesting)
This really isn't anything new, it's been used in the work force for many years now. Surveys my company cranks out, based on validated information can predict sales performance, turnover, likelihood of theft and other tid-bits of information about possibly employees.
It's all based on statistics and (in my field) I/O Psychology (Industrial/Organizational). The whole idea of reading habits in students and predicting their likelihood of drop out is no difference than what companies like ours use to predict turnover.
I'm just surprised it's taken this long to be put into use in other fields.
Here [e-selex.com] is a link for information regarding Biodata use and how it all works, for those who are interested.
Re:Not anything new (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not anything new (Score:3, Insightful)
QuickSelex is much cheaper than a custom system. If THAT is what you're looking for
Publik Skools are statist tools! (Score:2)
did this work with.. (Score:2)
double standard? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going to give an example, but let me put it in perspective first. In school, you don't get paid. It's not your job. It's your daily life. You meet new people and make friends there. For the sake of being evenly sided I won't go into saying that you're forced by society to go there. This compares nicely to an adult's social life and what places they frequent, so let's go from there.
This would be the same thing as the owner of the (insert hangout place here, club, diner, bar, etc) having a declared record of everything you do thewre, when you do and don't go, where you're from, what you like to do with your time, and assorted other things. Said owner then uses said information as demographics to, instead of changing the service to suit whatever new styles might be going in and out, predict when you are going to leave and give you a small reason to stay. Nothing so great that you want to stay, just barely enough so you don't check out the competition.
But wait a minute, isn't that like invasion of privacy and all those mega corporations tracking your every move to attack you with the ads they want you to see, when they want you to see them? It is. And if you rationalize the use of this system on others, it's only a stone's throw away from coming back to bite you in the ass.
Re:double standard? (Score:3, Interesting)
This is not like the owner of a "hangout" collecting information on his patrons to predict marketing trends.
This is like an Assisted Living community keeping track of residents' eating habits and excersize participation. They have an implicit obligation to protect the health and comfort of their residents; certain factors are useful in this goal. If a resident's eating or excersize routines change suddenly, there is a likelihood that a change has occurred in the health of the reside
This'll suck (Score:2)
Metrics should be measured from without the system, not from within it.
Not all the truth... (Score:4, Interesting)
I graduated a year after the columbine fiasco, and my senior year I too was put on a list. Every time a bomb threat was called in, or 'random' locker search came time... I was on the list. Except for a few incidents in middle school I had a spotless record. The reason was because I stood up to the knee-jerk stupidity of new policy after everyone became afraid of their children. One example is, with the exception of the dock and the main doors, all doors were locked from both directions until an alarm was triggered. We also had to wear ID badges at all times. If we didn't, or interfered with lasers scanning us in the halls, we were suspended for a day. It's really useless, because the two at columbine would have had all the security to get in without a problem. The moral of the story: Most kids don't like being labeled or put on a list and respond poorly to it.
Unbelievable... (Score:3, Funny)
good news for those who hate it (Score:2)
People"we want beter education"
politician"you got, but there will be a tax increase to pay for it"
people "get out!"
Is this really going to help? (Score:3, Insightful)
Just my $0.02
Yes there *are* good teachers (Score:2)
Have you ever been a teacher?
These DBs are different than you think.
I have seen firsthand the school problems,
including missed classes & immigration changes.
Try having student who skips your class often,
but you don't know if it's just your class,
or other classes too, and you can't coordinate
any intervention with any other teachers.
Worse, try having a parent-teacher conference
when you can't even find the parent because
of immigra
Yeah, right. (Score:2)
...to trim the teaching rolls and hire more administrators who will cut budgets to the bone and put illiterate children on the streets by the thousands.
I'm a dropout (Score:2)
Less money for teachers... (Score:5, Funny)
[quote]
District officials also are considering a plan to assign an adult to each student.
[/quote]
I've got news for the district: the plan is already in existance. They're called "parents".
Besides, can you imagine the expense of paying a salary for each person who is watching a single child? Thousands and thousands of salaries for adults!
The potential of this system (Score:2, Insightful)
But what if analysis are done on a scoring basis? Then will this system eventually be used by colleges to consider a student's qualification for admission? It says it is used to predict drop-outs, but I'm sure it will have the capability to determine any student's performance as well.
Perfect for administrators! And another problem... (Score:2)
Yes, this might - and I say that with skepticism - help identify potential dropouts who need more attention. It will also identify the kids who just don't fit in, for whatever reason; but they fit the "at risk" profile. However, this is high school
Everyone is worried (Score:2)
let's not get carried away (Score:2)
Let's not get carried away: mechanical supervision and administrative checks aren't "someone"--they are impersonal procedures. The next step is probably to hook up the system to pager and E-mail systems to warn parents about this sort of thing automatically. Presenting such impersonal supervision as if it were personal attention and int
I was under the impression (Score:2, Informative)
Get them used to it at a young age.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Predicting School Failures (Score:5, Insightful)
Where is the database I can monitor to provide me with accurate, timely information to predict which schools are failing?
My idea was to keep a virtual eye on every school administrator and identify those at risk of reducing the quality of education at the school. I'd like to be able to look up the measurements of that person's effectiveness from one source and at a glance: test scores, attendence, discipline, and so on for all students that he or she is responsible for.
My idea was not to punish low performing administrators, but identify high-risk ones so that early intervention can be used.
My god.... (Score:3, Interesting)
This isn't some prediction or slightly uncomfortable future, this is going to happen next year...and there's nothing anyone can do.
So what happens once this has been running for a few years? Right; students (the people most likely to become 'leaders') get used to it, and find this kind of 'oversight' normal. And once that happens, goodbye privacy due to the "if it's good enough for us/didn't harm us, it's good enough for everyone".
Be slightly uncomfortable.
Wait. It Gets Worse. (Score:3, Funny)
Word on the street is that at some schools, there are even more powerful computers tracking the students. From time-to-time, these computers are brought together in a closed-door kind of LAN party. There, information about the students is exhchanged and processed, and determinations are made as to whether or not the student is doing OK or if remedial action is necessary. IIRC, they call the computers "brains" and the meetings are "parent-teacher conferences". Very spooky.
Your Permanent Record (Score:5, Insightful)
Theres more genious out there than you think. I have friends that are very smart, but the school system didn't work for them.
School needs to change, but not like this.
Keeping losers in school doesn't make them winners (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason for this attention is the simple statistic that says high school graduates are better off than people who dropped out. The belief is that by keeping would-be dropouts in school their lives can also be improved. Unfortunately things just don't work that way. The reason why high-school graduates are better off has everything to do with their character and intelligence and virtually NOTHING to do with whether they have a high school diploma or not. These educators, in no small part because of their own need to feel important, have got the cause and effect reversed.
Spending time and energy trying to keep these people in school does nothing but worsen the educational environment for students who might actually stand to benefit from an education. The money would be better spent providing more challenging or comprehensive classes for gifted students since they are the ones who benefit the most from an education. Society itself has more to gain by investing in our best and brightest than it does from trying to rescue losers from their own self-destruction.
If only foolishness and stupidity were fatal, imagine how much better our gene pool would be.
Lee
Re:Whatever (Score:2, Funny)
I know Charles Noone, and he's usually watching the grade school, not the high school. From the bushes. Oh wait, you meant no one. Never mind. Sorry about that Charles.
Re:Collection and aggregation of data (Score:2, Interesting)
The students are minors.
Here's a secret though.. DONT TELL ANYONE!
Schools have kept records of this exact same stuff for decades. This newspaper article is a fluff piece, probably some new school board member got elected and wants to blow his horn on their new computer.
But the notion of noticing a students grades or attendance suddenly dropped, and asking them whats wron
Re:Heh, it finally holds true... (Score:2)
Your point is valid, but there is that fine line you have to walk right? Fact is that school shootings is
Re:Only a few concerns I have. (Score:2)
Nothing new is being collected, and nothing will be any more available than it already is.
Just go. (Score:3, Insightful)
I do not have a high school diploma (not even a GED).
I do have an AA from a junior college, a BS from a well-respected major university, a real job, and am starting in a program to get my MS (at the same place as my BS).
Get your parents to support you on it and leave high school. Enroll in a junior college (you'll need your parents to sign some stuff), get an associates degree (or at least look at and take what four-year schools expect you to have from the JC--most JCs will have some relationship with th