I recently read an intriguing editorial written by one of my classmates on her blog, Thoughts from an open-minded Texan. The editorial was written in regards to the San Antonio school district's experimentation with implanting locator chips in students' ID cards, with the intention of making sure they're in school. My classmate made some extremely good points as to why the idea is so ridiculously bad, a main one being that "students these days are being treated like babies." She also brought up the fact that it could be a matter of safety for the students.
I agree with all of my classmate's points, especially the idea that students need to be treated like adults. As she said, if they are old enough to drive, they should have the freedom of choice (even if they are bad ones). The only thing I could possibly recommend for my classmate's article would have been to mention the funding involved with the locator chips, as it seemed to be a focal point of the original news article. But overall, I enjoyed reading her article--it was short and to the point, and her thesis was established early and supported well.
My main concern with the locator chips was the funding involved; just the experimentation process has cost the school district over $200 thousand. I personally cannot fathom why implementing harsher attendance policies wouldn't accomplish the same task. It could be argued that there are too many students with bad attendance, but if it's that bad, then how is just knowing where they are going to achieve anything? The chips are located on the students' ID cards, not under their skins. If I were in high school and wanted to skip class, I wouldn't take my ID with a tracking device around with me. This is an insane waste of money. I want whoever is behind this to look students and their parents in the eye, and be able to tell them that this money could not possibly have gone to better use. Ridiculous.
You can read the original news article here at the Statesman.
