The new tracking system in public schools
Everything is tracked, forever.
Imagine what it would have been like if everything you did throughout your primary education was kept in a database and followed you the rest of your life.
That tempertantrum you threw in second grade because your best friend for life stole your red crayon. The anti-social behavior you fell into in third grade because your mom died. The fourth grade fights with bullies who made fun of your bowl-shaped haircuts. Your low grades in middle school. Your wistful experimentation with smoking after school in the parking lot. The time you decided unwisely to bring your dad’s alcohol to school, and the time you drew on the walls in the bathroom…all recorded because of “concerned” teachers.
All the messages home to your parents. All the records of conversations you had with principals, vice principals, counselors, and school psychologists. All the standardized tests you took from first grade to your lackluster barely-passing graduation. All the grades, not just the final grades in your classes, but ALL the grades you ever got on everything. All the little comments that teachers made about your work. And indeed, your work, or lack thereof, itself.
Imagine if all of that information was still available at the click of a button to your employer, or to your prosepctive spouse, or to your government leaders. Or to know one, just out there, somewhere, waiting to be discovered.
While you may have gotten away with a lot of stuff and are left with little more than a report card and a few still pictures in a dusty yearbook, your children will not be so lucky. All of this information and more is now being tracked. What will be done with that information is anybody’s guess.
Thousands of schools have now adopted the Synergy Student Information System by Edupoint, covering “more than 25% of American students and 10 million K-12 students worldwide.” https://www.edupoint.com/Products/Student-Information-Management
Here’s a list of what Synergy SIS offers:
The reason I’m writing this is that my own school where I teach just switched to this new system. Questions I will be asking include:
Are parents notified of what is being tracked? Are they given an opt-out option for this system?
How long will this information stay in the database? Where is it stored? Will it ever be deleted?
And though I won’t be asking this publicly, I’ll be wondering…Where’s the social credit score button?