goodbye privacy,hello common good

Flapjacks

Well-known member
I was just thinking of Aquarius and that kind of thinking today hearing a news story about how a school program is taking data about student attendance, grades, behavior, and other "metrics" that are collected, and spitting out a number to see who is "at risk" and needs attention. The cost is estimated at $600/student, and is being hailed as a progressive step forward in intervention with students before they quit school. An example of such success is correctly identifying through worsening grades and attendance, a student who became homeless. This innovative program was able to select this student for intervention.

Because no one would talk to students about their lives and intervene otherwise. We pay for algorithms to do that, not teachers. :mad:

This is just an example of a theme that keeps repeating itself in the US recently: unjustified faith in "collectives" and technology and a deteriorating respect for the individual. The bad part about this is that most supporters of these ideals seem completely unaware of what they are destroying. Uranus is worst when totally blind to itself.
 
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twobitdandy

Member
Yes, this is happening quite frequently -- for example, some of the people hired to talk to those students as individual human beings are often social workers/counselors/etc. My mother is one and, for instance, and they're trying to "expand her horizons & allow her to grow" by placing her in schools where she can't put her own individual skills where they are most needed (her specialization is in elementary school age children, and they wanted to place her in a high school.) This would mean that 1) she is unable to help the high school children (which is considered unethical & harmful) and 2) her prior student-counselor relationships are to be disregarded & completely forgotten.

Everything is so bureaucratic & managed, as you said, in collectives.
 
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