It's Time To End The Public Schools

BillLawrenceOnline.Com ^ | 4-20-10

[Tribune7]

Not a rare handful but 56,000 photos of Lower Merion students were taken by the school district's laptop spy system over the last two years including those of the kids in various states of undress and in their beds.

Also, the websites they visited and online chats they made were also perused by district officials and appear to be the subject of faculty lounge gossip.

As the scandal runs its course probably one or two heads are going to roll at the Pennsylvania district in the Philadelphia suburbs but a whole lot of those tasked with educating the young and who think it quite appropriate to peek into their pupils privacy -- for their own good, of course -- will remain.

[Tribune7]

ping

[MrChips]

Time? Yeah, like 70 years ago!

[pnh102]

The blog pimping is bad enough but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a badly designed website!

[DonaldC]

As bad as public schools are, there is nothing in place that can substitute for it, at least not yet.

[Izzy Dunne]

I haven't heard of this story. How can they "spy" on me in my bed, unless I :
1) turn the computer on,
2) turn the camera on,
3) run a program to pass images to the net, and
3) point the camera at my bed?

[DonaldC]

Apparently, if the computer was on, the rest could be done remotely.

[all the best]

AN important first step is calling them what they really are, i.e., GOVERNMENT schools. As christian schools promote Christ, Muslim madrassas(spelling?) and Jewish yeshivas promote Judaism, government schools promote the interest of and reverence for government. Government schools promote the interests of the gov and not the public that they supposedly serve.

[Tribune7]

there is nothing in place that can substitute for it, at least not yet.

If today we stopped giving them money, more than enough new schools would pop up tomorrow to get it.

Our public education system is hopeless and the faster we realize it the faster education is fixed.

[FrankR]

Public Schools ended in the mid-60’s...since then they have just been glorified day care centers so the parents can work and pay taxes.

[Tribune7]

It's been a huge story. The laptops were distributed by the schools and had some security software on it meant for finding lost and stolen ones that could be activated remotely.

They never told the students, however, and in the case of Blake Robbins the machine had not been reported lost or stolen.

[DungeonMaster]

It's Time To End The Public Schools

Yeah that and prostitution.

[Don Corleone]

The Public School system was instituted to “Americanize” the flood of immigrants in the 19th century. Not needed now. Private schools and tutors can do the job and would be more responsive if the parents who paid had to pay directly out of pocket instead of through some bureaucratic money launderer.IMHO

[Tribune7]

At least with prostitution there is no compulsion.

[Abathar]

Can you even envision what kind of a country we would have without public schools here?

I admit there are parents out there who do a great job in home schooling, but they make up a tiny portion of the total out there who would take it upon themselves to ensure their kids are well educated.

Imagine if you can the generation of idiots that would be produced in most urban areas without supervised mandatory schooling of some kind. It would be almost impossible to believe how fast our nation would fall.

[Izzy Dunne]

Apparently, f the computer was on, the rest could be done remotely.

I doubt they could point the camera remotely.

My laptop has a camera built in, I've had desktops with an iSight camera attached, in no circumstance could the camera be on without me knowing it.

And all the software I know of requests permission to turn on the camera, that's just common sense.

And if I knowingly turn the computer on, and the camera on, and point it to my bed, you can't call it spying.

[surfer]

It is a core tenant of the Communist Manifesto...public schools must eliminated or your children will be sending letters to Allah and they will be told Muslims were here before Columbus.

[Tribune7]

Can you even envision what kind of a country we would have without public schools here?

Like the kind we were back in 1789.

The assumption you make is that education disappears when public schools do. I think think just the opposite would happen.

BTW, saying public schools should end is not the same as saying compulsory education should end.

[RoadTest]

“It’s Time To End The Public Schools”

It is. Private schools and home schooling nearly always do a better job than government schools.

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

I haven't heard of this story. How can they "spy"  on me in my bed, unless I :
1) turn the computer on,
2) turn the camera on,
3) run a program to pass images to the net, and
3) point the camera at my bed?

You forgot:
4) leave the lights on!

Regards,
GtG