No, it is certainly not a ruse. Taking the roll has forever been part of going to school.
Granted that education is the reason for schools. The societal need for education is the reason schools exist.
However, allocation of educational funds is currently made by governments on the basis of the number of students being educated at a specific school. For lots of reasons, that number varies from year to year and even week to week. To maintain a reasonable census of students, a day to day roll call is necessary. Although the truancy of a single student is not such a big deal, the sum of truancies of different students over time is.
I am surprised by the strong objection to the finger count. It effectively and quickly and permanently calls the roll. Not having to take a roll count and associated administrative paper pushing frees time for instruction.
The real problem is change. Some will always create reasons to object to change.
The issue isn’t opposition to change.
It’s the lack of honesty behind the WHY.
Consider “gun crime.” The left has championed “smart gun technology, “red flag laws,” “assault weapon bans” and so on, to reduce “gun crime.”
These ideas are rejected by normal people, because they fail the WHY test. The left’s stated WHY is “these controls will lower deaths without impinging on the rights of law-abiding citizens.”
As the meme goes, Sure Jan…sure…because there are scores of other controls that will WORK and most thinking people realize their WHY is a sham. To wit: almost every solution offered up by the left reduces liberty and empowers Leviathan, not to mention the control will fail.
Now, let’s turn to taking roll. I think everyone can get behind automating mundane administrative tasks to maximize value-added activities. But in this case, most people see the WHY as a sham as well. Why not swipes? Yes, the kids may lose their ID - well, then they go to someone in school who key punches their attendance into the database and Johnny brings his ID tomorrow. Like with firearms, the solution is unnecessarily elaborate and probably is a front for something, possibly more sinister*.
The same thing happened with Covid. The WHY behind masks, shutdowns, 2 weeks to flatten the curve, vaccine mandates, etc was a sham. That didn’t stop them.
* - I will agree, that perhaps a strong element of paranoia has entered into any such discussion nowadays. But, as they say, yesterday’s conspiracy theory is tomorrow’s historical fact.
No, the real problem isn’t change. It’s loss of freedoms and the surveillance state that cannot be trusted with personal data.