Big Brother Dept: Dallas Tags Students With Electronic Monitoring Devices

[mandy]

To Curb Truancy, Dallas Tries Electronic Monitoring

It was not always like this. Jaime used to snooze until 2 p.m. before strolling into school. He fell so far behind that he is failing most of his classes and school officials sent him to truancy court.

Instead of juvenile detention, Jaime was selected by a judge to be enrolled in a pilot program at Bryan Adams in which chronically truant students are monitored electronically. Since Jaime started carrying the Global Positioning System unit April 1, he has had perfect attendance...

The Dallas school system, which, like other large districts, has found it difficult to manage the large numbers of truant students, is among the first in the nation to experiment with the electronic monitoring...

full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/educat....html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin