Challis Hodge’s UXblog

The Houston Independent School District has a so called “high-tech new way to keep the elusive high school dropout.” They plan to “catch them before the leave.” I, for one, think that is a brilliant idea. I’m glad they thought of it.

“With a new computer database available at every campus this fall, teachers can keep a virtual eye on every student and identify those at risk of leaving. For the first time, educators can look up a student’s attendance, discipline, immigration status, grades, and test scores at one source and use that information to predict dropouts.”

During a demonstration of the program, Lee High School Principal Steve Amstutz was able to determine which fictional students were likely dropout candidates because they missed too many days recently or their grades dropped suddenly. Amstutz said, “In the past that would have taken a small army of people looking through obscure records.”

Hunh? Privacy issues aside, I’m a little confused as to why Joe’s home room teacher needs a database to notice he’s been excessively absent. Maybe I’m just not getting it but couldn’t the database research time be used to follow-up with a few of Joe’s other teachers down the hall?

It looks to me as if HISD has spent three years developing this pointless application to avoid being sanctioned by the Texas Education Agency for it’s previous errors in record keeping. OK, I can live with that if the tax payers can. But what really grabs me is the fact that the district is considering a plan to assign an adult to each student.

It’s bad enough that we throw out civil liberties and invade personal privacy these days at the drop of a hat. It’s down right scary when we look to technology to replace personal responsibility and accountability.