Public School Students Being Tracked Continually

Nat Hentoff:

Born in 1925, I started at Boston Latin School -- both the first U.S. public school, founded in 1635, and also our oldest school -- in the late 1930s for middle school. The teachers were called -- and addressed as -- "masters," and discipline was tight, with a large percentage of expulsions.

But our disciplinary data was not shared with the police or the FBI (which got its name in 1935).

During these days, however, as constitutional attorney and head of the Rutherford Institute, John Whitehead, writes in "America's Schools: Breeding Grounds for Compliant Citizens" (Rutherford.org, Oct. 12, 2012):

"Once looked upon as the starting place for imparting principles of freedom and democracy (in our government) to future citizens, America's classrooms are becoming little more than breeding grounds for compliant citizens.

"The moment young people walk into school, they increasingly find themselves under constant surveillance; they are photographed, fingerprinted, scanned, X-rayed, sniffed and snooped on.

"Between metal detectors at the entrances, drug-sniffing dogs in the hallways (during police raids) and surveillance cameras in the classrooms and elsewhere, many of America's schools look more like prisons than learning facilities."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 14, 2013 4:47 AM
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