I’m not paranoid.

Damn, I just realized that by saying it, I probably am, but holy-land-o-mercy. Have people gone completely insane?

A high school in Sutter California has ordered all students to wear mandatory RFID tracking tags.

The badges introduced at Brittan Elementary School on Jan. 18 rely on the same radio frequency and scanner technology that companies use to track livestock and product inventory.

Well folks, the transformation from “place of learning” to “place to store livestock and/or criminals (your pick)” is complete. And people wonder why academic achievement in the United States is so low.

It’s absurd to think that a group of 600 children in rural California need to have tracking devices akin to those attached to sexual predators just so that they can prevent vandalism and “speed up taking enrollment”. If I were a parent in their district, I’d be completely outraged. What this really appears to be is a draconian measure designed to limit the involvement (and thereby, the expense) of having teachers and staff deal directly with students and their problems.

Most kids aren’t criminals, but treating them like they all are will certainly not help. It’s your job to teach kids and help them become good members of society: do you really think that “we are watching you all the time?” is the message that you need to send to them to make them behave?

You’re not in the middle of Richmond or L.A. for pete’s sake. You’re in podunk rural California, and you are dealing with kids who are 14 and under. Get some perspective, man.