Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Dallas using GPS in pilot truancy program

By Scott Henson of Grits For Breakfast

GPS trackers tend to work a lot better than just making kids wear "Truant" sweatshirts.

I've never been a believer that GPS tracking systems are a serious alternative to incarceration in most cases, but for certain offenders they make a lot of sense. The New York Times this morning focuses on the use of GPS to combat juvenile truancy in Dallas, which might just be one of those areas where the technology is worth the bang for the buck ("To curb truancy, Dallas tries electronic monitoring," May 12).

That's because GPS doesn't restrict those wearing it, so it doesn't actually prevent crime. But it can provide metrics for authorities to check on the location of an offender to ensure they're where they're supposed to be, which is exactly what's needed in truancy cases. It's certainly a superior alternative for truants than juvenile detention!

It's nearly a truism that jails and prisons fill up when society's other institutions fail, and two of the biggest crime-generating failures IMO involve our indigent mental health systems and public schools. This blog has focused more in the past on the mental health system's contribution, but here during graduation season, it's worth considering in more depth the role public schools play in contributing to crime, or rather in failing to prepare kids to have and exercise better options.

The group America's Promise, founded by former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell, last month produced a public policy report on the high school dropout crisis (pdf) in America, and even though I knew things were bad, the numbers shocked me:

Powell's group says that one US kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. A chart on page one analyzing high school graduation rates in the '03-'04 school year shows national graduation rates for all students are just 69.9%, but in the 50 largest cities kids graduated at only a 51.8% rate.

Some of this is skewed by race, but in the big picture tens of thousands of kids of all races are poorly served by public schools. Nationally black kids ranked the lowest, graduating at an abominably poor 53.3% rate, while white kids' graduation rate was a still anemic 76.2%.

Dallas ISD has the worst dropout rate in Texas among large cities, according to America's Promise, but all the big Texas cities fell far below the already-abysmal national average:

I'd concur with America's Promise that, "If three out of every 10 students in the nation failing to graduate is reason for concern, then the fact that just half of those educated in America’s largest cities are finishing high school truly raises cause for alarm." Even for those who graduate, there's a real question whether US high schools have adequately prepared them for the work force. But in the modern economy, what future awaits the masses of folks who never even complete high school?

Why does this matter for the criminal justice field? Most American kids who drop out of high school have two things in common: They have few marketable skills and have never learned how to work hard. Bottom line: That makes it a lot more likely they wind up selling drugs or burglarizing your house for a living instead of getting a job, paying taxes, etc..

A study produced in 2007 (see chart on p. 19 of the pdf) promoting school choice in Texas calculated that, "Although the chances that any one individual will be incarcerated are small, the probability is more than twice as high for a Texas high school dropout as it is for a Texas high school graduate."

Straight-up illiteracy is a key criminogenic factor. It's long been known, for example, that while dyslexics make up about 10% of students, they make up 30% or more of those in prison.

As far as reducing crime, an even more important subcategory are kids with incarcerated parents, who tend to be 6-8 times more likely than their peers to wind up incarcerated themselves. Making sure those kids stay in school and have real opportunities to succeed might be the single most important contribution society could make to reducing future crime.

Obviously, it should be said, most dropouts don't go on to commit crimes. My own belief is that it's not the diploma per se that makes the difference, but more often influences at home and whether the kid acquired basic reading and math skills before leaving school. (Beyond that, in my experience, for most people their most important learning is either autodidactic or happens on the job.)

It's not really a surprising assertion that illiteracy and ignorance reduce legitimate economic options, or that that uneducated youth are more likely to commit crimes, but when school districts in major Texas cities suffer dropout rates this horrendous, the raw math of the problem becomes overwhelming.

Pegasus News content partner - Grits For Breakfast

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• Dallas ISD > Dallas ISD High Schools > Bryan Adams

Comments

Pavel Lishin Verified

I'm confused what stops them from handing the GPS unit to a friend and having them lug the thing around all day.

1 month, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Scott Doyle Verified

Wait, so are the rates listed dropout or attendance rates? b/c Dallas is the lowest...meaning that'd be the best dropout rate.

What Pavel said. Even if it's just stuffing your GPS unit in a locker and going on a drug run - Doyle fails to see how this would be effective on anyone with a brain.

Can't wait to see young entrepreneurs charging to wear GPS trackers.

1 month, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Pavel Lishin Verified

I went into this article assuming that they clamp the GPS unit around their ankle, in which case I was going to shout out that were I still in high school I'd charge a reasonable fee to figure out a way to switch out the GPS units. But yeah, I guess this will help students who are borderline - that want to go to school, but just need some extra motivation, like a cool beeper that tells the government where they are at all times.

1 month, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Bill Betzen Verified

If you study closely the list of the highest dropout rate cities made by the group America's Promise, and select out only the cities with a million or more population, you will immediately notice that Dallas is at the top of the list with the highest school dropout rate for any city over one million in population. The even more tragic reality is that the year after that report was made the Dallas dropout rate rose another two percent to be even worse! In 2007 only 40.5% of the original 9th grade class for the class of 2007 actually received a diploma.

However, there is good news in the making. If you study the spreadsheet at http://www.studentmotivation.org/dall... you will see that there is progress happening. From 1997 to 2007 only an average of 63.2% of the average Dallas ISD 9th grade class made it into the 10th grade. In 2007-2008 this percentage went up to 67.9! It is still terrible, but we are heading in the right direction! Hopefully the graduation numbers in 2010 will be a big improvement!

Other good news is that the Middle School Archive Project is working! The two high schools that most Archive Project students attend have gone from being two of the highest dropout rate high schools 4 years ago to now being well on the way to the top half of Dallas ISD schools with the lowest dropout rates. Their combined 9th to 10th grade promotion rate went from less than 60% to over 70% now. (Remember the Dallas ISD average is 67.9%) They improved over 10% while the rest of Dallas ISD improved less than 5%. I hope that we can eventually prove that the simple, one dollar per student, Middle School Archive Project (http://www.studentmotivation.org) can be shown to be the reason. Something positive is certainly happening!!

1 month, 3 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )