Seen Not Heard—How obscure security makes school suck

Though watching students at home through the webcams of their school-provided laptops may be mercifully rare—I mean, what the hell were those teachers thinking?—running a school like a hotbed of violence does no favours to the kids there.

Written by a recent graduate of Virginia’s public school system, this article describes the draconian measures on offer at his old school, which he says made the children feel more paranoid, not more safe.

I remember the day they installed the cameras in my high school. Everyone was surprised when we walked and saw them hanging ominously from the ceiling.
Everyone except me: I moved to rural Virginia from the wealthier and more heavily populated region of northern Virginia. Cameras have watched me since middle school. So I wasn’t surprised, just disappointed. “What have we done?” asked one of my friends.

And for my personal librarian, @rosechild, I have to include:

And even if there are lots of bullying administrators, there are many good teachers, too. Heaven bless the long-suffering school librarians: the library was the one place I enjoyed in school. I could always find a good book to read there, and they even had manga. My librarians were interested and helpful, and always wanted to chat about what you were currently reading. The Library and a few good teachers are what kept me from dropping out.
It’s a shame that the football team got a bigger budget than the Library.

I think we owe it to ourselves not to brush these incursions under the rug.