Schools Matter: With "LiveSchool," Total Surveillance and Compliance Are Just a Swipe and Click Away

Schools Matter: With "LiveSchool," Total Surveillance and Compliance Are Just a Swipe and Click Away:

With "LiveSchool," Total Surveillance and Compliance Are Just a Swipe and Click Away

by Jim Horn

"The best practice is to record data in the moment. Why? Because it will be immediately available to your colleagues, and it ensures that no behaviors-good or bad-go unrecognized." --LiveSchool promotional material

How does a KIPP or other corporate reform school teacher, with a 60-80 hour work week, keep track of every word spoken, every snort or snicker, every fake fart, every trip to the bathroom and how long it took for every student, every failure to "track" the teacher, sit like a robot, or mindlessly nod yes like a Jim Jones acolyte in the jungles of Guyana?

Well, it took a former KIPP teacher and a former KIPP COO to turn this kind of a dystopian possibility into the technological gold mine.  Think of it:  everywhere there are poor kids in corporate reform schools, there is a need for constant surveillance and total compliance:

KIPP is one of 9 Nashville schools already using LiveSchool. The Achievement School District, a nationally recognized initiative dedicated to turning around Tennessee’s lowest-performing schools, is