A California elementary school is launching a six-week pilot program to track their young students like so many wild bobcats. Kids with a lot of absences will be able to volunteer to be tracked with GPS in order to make sure they are in school learning, instead of doing the sex and the gangs out on the street. From the Orange County Register:

Seventh- and eighth-graders with four unexcused absences or more this school year are assigned to carry a handheld GPS device, about the size of a cell phone.

Each morning on schooldays, they get an automated phone call reminding them that they need to get to school on time.

Then, five times a day, they are required to enter a code that tracks their locations – as they leave for school, when they arrive at school, at lunchtime, when they leave school and at 8 p.m.

This is great. We should just stop pretending that any kids actually could want to go to school and invest in more and more elaborate tracking devices for them. All teachers should get an iPhone app with little blips showing where all their kids are. Twice every day assistant principals can roam the land with tranquilizer darts and 4x4s and bring in the truants.

[Composite image via Shutterstock]