Did a TSA Note About Possible School Bus Terrorism Come Home in Your Child's Backpack?

Eight school buses have disappeared within the last year in St. Louis and Jefferson counties (Missouri).  Could school buses be used in terroristic attacks?  The TSA is concerned about missing school buses and possible criminal use.

From School Transportation News 02.29.12:

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) reminded student transporters to be on the lookout for suspicious persons lurking around the school buses or facilities as local and federal investigators continue to look for eight buses that were stolen in the St. Louis and Jefferson counties area in the state of Missouri over the past year.

The reminder came during a teleconference held in mid-February with industry stakeholders from the state and national level as well as the private sector.

William Arrington, GM of TSA’s Office of Highway and Motor Carrier, said that, after the last school bus stolen, video footage showed an unidentified man entering various school buses for more than an hour as if he was looking for a particular type of vehicle.

Investigators are not saying at this point why they think the buses were targeted but added that increased security tied to Super Bowl XLVI on Feb. 5 in Indianapolis included additional searches of school buses in the area. No security breaches occurred, and the event went off without incident. Still, Arrington said the thefts demonstrate that school buses remain the targets of criminal activity, at the least.

The article gives indicators to look out for when looking at school buses.   

The National Terror Alert published several articles dating from 2006 about stolen school buses and drivers with questionable credentials: 

Would you recognize a new face sitting in the drivers seat of your child’s school bus?
Do you give any thought to the person who picks up your child and transports them to school and back home each day?
If not, you might want to start.
School Bus Terrorism – A Practical Analysis

Chris Dorn has a complete analysis of the threat.

In this paper I will discuss one specific aspect of terrorism: attacks including school buses as targets or weapons. I will assume a basic knowledge of terrorism and terrorist groups. Thus I will not discuss in detail the motivations or specific tactical movements of terrorists. I will be dealing in strategies and methods that apply to anti-terrorism in a particular area.
Read Analysis

The Sunday Education Weekly Reader 01.08.12

Welcome to the Sunday Education Weekly Reader for January 8, 2012.  This week's articles include:

• Question for the education political junkies regarding the latest Republican debate
• Privacy concerns raised and lawsuit filed...but not regarding education privacy invasion
• An update on student tracking bracelets
• Parents should be careful what they wish for

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Are you concerned about the state of American education?  Do you disagree with the increasing nationalization and centralization of standards constitutionally left to the states?  Are you hoping the Republican presidential candidates will take a stand against this tightening of the Federal noose?

I've received reports from two sources about the intriguing discussion of education between the candidates during the Republican debate on January 7, 2012:

• One source says there was NO discussion of education by the moderator or candidates
• Another source:   "The debate was two hours long.   Number of references to education = 1 (Ron Paul accused Rick Santorum of supporting NCLB), discussion time: about 15 seconds. There was not one question on education from the moderators."

Regardless if the educational debate lasted 0 seconds or 15 seconds, the federal takeover of education creating a system with no taxpayer accountability continues without serious debate.

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A lawsuit has been filed against the Department of Homeland Security over its plans to monitor social media sites.

Where's the outrage over the Department of Education's circumvention of FERPA privacy laws gutting protection of the usage of student/family private data?  When did the act of walking into a public school allow the government to gather and share personal data of its citizens with agencies and private entities?

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We wrote about the tracking bracelets used in the Parkway District in gym class and the future plans of the district to send them home with the students to measure behavior 24/7 for one week. The company manufacturing these bracelets, polargofit, is located in Finland, but China is ready to jump on the bandwagon as well.

The Chinese version may be more versatile and the school district might want to expand its tracking ability on students. There are tags for clothing, key fobs, etc which opens up a world of possibility for expanded tracking information. 

 From the product website:

UHF Access Control Tags & Wristbands

860~960 MHz ISO 18000-6B, ISO 18000-6C and EPC Gen 2 tags and wristbands for building security, personnel access control, student attendance, bag and equipment tagging, logistics, inventory and manufacturing management systems, toll collection, parking and vehicle access control and laundry management.

It's important to keep track of the human capital (and the physical data) needed for the workforce.  Yes, it's all for the children, right?

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Should children from birth should be tracked by the government?

"In its successful Early Learning Challenge application, Massachusetts committed to establishing a system of developmentally appropriate assessment of young children, birth to third grade, including kindergarten entry assessment."


Maybe Ritalin can be prescribed for a squirmy 6 month old who doesn't fit into the standard data set for that age group.


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Educational thought for the week:

 How Fathers Influence Academic Achievement

‎"The way fathers play with their children also has an important impact on a child's emotional and social development. Fathers spend a much higher percentage of their one-on-one interaction with infants and preschoolers in stimulating, playful activity than do mothers. From these interactions, children learn how to regulate their feelings and behavior. Rough-housing with dad, for example, can teach children how to deal with aggressive impulses and physical contact without losing control of their emotions."