Except that's not exactly what is happening.
While I do absolutely agree that schools need to teach the topic of privacy and how to keep it, I am pretty sure that things that students do after hours are none of the schools' business.
See, the thing is, this kind of monitoring will inevitably lead to some kid somewhere suffering consequences for his or her words online far in excess of what is warranted.
From the article, it says their remit is to "provide Glendale school officials with a daily report that categorizes posts by their frequency and how they relate to cyber-bullying, harm, hate, despair, substance abuse, vandalism and truancy. "
How long do you guess does it take for someone to use this monitoring system to subvert it so that some innocent third party is harassed by these watchdogs (and school officials!)?
I can see the intent behind these efforts, but remember what they say about the path to hell. A system like this is far too easy to subvert and to circumvent, and thus far too prone for false results to be any good at what it does. We've already had instances where schools that issued Laptops to their students installed spyware from hell on the machines (including keyloggers and the ability to remote-control cameras); while the system under discussion here may seem more benign, it does represent an inacceptible assumption of responsibility on the part of the school. There needs to be a sharp boundary between areas where the school has responsibility, and where the parents do.
If the school wishes to monitor how its on-site equipment is used, and prohibit certain usages, that's their right. But as soon as it intrudes into areas where students should have a reasonable expectation of privacy, it's time to back the **** off.
