Weekend opinion: More drones watching us, tackling education costs
Morning, folks. A classic winter morning outside. A quick post about the weekend’s opinion writing, then I’m off to ski.
We’ll start in Watertown, near Fort Drum military base, which is already the anchor point for drone aircraft overflights across the Adirondacks.
Now, the Watertown Daily Times reports, the Obama administration is moving to allow far more drone activity in American airspace, a move that raises civil liberties concerns.
[P]olice can watch a political rally, silently from 30,000 feet overhead. But also alarming is the danger of escalating their use to include weapons. Drone builders are researching the use of nonlethal weapons such as tear gas, tasers and stun guns fired from a drone, and lethal weaponry can be an easy next step on the slippery slope.
The drones will add to the erosion of privacy that has come with the ubiquitous cameras and global positioning systems that can monitor our whereabouts.
The Adirondack Daily Enterprise and the Glens Falls Post Star are thinking about the cost of education in the North Country. The Enterprise weighs in on the side of merging districts, even forming a massive “Tri-Lakes” district.
Last year, the superintendents of the Tri-Lakes school districts met to discuss the possibility of merging districts or even sharing services. Unsurprisingly, they decided not to.
“It all depends on whose ox is getting gored,” Saranac Lake Central School District Superintendent Gerald Goldman told the Enterprise at the time, making it clear that the decision was based largely on the fact that none of them wanted to lose his job.
But it shouldn’t be their call anyway, and they know that. It’s up to the people and our elected leaders. If school boards, following a public mandate, voted to merge districts, superintendents would have to respect that decision.
Imagine a merger of the districts the Enterprise covers: Saranac Lake, Tupper Lake, Lake Placid and Keene. Each school could keep its doors open as well as its principal and hopefully all its teachers, and have advisory council as well.
Meanwhile, the Glens Falls Post Star is calling for school boards to negotiate aggressively to avoid higher teacher salaries and benefits.
School boards need to understand they are in the catbird seat after years in which the unions dictated the terms.
That may sound cold and heartless, but it is a reality and unions need to understand that as well. This is not a time to be asking for the moon or even a sliver of it.
It is just the opposite. One member of the Queensbury Board of Education has been calling for a wage freeze for some time. Each school board should give that strong consideration.
The other day at a recreation planning meeting in Lake Placid, I participated in a time-honored Adirondack meeting ritual.It goes like this: someone at the table brings up the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan (SLMP), the document that defines land classifications (wilderness, wild forest, etc.) and lists the guidelines for their use.Next, nearly every stakeholder at the table agrees that the SLMP is outdated and that a major review is long overdue.The ritual concludes with everyone agreeing that meaningful review of the SLMP is unlikely, and probably not worth pursuing.The conversation then moves on to other topics.The SLMP states “Major reviews of the master plan will take place every five years by the [Adirondack Park] Agency in consultation with the Department of Environmental Conservation, as required by statute…” but the last review was in 1987.
Tags: opinion
The drones, it was only a matter of time….
Drones spying on us, unfortunately, won’t be an issue that raises the hackles of Obama’s conservative critics.
One of my two favorites on TV is “A Person of Interest.” The other is “NCIS.”
“A Person of Interest” probably gives some people the creeps with all of the devices used to monitor people. But the program also shows how with all of this monitoring going on, we are basically needles in a haystack and unless there is a reason to focus on someone, it really doesn’t amount to much of an invasion of privacy.
So I ask you, “What are you doing you want to keep secret?”
As far as schools and, I might add, local governments are concerned, I do support shared services but question the practically of consolidation.
I think any consolidation of schools in Hamilton County would be very difficult for two reasons.
One is the distance between the schools. The other is every school district in Hamilton County is in a different BOCES district.
In the case of consolidating towns and school districts, you are also faced with people who don’t want to give up whatever local identity they have left.
As to the SLMP, so you want to start a fight and how much time and money will be spent? Plus, will you like what you get?
Sometimes it is best to let sleeping dogs lie.
“Bigger school districts for better schools” The article in the The Adirondack Daily Enterprise reflects my opinion to a T. I have commented such on various venues/posts over the past few years. How does it make sense to have schools of a size capable of handling 1000 or more pupils populated at the 3-500 level with all of the attending overhead required at the 1000 or more level retained? I moved back to the North-country about 10 years ago from MD, a state which organizes their school districts by the county, with a superintendent of schools for each county not each school or two.
The new way of looking at drones is micro-drones, drones as big as bees or smaller with micro-chips imbedded; think of the places they could go.
well,
if they’ll pollinate my veggies, i’ll reconsider…..
The title of this article pretty much spells out the problem. How much does a drone program cost, and how much do our schools lack?
Maybe they could develop drones that whisper right answers in kid’s ears?
Walker,
Students already have such devices, they’re called cell phones with internet access. And, sadly, many parents in this day and age think their little darling is entitled to use such devices whenever they decide to. Including during class. Class time which inevitably includes test taking. It’s but one example of what teachers and administrators are competing against with regard to outside forces that take time away from productive teaching of vital critical thinking skills. Why think when you can simply download information whenever you need to? Especially when mommy and daddy enable such behavior?
Drones in the north country? Good luck getting enough clear days to see anything. School funding/budgets/taxes. One area the local school boards could focus on at contract negotioations is Health Insurance contributions. Right now teachers and administrators contribute basically nothing. Family plans in the Saranac Lake schools probably run close to $20,000./yr. Drastic changes are needed to keep these costs down, offer plans with high deductibles or offer to pay a basic plan and if individuals want the Cadillac plan let them pay the difference. Something has got to give.
David,
What districts require their employees to not contribute to their health care costs?