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Originally posted by mwingate:
I think that if a student claims to have lost, misplaced his or her transcripts due to a natural disaster that they be required to produce a birth certificate or government identification. If they are unable to produce a birth certificate then a transcript should not be generated until they do. Apparently, as it stands now, a person can enroll in a school and not actually take the class and a transcript will still be created saying they were enrolled but failed the class.
That being the case, I could therefore go to a school and say my name "Barack Obama", for example, and enroll for a class. If I said I lost my previous transcripts, the school would put me in 9th grade until there was proof that I completed additional courses. When I don't show up, a transcript will be created saying Barack Obama enrolled in the school but failed the course due to lack of attendance or payment or whatever. Now, I've created a ficticious person named "Barack Obama" and I can now go to another school, say I'm Barack Obama and direct them to the previous school to get my transcripts (even though they show failures) and verify my existence. That school would probably say "You failed these courses so you will have to take them again" but
When I did the story I was most amazed at how the educational system actually works. Other than grade school, higher education doesn't require proof of age. They only require sealed transcripts on the assumption that that they haven't been tampered with and are continuous from grade school when proof of age was required.
At the same time, they have age restrictions in most high school systems (ie. Public School is 19) with regard to up the last age you are allowed to play varsity basketball.
We focus on teachers, bus drivers and staff who are around students who are minors making sure that they have background checks but there is a glaring hole where an adult can pose as a minor, enter the educational system and interact with these same student. It's kind of like having a security guard and the front door of a building but having no coverage or lock on the back door of that same building.
It's truly scary and I feel empathy for parents with 14 or 15 yo daughters and sons in high school. All I can say is, you'd better check and see who they're dating.
I have a question for those of you with kids in school. Did you ever have to produce a birth certificate for your kids? If so, what year of school?
This post was edited on 4/24 2:30 PM by mwingate