Skipping School Getting More Complicated

Welp.. tomorrow is once again Monday and I'm really not looking forward to another week of tests, homework, and the usual high school bullshit. I would play a Ferris Bueller, but according to this USA Today article, that's getting harder to do these days...

Suppose Ferris Bueller wanted to take a day off now.

In a 1986 movie, the hooky-playing high schooler tricked his parents into believing he was sick, then went out for a fun day of driving around Chicago in a Ferrari with his buddy and his girlfriend. That was Ferris Bueller's Day Off then.

It's a new day for Ferris and his under-18 friends.

Cities are passing daytime curfew laws, so Ferris would be nabbed by the cops for being on the street during school hours.

He wouldn't be able to drive his two friends in that Ferrari, thanks to laws restricting minors to provisional driver's licenses. Until Ferris gets an unrestricted license, most states forbid him having more than one teenage passenger.

What's more, Mr. and Mrs. Bueller would know that Ferris wasn't home because they'd have given him a cellphone with a global-positioning device that could pinpoint his whereabouts on a map displayed on the parents' phones.

And remember how Ferris hacked into the school computer to alter his attendance record? His parents could be watching him type with software that lets them monitor the home PC from their desks at work.

Technology and laws are combining in a reversal of attitudes toward teens a generation ago.

Here are some laws and restrictions placed on teenagers the article mentions:

•Parents are suing New York City schools over a policy forbidding students to carry cellphones. Some schools elsewhere make students turn phones off during school hours; New York confiscates them.

•The House of Representatives passed legislation in July that would forbid minors from using MySpace, Facebook and other social networking Internet sites in school libraries and public libraries. "Predators will look for any way to talk to children online," says the bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.

•Cities are enforcing curfews, and some have toughened them. In Washington, D.C., a midnight curfew for kids under 17 was moved to 10 p.m. for the summer, on top of other emergency anti-crime measures including surveillance cameras and police overtime. Violent crime reports fell 18%, and violent crimes against juveniles during curfew hours fell 50%.

•Rockford, Ill., Battle Creek, Mich., and Corpus Christi, Texas, have daytime curfews. Minors face a fine and a trip to the police station if caught on the street during school hours unless they're heading home from jobs, church or school.

•El Dorado, Kan., requires students to agree to random drug testing to do anything other than go to class, including joining clubs, attending school plays and parking on campus.

•Supreme Court decisions in 1995 and 2002 upheld random drug testing of students involved in extracurricular activities. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy says testing reduces student drug use. A 1997 study at Hunterdon Central High School in New Jersey said that after a year of random testing of athletes, cocaine use by seniors fell from 13% to 4%. A 2003 University of Michigan study, however, concluded that drug testing has little or no effect.

•In 18 states, people younger than 18 must have written parental permission to use tanning beds because of the risk of skin cancer. Four states require it for those under 16.

•In the past 10 years, all but three states have instituted graduated driver's licenses, under which teenagers don't receive unrestricted licenses until they turn 18.

So yah... being a kid this day and age pretty much sucks. Looks like the good old days of the 1980s aren't coming back anytime soon...