Fines for Truancy, by people with too much time on their hands.

I doubt that the fines for truants program will work.  As soon as you get money involved, excuses will be found in much the same way as excuses are found when students and families want to take an extended vacation or take an extra week for Spring break. Besides, if the parents couldn't make them go to school in the first place, how are they supposed to make them go to school in the second place?

Bad boy. Stop it.

It could soon cost kids (and parents) in Concord,CA upwards of $500 if the teenager continues to cut class. The mayor of Concord, Laure Hoffmeister, insists that the local police are spending too much time and effort chasing down truant kids these days.

So instead of chasing them down and bringing them back to school, they'll chase them down and give them a ticket, show up in court, give testimony, watch as the judge waves his gavel and threatens to impose the fine but never does, listen to the kid do that pretend-contrition-bullshit thing they're all so good at, and then tell the parent to bring them back to school. Because, gosh darn it, they're all such GOOD kids.

“Often they’re finding that the kid they return at 11 a.m. is back out at 12:30,” said Hoffmeister. After a series of general warnings, students and their parents would be fined $100 after the first offense, $200 after the second, and $500 after the third.

And this solves things, how?  The school has already admitted it can't keep them in the building for longer than a couple hours.

Darren has a few other implications that I won't repeat in their entirety, but just say that the schools seem to be are demanding more and more control over students' off-campus lives but accepting less and less responsibility.

On the whole, adults in the area seem to largely support the innovative and unique idea. Predictably, teenagers and students are vehemently opposed to the new proposal.

Quel surprise. The adults approve a measure that restricts teenagers. I wonder how long the ordinance will last. Probably until someone in local government has to pay the fine. This whole sorry tale brings to mind this:

Americans have long been driven by two deep longings. The first is to be left alone. The second is to tell other people what to do. On most moral issues, the easiest way out is to inflict our piety on children. All the righteous satisfaction, none of the libertarian backlash.

~ William Saletan, Slate

Won't someone PLEASE think of the Children?