[lug] BVSD Windows vs Mac craziness

[Daniel Webb]

[I guess if we're this OT, I might as well go whole-hog]

On Fri, Jan 20, 2006 at 09:20:10AM -0700, Bear Giles wrote:

> The business model for schools does not work.  Correction -- it does not 
> work unless you are a corporatist who sees people as nothing other than 
> interchangable cogs that are only begrunglingly entitled to the same 
> cash investment.  I'm a humanist -- students have different needs and 
> "one size fits all" solutions will not work.  Bouncing the question to 
> parents is even worse -- how many kids would be denied a minimal science 
> education because of their parent's religious beliefs?  Or an arts-rich 
> education because their parents expect their kids to also be lawyers or 
> MBAs?  (Not that our current schools are particularly arts-rich, sadly.)

Wait, you're saying that a money-follows-students system would theoretically
fail students in a way that public school fails students *now*?  Do you not
see the irony in that statement?  

> BTW I think this is a very rich metaphor for the Windows/Mac/Linux 
> debate.  With the corporatist viewpoint there is absolutely no doubt 
> that the students and admins must use Windows and nothing but Windows.  
> Windows, MSIE, Word.  That is what the rest of the world uses and it 
> would waste everyone's time to futz with anything else.

I do as well.  You are forced to pay for public school regardless, much like
buying a premade computer forces you to pay for a Windows license.  If your
kids are in BVSD, they will soon be forced to use Windows.  In the corporate
world, most people will be forced to be conformist like you say.  There's
still room for real vision, though, just look at Google.  The difference is,
in the corporate world real vision can be rewarded, and in government systems
it never is.  With a state-run monopoly, there isn't even the hope for vision,
the system stamps it out even more surely than corporate bureaucracy.  

The greatest teacher I ever had was principle several times, but was never
able to stay principle because either he couldn't stand the administration (in
multiple school districts) or because they couldn't stand him.  He was so well
respected by the students that one of the times that happened most of the
students walked out.  I decided then that the public schools are unredeemable,
and haven't seen any reason to change my mind since.

I never vote for mill increases; like several people have said, it's throwing
good money after bad.  You get wasteful spending and the schools are no better
for students than they were before.