Reason Why Schools Should Adopt Linux

MS has donated/contributed tens of millions to the NEA and other smaller teachers unions. I bounced off that wall two years ago when I approached the AISD (Austin Independent School district or as I am fond of calling them the Austin InMyPocket Screwel Destruct).

Miicrosoft fought long and hard to get Apple out of the Schools and now that the millions of donated Macs are ancient, MS is worming their way back in again. Too few PTSA groups are hammering the districts for fiscal responsibility. Every time I get the opportunity to listen to a teacher/educator snivel about the poor pay, I tell them point-blank:

"If you stopped paying Bill Gates and used FOSS/Linux, you might have some money in the budget for cost of living allowances or raises. Spend your money on teaching Kids, not buying software." The only raise I get from them is a blank stare.

That about figures.

h

MS will bribe anyone and everyone to insure control of the schools. Remember that the kiddies of today are the next generation of MS patsies.

I recently heard that MS has a serious stronghold in Charlotte. I don't know if that will last or not, but we'll see.

I always wondered how MS had broken the near unanimous use of Apple hardware in schools. That teacher's union is a nasty mofu.

> I don't know if that will last or not, but we'll see.

I wouldn't hold my breath. Apple was the first one to, almost from their inception, jump on the educational bandwagon. When MS realized how successful the ploy was they immediately jumped in with both feet. Their are few schools in America that aren't pretty much MS controlled by now.

The whole issue of selling our children is nothing new. My memory is a bit fuzzy on this but I remember reading (in the late 90's) that Corporate Amerika had decided that the kiddies were the last great 'consumer market', and, were taking steps to lock it in. Soon after we saw things like 'news' clips, complete with commercials, supplied by Corporations, 'as a public service', to schools. I remember talking to parents about the implications of this practice and getting blank looks and shrugs. Apparently no one gave a damn.

Because of the deceptions and ulterior profit driven motives, I think that it's 'morally repugnant' to have Corporate Business even set foot inside the doors of our public schools, much less bribe their way in and brainwash our children. It would be nice if more parents, teachers, and school boards saw it that way...

"Because of the deceptions and ulterior profit driven motives, I think that it's 'morally repugnant' to have Corporate Business even set foot inside the doors of our public schools, much less bribe their way in and brainwash our children."

I would gladly assert the same about government. Government being even sooner to realize the importance of getting young minds away from the subversive influences of parents and into the subtle, careful environment where "government is the answer to everything".

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/

> I would gladly assert the same about government.

Perhaps, but that one's a whole other bag of worms and unlikely to ever be resolved.

I find this a very interesting subject, as I am studying to become a teacher. In one of my classes I had to interview a principle about using technology in his school. One of his biggest concerns was the cost of keeping up with software updates. Because each time the software gets updated, they have to buy new hardware to run it. He would be interested in using opensource software in his school, but the district policy doesn't allow for anything but what they want.

Fortunately the district is not a 100% MS district, and his school is 100% Mac. But he can't try linux because it's against district policy.

But hopefully we can get some change going and save the district some good money with linux migrations.

> his school is 100% Mac

Just another Corporate profiteer... Apple is a lot more subtle in it's approach, but close to as greedy.

"Perhaps, but that one's a whole other bag of worms and unlikely to ever be resolved."

Why?

I can agree that the grasping control freaks, be they Microsoft or Apple or Congress, will always apply pressure to ensure their dominance, but does that mean the "problem" cannot be resolved?

What would you consider a resolution in terms of software? The decision of the school itself? I certainly would consider that a perfectly good resolution. It doesn't mean that my choice would be applied to others, but that is not my goal.

Same with government in school, exactly the same as people complain about Microsoft having some level of "coercion" concerning their OEMs.

Eliminate the coercion. :^)

But left to make their own decisions, Microsoft and Apple might decide to sponsor schools themselves. The "Bill and Melinda Gates Elementary School" where the kids do nothing but use Windows computers for their classwork, homework and study time. I certainly wouldn't send _my_ son there, but who am I to say that someone else may not?

Here in Charlotte, a couple schools were built in the same complex as IBM and other major corps. One or two other major business parks lie in that vicinity. IBM was a big corporate sponsor of the schools until the system shifted too many 'underprivileged' kids over there. Sad.

> Same with government in school

I think that Open Source should indeed be mandated in Government. Again, it isn't ethical to let a proprietary business control the workings of the people's Governing. The imediate problem is that who, if not the Government, has the ability to support schools on a more or less consistent and equal basis?

While I might agree that we've let our government run out of control, that's a problem that the Citizen needs to resolve with his government, as are the issues with schools. In the near term, it may be expediant for people to deal with the school problem on a local level.

"IBM was a big corporate sponsor of the schools until the system shifted too many 'underprivileged' kids over there. Sad."

IBM, although I'm sure they were trying to be the Nice Guy by sponsoring a "public" school, aught to have made it a private school where their employees get first dibs.

If there are slots open, of course, others may apply. I would also consider it fair that once a student is in the school, they cannot be kicked out for any but student-caused reasons, rather than their parent losing their employment at IBM.

But then, I'm hardly a "realist".

The main barrier is not the Office apps. There are tools and converters galore to overcome that hurdle. By the way, Open Text offers a commercial email system designed for schools with a linux client. (And it works well with all the features of the Windows and Mac clients.)

The main barrier is all the educational software that comes as Windows or Mac only. There's Accelerated Reader, a big favorite. Fastt Math from Scholastic that's another. I'm not talking about the stuff you get in a retail store, but the big programs from education companies. Some of these have no equivalent in Linux at this point. Had I the money, I would develop these programs.

I know there's Wine. That works for Accelerated Reader, but not Fastt math. It also doesn't work for a few other titles we have. If my school district had buy-in, we could help the Wine developers address these issues. As it is, first it has to be proven, then it can be implemented.

Still, smaller school districts, like various Class I schools in Nebraska could go 100% F/OSS. They can't afford Fastt math or any of the other $250/client education programs out there. Gcompris, Kalzium, and many others are perfectly good programs and would be a wise allocation of money. (Frees up money for teacher incentive programs.)

Chicken/Egg problem.

Not enough Linux used in schools to justify the expense of writing the software to run on Linux.

Not enough software that runs on Linux to justify the expense of installing Linux.

I agree that the "educational" software available under Linux is very limited, at least what I can find. Oh, and lots of kids "educational" software that is shipping _right_now_ still has bugs in it so that it won't work cleanly with so-called "modern" memory management. I have to set my wife's WinXP machine to have a cache of only 200MB statically in order for the games to run, otherwise they crash and burn. And that's an application I bought last month!

WINE can't run it, because WINE does "modern" memory management. Maybe I should try with WINE pretending to be Win95...

As a home-schooler, I would be very interested in this "Fastt Math". Accelerated reading is irrelevant at this point, my 4 year old is reading at 3rd grade levels after I started with him reading last spring.

wow, however did kids learn anything before computers?

>wow, however did kids learn anything before computers?

The real question is why they haven't learned anything since computers.