4 ms·

The decisionmakers who pay the money (school beauracracy) and the actual customers who use the software (students and teachers) are different people for the LAR

by jrm4 2y ago

The decisionmakers who pay the money (school beauracracy) and the actual customers who use the software (students and teachers) are different people for the LARGEST MARKETS, and therefore you get the worst incentives.

bryanrasmussen 2y ago
I mean in most cases of every industry the people who pay the money and the actual people who use the software are different people.
- nine_k 2y ago
  This is correct. But when a supermarket chain decides which software to use for point-of-sale machines, the chain's bottom line directly depends on how well that software fits the task. Even if the top brass never operates these machines, their bonuses directly depend on that software working well. The disconnect between boards of education and teachers and students is much larger. There is no easy way to measure the efficiency, it's hard to ascribe the influence of the software choice to the educational outcomes, and the outcomes themselves are years apart from the point of choice. The best the system us capable of weeding of is outrageously bad software, such that induces mass protests from teachers, students, and parents, media coverage, etc. Choosing between barely satisfactory and outstandingly excellent, hardly.
  - jrm4 2y ago
    Spot on. Additionally, what makes it SO BAD for us (I work in higher ed) is the "bundling." It would have been madness to be like, your chalkboards and gradebooks and chairs all must be approved by and come from ONE company, and so you have to do everything their way. But that's where we are now.
yobbo 2y ago
The decision makers are bureaucrats but "the people who pay" is the government, through grants and as underwriters of student loans, and parents through tuition. And then, the product "sold" in return to students/parents is not mainly education ("learning things") but instead something like a "trademark of eligibility" for employment into jobs where competence doesn't measurably affect performance anyway.

by jrm4 2y ago

bryanrasmussen 2y ago

I mean in most cases of every industry the people who pay the money and the actual people who use the software are different people.

nine_k 2y ago
This is correct. But when a supermarket chain decides which software to use for point-of-sale machines, the chain's bottom line directly depends on how well that software fits the task. Even if the top brass never operates these machines, their bonuses directly depend on that software working well. The disconnect between boards of education and teachers and students is much larger. There is no easy way to measure the efficiency, it's hard to ascribe the influence of the software choice to the educational outcomes, and the outcomes themselves are years apart from the point of choice. The best the system us capable of weeding of is outrageously bad software, such that induces mass protests from teachers, students, and parents, media coverage, etc. Choosing between barely satisfactory and outstandingly excellent, hardly.
- jrm4 2y ago
  Spot on. Additionally, what makes it SO BAD for us (I work in higher ed) is the "bundling." It would have been madness to be like, your chalkboards and gradebooks and chairs all must be approved by and come from ONE company, and so you have to do everything their way. But that's where we are now.

yobbo 2y ago

The decision makers are bureaucrats but "the people who pay" is the government, through grants and as underwriters of student loans, and parents through tuition. And then, the product "sold" in return to students/parents is not mainly education ("learning things") but instead something like a "trademark of eligibility" for employment into jobs where competence doesn't measurably affect performance anyway.