6 ms·

Why Hoboken Is Throwing Away All Its Student Laptops

16 points by matt_morgan 12y ago

anigbrowl 12y ago
“Probably in the last few months I’ve had quite a few principals and superintendents call and say, ‘I bought these 500 iPads or 1,000 laptops because the district next to us just bought them,’ and they’re like, now what do we do?” Powell said. Argh. This reminds me of the many problems that stem from schools buying books and lending them to the students, which I think is madness. Have students buy their own books, and subsidize the students directly if they're poor, using vouchers or something. Kids are much more likely to look after books/laptops/whatever if they're answerable to their parents for the cost.
- dalke 12y ago
  I don't recognize the situation you described. In my school system, if a book had excess damage (beyond normal wear and tear) then the parents had to pay damage fees. That is, the kids are "answerable to their parents for the cost." Eg, from http://kennedymiddleschool.weebly.com/textbook-replacement-costs.html http://kennedymiddleschool.weebly.com/textbook-replacement-c... : "The parent, guardian, or other person having custody of the student to whom the instructional materials are issued shall be liable for any loss, abuse, or damage in excess of that which would result from normal use of the materials." The same holds for library books. Eg, http://www.christina.k12.de.us/pulaski/library/ http://www.christina.k12.de.us/pulaski/library/ "Please be aware that if your child takes out a book and either loses it or damages it, the school district requires that the book be paid for or worked off. This can affect whether or not your child receives a report card." Also, textbooks can last for many years. http://www.rcsnc.org/departments/curriculum_and_instruction/textbooks__professional_library/textbook_damage_fees/ http://www.rcsnc.org/departments/curriculum_and_instruction/... for example uses a 5 year depreciation schedule. Wouldn't your proposal mean either that parents are paying about 5x more than they should, or introduce new overhead costs of creating a secondary market for parents to sell used textbooks to other parents?
  - mschuster91 12y ago
    > Also, textbooks can last for many years. Which is part of the problem. Shit, in 2008 my geography books still included maps of the Soviet Union!
    - MrZongle2 12y ago
      Granted, geography books that are 17 years out of date are a problem but the solution is cheap: the teacher can photocopy a modern map, pass it out to the class and simply say "the book is outdated, here are the countries you'll be tested on." Schoolbooks may be ridiculously expensive, but given their longevity they pale in comparison to laptops. Even if a laptop is well-treated by students, the maintenance required for an average-sized school is ridiculous. And that's assuming that operating systems don't have to be replaced or licenses have to be renewed.... The photocopied map workaround sucks, but at least it works. A broken laptop doesn't.
    - toast0 12y ago
      Well, the mountains and other geologic features are still there, just the political boundaries have changed, and features may have been renamed.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > Wouldn't your proposal mean either that parents are paying about 5x more than they should, or introduce new overhead costs of creating a secondary market for parents to sell used textbooks to other parents? Well, sure, but think of the benefits for textbook publishers. It'd be like extending the college textbook market down into grade school.
    - dalke 12y ago
      That does seem one of the consequences of Common Core. I was aghast to see my niece's math book where every single subsection contained a reference to the corresponding CC requirement. Which means that whenever CC changes -- poof! new textbooks are needed.
    - 12y ago
- superuser2 12y ago
  You can just bill the parents if books come back damaged/don't come back. This is what my school does, and it never occurred to me that they would do anything else.
posty 12y ago
A lot of these problems aren't so much 'computer problems' but poor administration. Schools decided they needed to lock things down so much slowed down the laptops. If a child is looking at things they shouldn't in class they should be disciplined by the teacher, not having software do the teachers job that they can google how to get around. get a fucking proxy for one. if they're that concerned, whitelist sites (however that would be a major major pain in the ass). some minor expenditure on setting up a standard image and a school network supporting PXE rebuilds would at least solve some of these issues. (got a virus? hit f12 to rebuild. little johnny lost his work? little johnny just learnt the value of backing up his data.). getting a decent router and having administration of a approved mac list (yes they can be spoofed but it's a hurdle that most ipad using parents/etc wouldn't do). or just changing the password every term goddamit. they also bought cheap, bad notebooks, why are they not surprised that the lifecycle is short? frustrating reading things like this but it's not surprising.

16 points by matt_morgan 12y ago

“Probably in the last few months I’ve had quite a few principals and superintendents call and say, ‘I bought these 500 iPads or 1,000 laptops because the district next to us just bought them,’ and they’re like, now what do we do?” Powell said. Argh. This reminds me of the many problems that stem from schools buying books and lending them to the students, which I think is madness. Have students buy their own books, and subsidize the students directly if they're poor, using vouchers or something. Kids are much more likely to look after books/laptops/whatever if they're answerable to their parents for the cost.

dalke 12y ago
I don't recognize the situation you described. In my school system, if a book had excess damage (beyond normal wear and tear) then the parents had to pay damage fees. That is, the kids are "answerable to their parents for the cost." Eg, from http://kennedymiddleschool.weebly.com/textbook-replacement-costs.html http://kennedymiddleschool.weebly.com/textbook-replacement-c... : "The parent, guardian, or other person having custody of the student to whom the instructional materials are issued shall be liable for any loss, abuse, or damage in excess of that which would result from normal use of the materials." The same holds for library books. Eg, http://www.christina.k12.de.us/pulaski/library/ http://www.christina.k12.de.us/pulaski/library/ "Please be aware that if your child takes out a book and either loses it or damages it, the school district requires that the book be paid for or worked off. This can affect whether or not your child receives a report card." Also, textbooks can last for many years. http://www.rcsnc.org/departments/curriculum_and_instruction/textbooks__professional_library/textbook_damage_fees/ http://www.rcsnc.org/departments/curriculum_and_instruction/... for example uses a 5 year depreciation schedule. Wouldn't your proposal mean either that parents are paying about 5x more than they should, or introduce new overhead costs of creating a secondary market for parents to sell used textbooks to other parents?
- mschuster91 12y ago
  > Also, textbooks can last for many years. Which is part of the problem. Shit, in 2008 my geography books still included maps of the Soviet Union!
  - MrZongle2 12y ago
    Granted, geography books that are 17 years out of date are a problem but the solution is cheap: the teacher can photocopy a modern map, pass it out to the class and simply say "the book is outdated, here are the countries you'll be tested on." Schoolbooks may be ridiculously expensive, but given their longevity they pale in comparison to laptops. Even if a laptop is well-treated by students, the maintenance required for an average-sized school is ridiculous. And that's assuming that operating systems don't have to be replaced or licenses have to be renewed.... The photocopied map workaround sucks, but at least it works. A broken laptop doesn't.
  - toast0 12y ago
    Well, the mountains and other geologic features are still there, just the political boundaries have changed, and features may have been renamed.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > Wouldn't your proposal mean either that parents are paying about 5x more than they should, or introduce new overhead costs of creating a secondary market for parents to sell used textbooks to other parents? Well, sure, but think of the benefits for textbook publishers. It'd be like extending the college textbook market down into grade school.
  - dalke 12y ago
    That does seem one of the consequences of Common Core. I was aghast to see my niece's math book where every single subsection contained a reference to the corresponding CC requirement. Which means that whenever CC changes -- poof! new textbooks are needed.
  - 12y ago
superuser2 12y ago
You can just bill the parents if books come back damaged/don't come back. This is what my school does, and it never occurred to me that they would do anything else.

posty 12y ago

A lot of these problems aren't so much 'computer problems' but poor administration. Schools decided they needed to lock things down so much slowed down the laptops. If a child is looking at things they shouldn't in class they should be disciplined by the teacher, not having software do the teachers job that they can google how to get around. get a fucking proxy for one. if they're that concerned, whitelist sites (however that would be a major major pain in the ass). some minor expenditure on setting up a standard image and a school network supporting PXE rebuilds would at least solve some of these issues. (got a virus? hit f12 to rebuild. little johnny lost his work? little johnny just learnt the value of backing up his data.). getting a decent router and having administration of a approved mac list (yes they can be spoofed but it's a hurdle that most ipad using parents/etc wouldn't do). or just changing the password every term goddamit. they also bought cheap, bad notebooks, why are they not surprised that the lifecycle is short? frustrating reading things like this but it's not surprising.