I believe that many schools needlessly spend money because of the way schools work. Talking from a UK perspective here, up until after Yr. 11 there is a real segregation between student and teacher. This is in my eyes causes an attitude where teachers fall into the mindset that they not only know everything, but they are in fact always correct. I've had a lot of first hand experience of this - for example when the school decided to buy Photoshop CS5, InDesign CS5, Photoshop Elements 8, Flash (I forget the version) for every computer in the school just because a teacher said that was what the media class needed. They didn't, they need Premier and Photoshop Elements 8, for 12 computers.
My school district bought all the teachers and students laptops.
Worst part, my school jumped onto the whole Apple bandwagon.
School bought around 40 iMacs, though they're used by students and teachers.
I'm glad I'm out of high school and in college now. Every year they seem to cut the budget for education even more.
School near me built a new basketball court, one year later they teared it up and built an extension on the gym.
My school spent a fuckton on sports. Not only that, we had to go to school absurdly early so they would have enough time for practice afterwards.
Also, at my old school, the higher the grade, the more funding. This can be said with the computers.
Kindergarten - Some Macintosh PowerPC model from 1996, running OS7.
6th Grade - Macbook Airs, running Snow Leopard.
:v:
Our school just opened up an AP History course with all new books. The college prep history classes are still using books from 1999. The first few lessons they're supposed to know aren't even in the book.
In the library, there are iMac boxes stacked up 7 feet high by 20 feet long, because digital video [i]must[/i] have Macs.
All the computer classes have custom built computers by our computer repair teacher (not the bad part). The school bought copies of Windows 7 for all of them, but they're all running XP because the "official" IT guys at our school don't want to hassle with it. Because of that, all the computer classes have surpluses of RAM stored away (That version of WinXP will only go to 4GB, when they could put up to 8GB in all the computers).
All the computer classes have the full Adobe CS3 suite, despite most of them only using two or three programs out of it each. We could probably have CS5 if they only got the ones they needed.
Our computer repair teacher seems to be the only person who knows what he's doing, too bad he isn't allowed to make most of the computer related decisions.
[editline]Fucking School[/editline]
Oh, and apparently it was vitally important for the school to upgrade to automatic flushing toilets.
It's been [i]one week[/i], and already all of them have broken. There is no way to manually flush the toilets. The janitor hasn't been ordered to clean them out.
Every single toilet is filled with a mountain of week old diarrhea.
[editline]And also[/editline]
There are actually several schools in my district. The one I go to is the oldest. The newest one has amazing custom built computers, it's way larger (funny thing about that. They're a bigger school than we are, yet we both have the same amount of students. We're over crowded and they're under crowded)., has multiple, clean swimming pools rather than the two that are filled wall to wall with gum that we have, higher test scores, better teachers, and no funding problems thanks to massive donations made by rich parents.
Our teachers try to say we only think they're better because we have a bad attitude and they're just newer.
[editline]But[/editline]
One thing my school did do right though was rather than buy those smart boards, they just showed the teachers how to connect their computers to the projectors, and got them cheapy tablets for those who requested them (mainly math teachers). That way they could do the normal projector stuff and draw out examples and what not.
But I'm fairly certain my school would of gotten the smart boards if they could afford them.
My school spent a lot of money on a lab full of Macs, blatantly ignoring the 9-year old English books...
My school never spent money on anything. Oh except a three storey rainbow monstrosity building that was supposed to be some kind of post-modern education zone but ended up a place to put like three classes because the rooms were so big. No worries about the tiny library or the shit computers.
I never went to high school. I was homeschooled since 2nd grade and went right into college and then university. I would say that atleast at my schools there is wasted money but not onthe insane levels you all speak of. I have seen it and it's not suprising.
Public schools try to sell their image. "OUR SCHOOL HAD iPADS! We're so hip and modern! By the way we have shit teachers because we can't hire good ones."
America atleast has this fantastic idea that throwing money at something makes it go away. I hear politicians telling they are trying to get more funding for education. Why? It's going to all go to worthless hardware the school doesn't need or use. We need to overhall the schools to train them on actually how to effectively teach. A good teacher is a wizard of education compared to a macbook. A macbook does nothing.
Our school is a terror for wasting money
They've recently bought about 20 of these USB hubs that convert Video and Audio into 1 USB cable
So they've blown at least $2000 on things that A. Hardly work and B. Could easily be replaced with an A4 sign saying how to plug in a VGA cable
And then there's the lovely thing how they've recently bought a bunch of those Dyson hand dryers that cost over $1500 [I]each[/I]
Meanwhile: it took them 3 months to replace a broken doorknob on one of the classes and they've decided to cut their already substandard IT program
Because my school is a "performing arts collage" they have to spend so much money on the performing arts and they built massive studios for dancing, music and other things yet the rest of the place is falling apart. Which kind of confuses me, especially because the performing arts are the least chosen subjects of all.
They also wasted money building a fancy security lock on one of the main doors, which slows people down like crazy trying to open it, and every 5 weeks or so it needs to be replaced because everyone is hitting the buttons so damn hard. The irony of it is, is that it doesn't actually stop people from entering who are not supposed to, there is another way in just to the left.
My school bought Macbooks for the 1st year every year so now almost every grade has a macbook. They're actually pretty nice, even though it was a bit needless.
[QUOTE=Satane;32874888]we have gamer PCs in one of our IT classes. i5-something and a gtx 470.[/QUOTE]
WHAT?!
You lucky dogs
[QUOTE=Fatal-Error;32834137]My old secondary school bought a shittone of iPads and iMacs. And they are only using iMovie.
Seriously, they could have not bought the awful computers, and bought DECENT editing software for windows.[/QUOTE]
Don't forget that half of those iMacs didn't even work most of the time. Waste of money buying a load of them since they didn't even need them. They only need them for iMovie, and only like 5 of them were used for it. The rest of them were all for windows, they could've saved fuck loads if they only bought 5 iMacs and then bought a load of shitty PC's like the ones in the IT department.
[QUOTE=gaige333;32875087]Don't forget that half of those iMacs didn't even work most of the time. Waste of money buying a load of them since they didn't even need them. They only need them for iMovie, and only like 5 of them were used for it. The rest of them were all for windows, they could've saved fuck loads if they only bought 5 iMacs and then bought a load of shitty PC's like the ones in the IT department.[/QUOTE]
A few i5 PC's with Geforce GTX 260's and they would have been laughing.
Proper video editing software too. With iMovie they had might aswell gave us windows movie maker.
[editline]20th October 2011[/editline]
Yeah, that Mac logon server never did work properly did it :v:
[editline]20th October 2011[/editline]
I can always remember that technician Micheal taking the piss out or Graham saying his PC ran slower ever since he stuck that Apple sticker on it :v:
I was in a rural school distract that had a rather small area of influence - we covered part of a single county. Because of our size, and poor standards testing, all of our programs were shit on equally.
The macs in the library were from years before, the computers in the keyboarding classrooms that doubled as the ones for the business classes were just as old, and the computers that I learned to program on were even older machines that had no business running windows xp.
Our lunches were of poor quality and went up in price yearly without a positive change in quality. Our teachers were underpaid and overworked - the teacher who taught programming was the one they made call the homes of the students who were absent.
All sports and arts departments were unfunded by the school aside from safety equipment. The sports got their jerseys and helmets and other things that needed provided so the school didn't get sued, but that was it. They had to get the rest back through concessions and fund raising. Cheerleaders really got it bad because they were entirely unfunded and had several fundraisers each year, along with the chorus and band.
Arts had no budget and it was all out of pocket, along with any clubs.
Then, in either my junior or senior year, the superintendent changed. The new guy lived somewhere the roads were plowed before he got out of bed, while the rest of us lived rural where the plows came two hours after the buses, so we had no snow days if he could get out of his driveway, and no delays even when there was a large risk of exposure waiting at the bus stops.
But he really fixed some stuff. Our heat and air worked ( even if they turned them on too late ). Broken stuff was fixed and replaced. Lunch prices went up 50 cents that year, but quality went through the roof - lunch was enjoyable again. Computers for the business students were replaced. The school regularly cleaned the building, and repaired a large amount of vandalism within the week.
So really, I'd blame any of the poor choices on a mix of a superintendent or board who don't give half a damn about the students, and grants that can only be used on specific things and not applied to, say, replacing the vandalized text books or paying teachers what they are worth.
-snip-
If it is structured anything like my school, a majority of your dues go towards paying for the class photo and the graduation ceremony.
My school filled a random classroom with 1080p monitors and decently specced PCs while I'm sat in ICT or Technology working on a tiny 15" monitor and some ancient computer from the early 2000s.
Not to mention the Mac suite where the computers are used for Open Office and Photoshop (Both of which run on Windows)
No wonder the teachers complain about not having money
Most schools don't seem to have money to spend, but when they do they spend it on specialized crap that barely anyone would actually use. It mostly depends on who's spending it, though. Most budget workers would go "WHO NEEDS COMPUTERS WHEN YOU CAN HAVE FOOTBALL?" and screw everyone else.
A few years ago, my university built a brand new 5-floor steel & glass building (on top of some old tennis fields) with a layout and equipment focused on computer science and technology-oriented students. Don't get me wrong, the place is nice to look at and the space and equipment was well-needed (the labs and workshops are nice), but there's an incredible lot of useless WANK over the entire thing.
For instance,
[B]*[/B] The chairs around the canteen/cafeteria are of design brand, meaning they are extremely expensive. Online these chairs go for $450 apiece and there are hundreds. Even with any bulk discounts that's ridiculous, and they're extremely uncomfortable (basically just a thin loose fabric seat on a metallic frame with sharp angles). Other areas such as the computer labs have adjustable chairs, also uncomfortable and with a design label.
[B]*[/B] The god damn [B]coat hangers[/B] are design-brand, the rooms are littered with them and they cost a fortune each. I better fucking hope they were sponsored by the designer or something.
[B]*[/B] The staircase (pictured) has an unusual step proportion (it was probably designed to match the level of the benches nearby) so you'll often slip when walking up or down. Many coffees have been spilled there.
[B]*[/B] They invested in lots of tables for the corridors (yeah, they put assloads of tables right in the corridors) with fancy power and Ethernet connectors. But the entire university grounds have WIFI, and is it really so hard to add a few extra wall outlets instead? It's nice to have somewhere to sit, but why couldn't they have made sealed rooms to study in? The entire building is very open and it's always noisy, not a good study environment.
[B]*[/B] SMARTBOARDS. EVERYWHERE. At the expense of whiteboard space. The only thing I ever used a smartboard for was scribbling over the Internet Explorer icon name and write "PORN" next to it. Teachers don't use it for anything other than showing slides with the projector.
[B]*[/B] Because of said open-ness most of the building is buzzing with noise. The massive amount of air combined with the copious areas of glass wall means the place gets cold as tits in the Swedish winter.
But the crown of it all? This floating lecture hall/"art" piece:
[img]http://www.google.com/url?source=imgres&ct=img&q=http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/5074239013_c3f6ce469d.jpg&sa=X&ei=EV-gTtmpE6Kk4gTKvezzBA&ved=0CAQQ8wc4AQ&usg=AFQjCNGFEEW1JCJHkGdaaa2bc0ikt51rAQ[/img]
Yeah, we have lectures inside that thing. And yes, the front of that thing consists of an array of massive LCD monitors for displaying useless messages. It's supposed to be a multi-purpose area so there are no permanent seats or tables in there. To take notes during lecture you have to grab a piece of plywood from a rack at the hall entrance and balance it in your lap in the least uncomfortable way you can find for 2 hours. The hall has no windows and has dark walls and wooden furniture so it's very easy to get tired in there. The hall inside is badly designed from an audiotechnical viewpoint (according to sound engineers from a school nearby) and some parts of the room has really poor audio image. They also have an honest-to-bugger-nuts [B]11.4 BOSE surround system[/B] in there (as if such a standard even existed) that probably cost a fortune, for nothing. Suppose it's a nice hall to invite guests to for short seminars, but what good did it do students? Absolutely none.
My school does the opposite, doesn't buy stuff we need.
eg, using pirated Windows 7 and various other pirated programs.
I haven't noticed much useless spending in my school. Everything is nice, and when it needs to be fixed it generally gets fixed pretty quickly.
I can't say the same for most other schools, unfortunately.
[QUOTE=UberMunchkin;32876351]
• Automatic windows that only open by an inch
I could go on forever with my school...[/QUOTE]A whole inch? Damn.
At the new building my high school finished building my senior year, ours didn't even open. Not a huge deal, since South Dakota winters aren't exactly the time you want windows open anyway. But at the beginning of the year, they were still working out kinks in the central heating/cooling system, and IT GOT HOT AS BALLS, and there was NOTHING you could do about it.
I think they spend a lot of subsidy money poorly, at least where I live. We have two highschools on each side of town, and on the outskirts, a large football field borrowed by the two schools. About 3 years ago there was a lot of talk about making two new football fields, one for each highschool. This seemed like a very stupid idea, and the argument was that another couple of schools in another county had brand new stadiums and we needed to compete. So there was a lot of complaining about it but they somehow came up with the money (despite the school district being in debt) and went though with the project (probably by pretending that there never was a debate and moving straight into figuring out the details, like what direction it would face, etc. like they usually do for these issues). So now we have two brand new high school football fields each costing enormous amounts of money. My cousin goes to one of the highschools we were supposedly matching in quality, and he could not believe how lucky we were to get two new stadiums. After talking with him he explained that they do have a new stadium BUT it is being shared by three large high schools... It's amazing what lengths parents will go to in order to let their kids go to the best school possible.
[QUOTE=ItazukiShi;32831008]My school bought two plasma screen tvs recently.
not used at all.[/QUOTE]
My school, last year bought 12 42'' plasma screen tvs that they put in the lunch room. They didn't even use them until this year where they have a generic slide show about clubs and one tv tuned to the news that no one even watches. BIG waste of money. Why not save that money, which probably accounted for about 15k with the other tvs in the school, and hire a teacher aid for some amount of time, at least giving people with degrees work.
shortly after letting off some of the best teachers I ever had because they were new, fresh out of college, and "too expensive", the school bought a whole new field of expensive, special turf for the football team.
yes, school faculty are morons.
Yes, I think they needlessly waste money on things like iPads to boost public image while they lay people off.
No Child Left Behind is the worst thing ever for school system budgets. If a school is branded as "failing", it has to be closed. Not only that, but it can never be rebranded, relaunched, or reopened again. My city had a school that was closed by failing test scores, and they literally BULLDOZED IT AND BUILT A NEW SCHOOL on the ruins of the old one. They can't just start over with new staff or a fresh coat of paint or something, NCLB says they literally have to demolish the school and waste tens of millions of dollars building an entirely new one before they can reopen and take the population pressure off the other schools.
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