• Do schools needlessly spend money?
    172 replies, posted
[QUOTE=wlzshroom;32933499]an example of BS: we're getting a much needed new library/computer lab thing at our school. (the library is about 3/4ths the size of a classroom, and the classrooms are pretty small) to go along with this, the librarian is getting a couple thousand dollars to replace old reference books. (i'm talking 20 years old) over half the books were outdated. meanwhile, last year, the teachers all got [img]http://salestores.com/stores/images/images_747/ELMO9419.jpg[/img] that, which is about 650 a pop, and a projector, which was less. half the teachers don't even use the 650$ thing. and the only 2 people i've ever seen that use it effectively are my language arts teacher, who uses it sorta like one of those old light projector things, and my math teacher, who uses it to go over notes. by the way, it's a thing that relays what's under the lens to a device that accepts vga input. kinda useless imo but what are you gonna do about it :\[/QUOTE] I can totally see it now in somewhere 2-10 years: These will become outdated and we will complain about them not being replaced/fixed.
[QUOTE=ccg;33000180]I can understand ipads, but why would your school buy ipods?[/QUOTE] The only logical explanation is that they meant 50 iPads.. and two iPods for the principal and vice principal. They only realised their mistake when the shipment came from Cupertino.
Before I graduated, the principle announced to us that the school would be spending money to get wifi throughout, every student a laptop, and 4 new large-screen HD plasma TVs for the cafeteria. We already have a huge projector system in the cafeteria as is, we don't need TVs. 2 of them will be dedicated to announcements that already go over the projector anyhow, 2 will be for news and sports. The idea of every student having a laptop is insanely stupid. Besides recently increasing the salary for the school board and administration, they've also neglected to: -replace the 10 year old sets of english books. -buy more than 2 sets of english books. -buy any of the books for classes they insisted were created my senior year. The already poor teacher living off expired pudding paid for 4 sets of novels himself. -Buy any AP class textbooks. We had to pay for our books. which we didn't get to keep. -Maintain the bus routes and bus drivers. My senior year they laid off half of the bus driver staff and made those who they didn't cover the routes for those they did. Cramped buses were even more cramped. This year, they laid all of them off and privatized the buses. -Keep the more experienced and senior teachers on the payroll. All of the teachers that had been there for longer than 10 years were pressured into early retirement (except one, who refused to leave) and replaced by new and younger teachers who could teach multiple subjects and who were paid less. -replace all but 4 of the the 15+ year old projectors. I'm not following the discussion, because as a rule I don't go to Mass Debate because it sucks up all my time, but this is the situation at my former school, and it seems to fit OP's argument.
[QUOTE=Bora;32972198]Why the hell does every school buy macs??[/QUOTE] If I remember correctly, our heads of IT wanted to go with windows laptops but in the end, the warranty that apple provides for schools was much more effective as they practically covered everything that could happen to the laptops free of charge as well as providing free support for them where other companies did not. Or something along those lines.
Schools should buy Chromebooks for students :v:
Definitely, technology-wise at least.
[QUOTE=usaokay;33007064]My school is in the process of building a parking garage, a new library and food court. And all that the school has to sacrifice is the summer school program for everyone.[/QUOTE] A parking garage? A food court? What the fuck kind of school do you go to?
My school bought a bunch of Smartboards, most of which are used like overhead projectors by the teachers. Only my Math and Tech teachers ever use them in any way that requires the Smartboard to be a Smartboard. Once they also bought a bunch of weird plastic tape stuff they put on all the glass doors to "keep UV rays out". Almost all of it had been ripped off by random students by the next day. Meanwhile the AC and heater in my school hasn't worked properly in 6 or 7 years (except in the main office and the tech lab) and often blows out hot air in the summer/fall months and cold air in the winter months.
[QUOTE=Kyo;33017044]Once they also bought a bunch of weird plastic tape stuff they put on all the glass doors to "keep UV rays out"[/QUOTE] Sounds like their asses got scammed.
[QUOTE=JustGman;33017195]Sounds like their asses got scammed.[/QUOTE] It honestly wouldn't surprise me at all.
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In the United States, each department gets a certain budget per month. You get [I]only[/I] that allocated amount of cash per month, and if you don't spend it, it just goes away. The money doesn't spill over to the next month or anything, you just don't get to buy as much. You also can't move money between departments. It's a terrible system that needs to be redone, but it's how it is. [editline]4:44[/editline] All of this information is from my mother, who's worked in the school system for like 15 years or so.
My school just bought 64 32-gig iPod touches and 12 32-gig iPad 2s to "enhance the learning experience" but the point of them being 32 gigs becomes pointless when they only use 1 gig of the space and I've only ever used them once, and only as a graphing calculator for some reason which is odd because we have 120 graphing calculators just sitting there. Now you may just think we have a lot of money, but the truth is that we couldn't take our test the other day cause the school couldn't buy paper to print it on.
Do schools needlessly spend money? Well.. maybe. But does the world needlessly spend money/resources? Most definitely. And that's not good for the long run.
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