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Education Government The Almighty Buck Hardware Politics Technology

Ann Arbor Schools Want $45M For Tech, Partly For Computers To Run Google Docs 248

Posted by timothy from the air-force-bake-sale-any-day dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Ann Arbor Public Schools defended their request for a $45 million bond for new computers by claiming that Apple eMacs aren't good enough for their Advanced Journalism class. A teacher told reporters that new PCs are needed to run WordPress, Google Docs, and Adobe InDesign CS6. WordPress and Google Docs are server-based applications that can be accessed with nearly any web browser. InDesign CS6 has not been released yet and its system requirements are unknown. As a web developer, I am impressed by the online newspaper published by the journalism class, but I question the need for new hardware. The district previously claimed that the old computers couldn't run its standardized testing software, although they far surpass the vendor's specifications. Does modern education really require cutting-edge computers, or are schools screaming 'think of the children' to win over tech-illiterate voters?" Whatever the answer to that question, exaggerated system requirements aren't the only driving force; the $45 million bond sought would not be dedicated only to replacing journalism program computers, note; it would also be used to fund other infrastructure upgrades, including some lower-tech updates, like new sound amplifiers in the district's classrooms. Ann Arbor schools' web site says that the district has (as of 2010, at least) 16,440 students. What are tech outlays like in the public schools where you live?
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Ann Arbor Schools Want $45M For Tech, Partly For Computers To Run Google Docs More

Ann Arbor Schools Want $45M For Tech, Partly For Computers To Run Google Docs

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  • Seems a little inflated... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gr3yh47 ( 2023310 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @11:15AM (#39208619)
    $2700 and change per student seems a little high for a tech budget...

    • Re:Seems a little inflated... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01, 2012 @11:17AM (#39208639)

      When you're spending other people's money, and taking a cut for yourself ("adminstration"), the object is to waste more, not less.

    • Re:Seems a little inflated... (Score:4, Funny)

      by MickyTheIdiot ( 1032226 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @11:20AM (#39208691) Homepage Journal

      There are teachers (like any industry) that are notorious for thinking they know more than the techs that have dedicated their lives and education to it.

      That's human nature. Think Dilbert's boss.

      • Re:Seems a little inflated... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by citizenr ( 871508 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @11:43AM (#39209065) Homepage

        There are teachers (like any industry) that are notorious for thinking they know more than the techs that have dedicated their lives and education to it.

        That's human nature. Think Dilbert's boss.

        exxample
        http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/homework-class-test-school-of-fail-stop-being-all-defiant-and-right-about-things-dammit.jpg [wordpress.com]

        • Re:Seems a little inflated... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Archangel Michael ( 180766 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @12:10PM (#39209565) Journal

          I work in Education. As unfortunate as that example is, things like this are not that uncommon. I get reminded at least weekly, sometimes daily, how STUPID (yes, I'll use that word) our educators really are, especially when it comes to Technology. However they have a pieces of paper that tells them they are "smart and smarter than everyone else" via their degree and teaching credential.

          And 45 Million for technology is not that steep for a school district. Infrastructure (LAN, WAN, Servers, Cabling etc). When people complain about 45 million being too expensive, they haven't done larger projects like upgrading infrastructure. Infrastructure costs money, and needs to be replaced about every ten years for networking equipment. While I'm sure there is what some people call "waste" in the 45 million, it probably isn't quite as bad as many think.

          And if they are doing a 45 Million dollar bond, I'd make damn sure it went primarily for infrastructure and not computers or peripheral equipment. In a school system that size, 45 Million should just about cover top down infrastructure coverage.

          • Re:Seems a little inflated... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by obsess5 ( 719497 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @01:14PM (#39210649)
            I worked in software development. I've met teachers who are smart in their fields and in technology. I've never met a teacher who thought they were smarter than everyone else because of their teaching degree. I've met a lot of software folks who weren't too smart or whose knowledge was a mile deep and an inch wide. Teaching is no different than any other profession - you have the same distribution of talent.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by geekoid ( 135745 )

          Really? No letter head? Adolf Hitlers birthday? smart quotes in 1994? misplaced comma? no 'edge' of the photocopy? Reads like someone trying to write how they think a teacher would write?

          Use your brain.

          This 'letter' fails into peoples preconceived notions and as such gets circulated around as truth; when in fact it is highly likely to be a hoax.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by aussiedood ( 577993 )
      Not if they're planning to buy Apple products ;)

    • $2700 and change per student seems a little high for a tech budget...

      I don't see any reason why they couldn't be doing this with free recycled computers. It's not that uncommon for some systems only a couple of years old to get dumped with nothing more than malware causing trouble. Recycle and put OSS to work. Get students involved, and when going through computers to use, take some that are not quite up to spec and set them up to handy out to needy students or local poor people. Surely there are also some talented parents willing to volunteer time and help. They can do

      • Re:Seems a little inflated... (Score:5, Informative)

        by donny77 ( 891484 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @12:04PM (#39209435)
        I'm sorry, donated equipment only reduces acquisition cost. What about SUPPORT costs? It is much cheaper to support 1000 identical machines as you can use imaging, stock minimal replacement parts and so forth. Having 1000 machines with 50 different configs is going to increase cost and up-time. Typically these institutions are running somewhere around 1 technician per 500-700 machines while the "private" sector is supposedly around 1 technician per 150-250 machines. But, it's not YOUR problem right? Make them use donated stuff!
        • Very few districts have problems procuring IT parts. Remember the Universal Service Fund [wikipedia.org]? That was specifically designed to give money to schools to build this sort of infrastructure. I am sure every district got a piece of the pie. Yes, it was supposed to originally go to rural/impoverished schools...but that was changed mid-session and then everyone climbed onboard to spend those hard earned dollars on....microwave links for schools....video conferencing gear.....Cisco 7600 routers....modem dial pools

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      $2700 and change per student seems a little high for a tech budget...

      A referenced earlier article [annarbor.com] has more details:

      "The 2012 bond plan would be phased-in over the course of 10 years in three separate series, spending $27.27 million in 2012, $10.57 million in 2015 and $8.01 million in 2018."

      So that's an average of something like $270 per student per year, which doesn't sound particularly high to me.

      But then honestly I have no basis for comparison here--how much does a typical school district (or other comparable organization) budget for this kind of thing?

      And as the summary s

    • They don't get bonds every year, $2700 per seat (more like $2500, see below) is a pittance when you consider they probably have to account for the entire 4 year (or more) career of secondary students, who really do need decently performing computers if they are going to not only learn how to work with technology, but leverage technology in other areas of learning. And don't forget about the teachers and faculty (unless you think they should have to bring their own computers, too) which probably adds 1,500

  • eMacs? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 01, 2012 @11:20AM (#39208693)

    Apple stopped production on the eMac line back in 2006. Assuming they got the last one for sale, that means a 6 year lifespan. Sounds like they're due for a replacement.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by anagama ( 611277 )

      It's worse than that -- the last revision of the eMac was in May of 2005, with the 1.42 ghz G4. I believe that the machines would choke running a modern browser hitting a script heavy site. Plus, I think Apple stopped providing security updates to non-intel macs a long time ago.

      • And no way they'd run InDesign 4 much less 6. Which is what most newspapers do actual design & layout on.

        • They run ID 4 fine and at a good speed too. It's 5 that dropped PPC support.

          • Dude, ID 4 wouldn't 'run fine' on a dual core 2GHz PowerMac. Much less an underpowered eMac.

            I know because we had to get quad core PowerMacs for production when we rolled it out.

    • Re:eMacs? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gman003 ( 1693318 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @11:40AM (#39209021)

      Due for replacement? That's putting it mildly. Especially since:
      a) They're way unsupported, even by Open Source. First off, they're PowerPC chips - the highest version of Mac OS you can put on them is 10.5, which quite a lot of programs don't support - even some open-source ones. And I've tried installing Linux on an eMac - I never actually got it working. So their best option may be upgrading.
      b) The eMac was the "cheap, low-power" Apple computer. It used cheaper, lower-end parts, often already outdated (it used G4 chips until the end, while iMacs made the jump to G5 two years earlier). I can totally believe that they're unable to run Illustrator. Even current versions of Firefox might be a bit of a stretch, since I doubt the PPC builds are as heavily optimized as the x86 ones. Keep in mind, this is a machine with 256MB of RAM and, at best, a 1.4gHz, single-core processor, about on par with a Pentium II. Most of the students probably have more processing power in their phones.
      c) It's a freaking CRT screen. A 1280x960 CRT screen. I would absolutely hate trying to do graphics work on one of them.

      • A G4 is certainly not on par with a P2, that would be the PowerPC 603e or similar.
        A G4 is more similar in performance to a P3 or P4.

        • My bad - meant to type III. Keys seem to be sticking a bit today...

          • My bad - meant to type III. Keys seem to be sticking a bit today...

            Eh... even then... the G4 did far more per cycle than even the Pentium 3 did... plus it had a full SIMD set that exceeded even the SSE3 standards.

            I had a G4 PowerBook at the time, and I regularly compared the processor to twice the MHz on the Intel side... meaning my 500 MHz laptop was performing about as well as my 1GHz Pentium 3. And then the Pentium 4 was really half the performance per MHz from the Pentium 3, so that puts it as essentially equivalent to a 2GHz Pentium 4.

            So, really a 1.4GHz G4 compares r

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Yebyen ( 59663 )

        b) The eMac was the "cheap, low-power" Apple computer. It used cheaper, lower-end parts, often already outdated (it used G4 chips until the end, while iMacs made the jump to G5 two years earlier). I can totally believe that they're unable to run Illustrator. Even current versions of Firefox might be a bit of a stretch, since I doubt the PPC builds are as heavily optimized as the x86 ones.

        > Even current versions of Firefox might be a bit of a stretch, since I doubt the PPC builds are as heavily optimized as the x86 ones.

        I was just trying to load up my G4 Mac Mini a few days ago, which was still running Leopard, only option on a PPC mac...

        There are no current Firefox builds for G4/Leopard OS. At the time I was last running on this machine, Firefox for Mac available was at 2.0.0.x, and today, you can't even download a recent Firefox 3.6.x, let alone a build of the newer Firefox 4-10 series

      • The e-Macs are really long in the tooth...modern software will not run these machines (even Firefox 4... and FF is now up to something like 10). The OS is no longer supported (Macs have a very short OS support lifetime). I don't think CS5 runs on PowerPC. The CRT monitors are power, space and A/C hogs. The harddrives are about to go. No the request for new machines isn't unreasonable....Whether to replace with Macs or PCs is another discussion.

      • It's a freaking CRT screen. A 1280x960 CRT screen. I would absolutely hate trying to do graphics work on one of them.

        I can see complaining about the pixel count -- that's comparable to many laptops these days. But complaining about it being a CRT? I'd rather have a CRT for serious graphics works with all other things being equal. And until Apple went to the glass-front LCD screens, I wouldn't have put an LCD in a classroom as they're so obnoxious to keep fingerprints off 'em.

        If you're going to complain

  • They're now using #3 pencils instead of #2.

  • Sigh, slashdot is rather prone to hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FhnuZoag ( 875558 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @11:25AM (#39208757)
    As TFA says, "more than half of the $45.8 million, about $25 million, would be spent to replace the district’s computers — both laptops and desktops.". So that comes down to 1520/student. More importantly, this is for a program of improvements over the next *ten years*, not an immediate replacement job - as the article argues that the >3 years old computers currently in use are obsolete, I assume the money might fund more than one cycle of improvements. At one cycle per 3 years, we're talking ~500 dollars per student, not accounting for inflation, which seems pretty sensible. Anyway this all seems like a storm in a teacup.

    • Re:Sigh, slashdot is rather prone to hyperbole (Score:4, Informative)

      by Xacid ( 560407 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @11:29AM (#39208827) Journal

      My favorite part was the line "InDesign CS6 has not been released yet and its system requirements are unknown". Can't just look at the previous release's specs and project from there? Jesus, what kind of non-IT fella wrote this garbage?

      I don't think their request is unreasonable - as it even states within the summary itself that it'll also be used to upgrade the infrastructure as well.

      • Speaking form experience in the NP field you only get big spends once in a while, otherwise you make due. So when you upgrade you really want to get something that's going to literally last seven or so years. Because (fingers crossed) you might be lucky to get new system in seven years.

        Emacs were a great choice back in 2005/6 , they had great speed and good sized displays at a great price. and I'm sure in their six or seven years they have done well.

        Though I like the idea of Google docs (for education it

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • But what about those students who cannot afford a computer at all? How are they supposed to complete their assignments?

    • Michigan Teacher Weighs In (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      As a Computer Science teacher from Michigan, I am disappointed by the lack of resourcefulness exhibited by the Ann Arbor school administrators. Currently, I am in a room filled with equipment from:

      Selfridge ANGB
      U.S. Navy
      Corporations
      Universities
      Many local sources

      All of this equipment was acquired for FREE. All that I have had to occasionally pay is shipping. The lowest end equipment that I have is P4 2.8Ghz. We run Untangle as an Internet gateway through Comcast for FREE. I suggest that Ann Arbor School

    • As TFA says, "more than half of the $45.8 million, about $25 million, would be spent to replace the districtâ(TM)s computers â" both laptops and desktops.". So that comes down to 1520/student.

      Is that really the right metric? The quote you cite doesn't state those computers are necessarily for student use. The TFA lists it as: "Replacing 8,142 of the district's approximately 8,250 computers." So it sounds like the $25 million is going to replace nearly all of the computers the administration us

  • eMacs (Score:5, Informative)

    by jackherer ( 82221 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @11:25AM (#39208767)
    eMacs are PowerPC based and therefore won't run recent versions of Mac OS and also won't run recent versions of Safari or Firefox. I wouldn't be surprised if this means they don't support Google Docs etc fully or even at all.

    They really are pretty much useless these days, I have just retired an office full of them that have been soldiering on for years but the number of websites that were simply not available to them became too great.

    • They were Apple's very last system to use a standard CRT monitor instead of a flat panel. That alone relegates them to the realm of "antiquated hardware" in many people's eyes, no matter what else they're capable of doing.

      I'd venture to say the Apple eMac is generally looked upon as the least desirable Mac Apple released ever since the dawn of OS X. Not sure that's really a fair assessment -- but it's the reality of the situation.
       

    • CS5 dropped PPC support (which eMacs are) also, so CS6 would require an intel Mac.

      Going though this is a the problem of the legacy software requiring older OS which is only supported on older hardware where the internet tools are requiring ever newer OSs which require new hardware.

      Its not that the old stuff is useless, its just that its hard to support it when the new stuff changes the requirements.

  • The new $999 MacBook Air to education buyers is to small screen and under powered for CS 5 / CS 6 (2 GB RAM max).

  • eMacs not good enough? But I never know vi costs so much!

  • school systems are a big cash cow (Score:3, Informative)

    by apcullen ( 2504324 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @11:28AM (#39208797)
    Voters get conned into voting for higher school budgets because they want better schools and higher property values, but the truth is much of the money is wasted. I voted against several school budgets that had over $1mil set aside for landscaping.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      Thanks you letting us known how ignorant you are on these subjects.

    • It's not like Ann Arbor city taxes are all that high, so it might be okay. For a SEV of about $100,000 (property value of $200,000), it will only cost you about $5,000 a year. I say, "Go For It!"

    • Re:school systems are a big cash cow (Score:4, Informative)

      by Mabhatter ( 126906 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @12:07PM (#39209521)

      The thing about Michigan is that about half the local school taxes go to the state and get redistributed. The law that allows that also prevents localities from passing separate taxes to compensate, and it limited the rate properties could appreciate That was a good heal fro districts like Klalaska that weren't paying their fair share, but for districts like Ann Arbor that were full of educators and professionals willing to pay taxes for good public schools it slashed their budgets.

      The way around the rule is to put any link of hardware or property improvements in a separate tax do more of your allocation can pay for teachers.

  • When people say... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Nyder ( 754090 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @11:28AM (#39208807) Journal

    ... it's about the children, it's never about the children.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      False, of course its about the children. Is it the best thing for the children? well that's a different question.

  • The eMac OS support tops out at either 10.4 or 10.5 depending on processor speed, and uses a PowerPC architecture. I'd imagine that current-generation browsers are starting to get harder to get hold of for PPC, and web apps tend to demand up-to-date browsers.

    The last eMac was released almost seven years ago. Seven years is not a short upgrade cycle even for educational machines by any stretch of the imagination.

    Thus the upgrade is not unjustified (heck, even if the web app was unjustified, you'd still

  • In all cases such as these, look to the people in charge... either a powerful teacher/board member/it lead/administrator has it in their head that these purchases are necessary and have gathered hoards behind their cause. Wether or not they do need them is not necessarily an issue, it is the IDEA that they need them that counts in these minds. Politics is everywhere. Also, someone should alert Redmond, as there is a school district using other than Microsoft Produkts with which to compute.

  • I think it's premature to rule one way or the other without looking very carefully at it.

    If it's 45M for journalism classes and only that... then I feel it's probably a waste because we don't have a pressing need for huge numbers of journalists. The industry is already saturated.

    If they wanted 45M for programming classes or something more practical then I might see it differently. But for journalism? Page layout is not that complicated. Why do high school students need to learn how to layout a newspaper whe

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      45M, over 10 years. Infrastructural improvements, system replacements. So,no. It's not a big deal.

      People are acting like the got a 45M dollar bond are just taking it to the apple store for one giant purchase.

      • for a high school journalism program it is excessive.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by geekoid ( 135745 )

          If that is what ti is for, then yes.

          It is not. Journalism just happens to be the example they use in the article.This is for the entire ditrict.

          Yes, just for journalism I would be right their with you.
          I don't just read headlines and then jump into a rage..most of the time~

  • You couldn't GIVE them away today. You would literally have to pay someone to come and dispose of them as eWaste.

    We're not talking cutting edge - we're talking 40 gig hard drives, 128 meg of ram, 16" viewable area CRTs. Some of them are still only usb 1.

    Would it be worth upgrading them? Not really - even if you did stuff 2 gig into them, it can only use 1 - and that old-style slow ram is getting expensive.

    • What shame. Maybe they should have bought PCs instead. They may have run slow, but at least they would be able to work with Google Docs. Heck a 6 year old PC is still perfectly usable. I just upgraded a 9 year old computer last year. It still did everything I needed it to do, even ran games pretty fast. The only reason I upgraded was because it had developed a habit of blue screening, and hours spent trying to fix the problem only resulted in Microsoft telling me that my version of Windows which had been G

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jo_ham ( 604554 )

        The same is true for most Macs - the one I am using right now is from 2006 and it has a Core 2 Duo and can easily handle things like Google Docs. It's getting a little long in the tooth in terms of the GPU, but for the bulk of the things I do with it it is absolutely fine.

        These eMacs were budget (and out of date) machines even back then - they are using PPC G4 chips and CRT screens, even after the rest of the Mac line had gone first to G5 PPC and then to Intel. That doesn't mean all Macs of that era are qui

  • Overbuying (Score:3)

    by Phoenix666 ( 184391 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @11:35AM (#39208935)

    There are so many factors in the state of the education system, it's hard to pick any one of them as the keystone. A bajillion dollars is not enough to substitute for parents who don't participate in their kids' education. A bajillion dollars is not enough to correct a society who tells kids it's more important to be a football star than learn math. A bajillion dollars won't make a dent in a stodgy, horribly outdated pedagogical culture that is protected and perpetuated by entrenched interests (teacher's unions, colleges offering degrees in education, textbook publishers, testing companies, etc etc). A bajillion dollars won't improve the performance of obese kids too whacked out on high-fructose corn syrup, junk food, and ritalin to pay attention.

    It is true that it is hard to teach a computer class without computers. It is not true that you cannot teach a computer class with old computers. It is not true that you cannot teach a computer class without expensive computers.

    In the end putting outsized requests like this in sounds like the timeless bureaucratic game of, grow your budget with ridiculous requests to SAVE THE CHILDREN, then point out how big the budget is that you're now managing, and cry about how much more work it is to manage that large budget and how you can't possibly handle it without a 25% increase in the size of your staff and a 25% bump in your pay.

    If /.'s minds can come up with an effective way to unwind that dynamic (and, no, crying 'small government' doesn't and hasn't worked because they just grow different parts of the government, not shrink the total), then it will have performed a greater boon for mankind and done more for its advancement than nearly any other achievement in human history.

    • It is not true that you cannot teach a computer class without expensive computers.
      Agreed. My High School had about $12,000 worth of computers. My school district is about the same size as the one in question. Now granted, this was just the one school, so if you put the same amount of technology into all the public schools in my district, you are probably talking about close to $200,000. A factor of about 200 difference from the Ann Arbor proposal.

  • Academy Program (Score:3, Interesting)

    by g0bshiTe ( 596213 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @11:44AM (#39209087)
    My daughters in the Academy Program, they don't have eMacs, or the latest iGadget her school, they have 4 year old computer systems that run whatever they need perfectly well. The do have the next to latest edition of Office, but the school allows projects to be turned in that were done in Open Source formats as well, and this is for one of the top rated public schools within 100 miles.

    This seems more like someone that is anti-apple and just wants the latest and greatest gadgets to play with. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find that some of that software found it's way onto the teachers' home computers as well, "we have to know how to use it to teach the children".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jo_ham ( 604554 )

      Well, the eMac is a PowerPC G4 machine with a CRT screen. This isn't just "we want faster computers! wah!" it's "we really need to get computers with Intel CPUs in them". The 2006 eMac was obsolete when it was new.

      Whether they buy a fleet of new Windows boxes or new Macs, the fact of the matter is they *do* need to get something newer than what they have if they're going to be able to use them effectively with things like Google Docs and CS5/CS6 etc.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by armanox ( 826486 )

      Having worked with eMacs and being familiar with their specs, I'm sure it's pretty miserable to work with (and doesn't support semi-modern software). These compare to 700-1GHz Pentium III with 128MB RAM - they were the cheap Apple computers of 7+ years ago. Replacing them is a matter of wanting to teach relevavnt technology, not just "ooo shiny".

  • I live in Ann Arbor... (Score:5, Informative)

    by macwhizkid ( 864124 ) on Thursday March 01, 2012 @11:48AM (#39209145)

    I grew up and now work in Ann Arbor. Posting as anonymous, for obvious reasons. First, some background. Ann Arbor Public Schools has become a reference model for how not to run a school district. The district routinely has nationwide searches at great expense to find a new superintendent, simply because (1) the average tenure of a superintendent in Michigan is less than two years and (2) none of them are stupid enough to come to a district as dysfunctional as Ann Arbor.

    The current superintendent came from a rural district in Pennsylvania, and was old enough to actually retire from her old district to take the job here. But hell, at least she was available.

    The tech crisis is at least real. Those really are eMacs being used in the classrooms... yes, the eMac that Apple stopped making in 2005. The district has a budget deficit of $14 million, due to a perfect storm of decreasing state funding (Michigan is not exactly a bastion of tax revenue), decreasing local property values, and fewer students (the #1 local tax payer and #2 employer, Pfizer, pulled out in 2007).

    The odd thing is, the district is, by many measures, not bad. But that's due primarily to high student achievement due to the relatively educated population (over 70% of Ann Arbor residents have a 4-year degree or more). Meanwhile, we have high schools that are too big, middle schools that are a disaster, and elementary schools that are actually OK (but not great). On a side note, did I mention that my father teaches for AAPS, and I went to private school? Yeah...

  • At $1000 per machine, that would be 4,500 PCs in their budget. One machine for every 4 students.

    At $500 per machine, a reasonable price for such a bulk-volume purchase, that would be 9,000 PCs, or one machine for every 2 students.

    Methinks that kind of money would be better spent on hiring better TEACHERS than buying equipment.

    • Schools don't buy at $500/machine prices. They buy at $1k+/machine prices....I've seen their "discounts" and it's usually pretty appalling. I was invited by my local school corporation to buy at their "discounted" rate which was (for a similarly specced machine) 40% above sale prices.

      But they spun it as a 50% off of "LIST" price....

      I have seen school districts want to build their own fiber infrastructure, build 100MBit microwave feeds between buildings, and demand Cisco TelePresence in every school.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by msobkow ( 48369 )

        Any organization which approves a $1000+ budget for a bulk purchase of machines in this day and age should be fired and investigated to find out how they got their kickbacks from the winning vendor.

        Because you can go to Dell, Lenovo, HP-Compaq, and even Apple and get machines in such quantities for FAR less than $1000/pop.

  • I don't find it unreasonable that computers made in 2006 (which were underpowered at the time) are due for a replacement. There are reasons (for and against) to pay the Apple tax to get their hardware. That is completely secondary to the main issue.The problem I have is using bond money for this expense. The real issue here is the horrible mismangement that led to the need for a bond issue to replace depreciable assets. Bonds are supposed to be for capital improvements. This means new schools, major re
  • After all, the company probably needs to make a big donation to make up for CEO Jamie Dimon's assertions that journalists make too much money [sfgate.com],. . .

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