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Microsoft to Build High School in Philadelphia, PA
LynchMan writes "According to the The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia is too be the home of a Microsoft funded High School. While having an inner city public school with a large tech fund ($46 Million) will be a great asset to those young students interested in technology, is the Philadelphia School District selling out to Microsoft really the only way to achieve this? Especially with all of the negative press that Microsoft has had recently, is this an attempt to do some good and help out those who cannot afford private school? Or is Microsoft just making sure that they secure themselves another generation of coders/admins/users? This being the first school of it's kind, will a Microsoft high school be coming to a town near you?" This looks very much like the Microsoft buses that toured from school to school a couple years back, but much larger and much more stationary.
Little billy... report to the head sysop!
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
How could anyone have any question about this being a good thing? Microsoft is not building the school nor is it paying for the school to be built. The local school board is building it and MS is contributing technology and services to the school to see what happens to education when the school is afforded every technological luxury possible. This is an experiment! If afterwards the students bought MS products for themselves, so what, they are likely to anyway. If some of the students went on to be programmers and favored the Windows OS and Visual Studio, so what, it is already likely. Coke and Pepsi already give money to schools to put in only their product. Aside from the questions of health, do we cry out the these children's minds have been warped in the decision of who to favor in the cola wars? No.
If it was not for Microsoft this school would still be built, it just wouldn't have the technology.
I have the suspicion that those who object to this would think it would be the coolest thing if RedHat decided to help a school become a pure Linux organization, with a Zarus PDA for every child.
1. Their network will go down when the next worm appears
2. All kids will have an irrational hatred for penguins.
3. Apple? Who?
I thought many other US Schools were sponsored by soft drink companies, by sports-goods companies, etc.
I heard of a case where a kid at a Pepsi-School was sent home after drinking a Coke.
Perhaps the same will happen with Linux and Mac OS X users at Microsoft School.
Article about Corporate Coke here.
Join the Free Software Foundation
Sounds like they're putting the kids on a fast track for an MCSE.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I wonder if Apple will sell them computers : )
I'm sure Microsoft gets something out of this, like tax breaks, free beta testing etc, but that really isn't the point. Philadelphia schools are about the most missmanaged, poor schools in the country, They're constantly low on funds despite paying about half as much per student as the surrounding suburbian schools. The technology situatuation is usually a computer for every few classes, and its 5 years old. This is most likely to become one of the better if not best schools in the district. But if some of this 46million doesnt go to support and training of the students and teachers, its gonna be money that was wasted.
"Why do you people always assume the worst?"
I think it's called "experience."
KFG
Microsoft just making sure that they secure themselves another generation of coders/admins/users?
:-). Its just a PR stunt IMHO. MS Can throw 50M$ at anything they want. Hell, that's just a million XBoxes sold at 50$ loss.
No. If they wanted that, they would build a school in India (next to the condoms factory
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
The biggest barrier with a school like this is the incredible cost of keeping it state-of-the-art. The budget will have to be very high and have a swap-out plan to bring in faster systems and the latest software. If the money and/or support for such and upgrade plan is there, it can survive. However, some politician will probably see this as a pork barrel for some other politician and leave the school in some sort of "Beta version."
I for one could careless about who's footing the bill? Whether or not the school creates loyal MS users is irrelevant in the face of providing a quality education.
Now, if they were plunking a school in a suburb that was doing just fine without them, I'd question their motives. But, in this case, I'd have to think this is at best, altruism on Microsoft's part, or at worst, advertising money well spent.
Religion is the opium of the people. Evolution is the opium of scientists.
Any corporation who funds an entire new school, or part of a public school is not a good idea. I would say it is ok to have a company DONATE money or resources to a public entity, but not to let them have any influence on the desicions that are made at the institution.
Microsoft has a record of using 'donations' and grants to its complete benefit, not the benefit of the people they are donating to. Microsoft is different than other companies in that it does it so blatently.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
At least in my experience, the more one uses Microsoft products, the more one does not want to ever use any again. If we force kids to use nothing but Windows for 4 years, surely they will look for an alternative the moment the opportunity arises.
Comon, editors, let's use the proper grammar, at least when talking about schools! To vs Too vs Two.
Like every other corporation on the face of the planet, they don't blink unless (they think) it's in their best interests.
I hate it when people "support"(buy from) a corporation because they get warm fuzzies from that company "supporting"(tossing a measly hundredth or thousandth of a percent of their profits to) a cause. Does BMW give a crap about breast cancer? No. Like all the other corporations that support "breast cancer research", they're basically just looking to get women to buy stuff from them.
"Buy ________, we support ______ by donating* to the __________ foundation of America!"
(*1/10th of a percent of the net profit of this product, minus taxes, executive bonuses, kickbacks, and of course some good old fashioned book cooking)
Please help metamoderate.
Philly has terrible schools because the teachers unions have killed off every reform. Edison went in to fix the thing and they did everything they could to cause it to fail. The schools are bad because the people running them are corrupt and inept. FYI, Washington, DC, schools spend by far the most money per student of any schools in the nation and have the worst results, all because of corruption.
Ah, they're just using the patented HubbardTech to apply LearnTech to students.
"Ms Hoover... I don't see why the GPL is viral. The argument makes no sense!"
"Well, Jimmy, that's because there is a word in B. Henry Gates' lecture that you don't understand. Go use WordClearTech until you find it. The rest of you: class dismissed because a worm has crashed the LAN again."
There are so many things that schools need more of... dicipline, respect, reasons to have respect, learning to learn, learning to like to learn, reading, math... Will computers give the kids this?
Gee, how did we ever survive school without computers? I feel like I need to do it over again, and get it right...
You realise if they do actually make running anything other than run Microsoft products against the rules, kids are more likely to disobey. Most kids are rebellious, and they like to stand out, to be different.
:p.
To be l33t.
I feel l33t because I'm the only person who uses linux in the whole school (sysadmins included)
On another note, our school would greatly benefit from ANY sort out IT help. Either they don't subnet or have good bridges. When a class logs on the Novell-based network, the whole network goes to pieces.
It's not every day you walk down to the helpdesk and see half the staff hunt-and-pecking with two fingers.
Founder of Mirror Moon - Tsukihime Game Trans
Bill Gates can build all the schools he wants to and Linux can't for one reason and one reason only: Windows makes an offer. Bill and Melinda have built a foundation with grants galore for the implementation of the Windows system. Whether you see it as gifting technology to the masses or corrupting the youth to the product, the point remains that public schools would gladly take the technology no matter who offers it. And these days, it's not as though anyone in the non-Windows world is giving the schools a whole lot of alternatives.
The solution: quit complaining about the philathropic efforts of Windows and start an Open Source Foundation. Have an endowed fund and accept grant applications. Built it. They will come.
Mr. Doe I'm sorry to say that your son's report "What Microsoft Applications I Ran This Summer" was not graded because our systems can't read old Word files anymore. Please upgrade to a newer version of MS Word at home and resubmit your son's work for grading before the next semester.
If you outlaw the law, only criminals will have laws
See what nice guys those gangsters turned out to be? Sure, they knock off businesses and rub out people now and then, but they sure do throw nifty block parties and now they are even helping pay for the new school. How can anyone hate them?
Microsoft is hated for good reason (many of 'em), even if they occasionally decide to do a good PR turn to make themselves look decent and caring.
Go to your local book shop and read chapter 4 of Naomi Klein's No Logo; in it she describes the myriad ways in which corporations have infiltrated schools. In that context, this is a very logical next step.
http://www.thestreet.com/comment/keyhole/774791.ht ml
Scroll down for Paul Allen reference
http://www.savephillyschools.org/edisonwatch/
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
While its certainly a good idea to have kids exposed and trained to use Linux and other oses at a young age, people must consider the rebellion factor. A lot of kids will hate whatever the school endorses. Considering this is an inner city school, I would just be happy that they are getting the money.
Here is the first link from Google on the subject:
http://www.noveltynet.org/content/paranormal/www.p arascope.com/articles/cnews/980325.htm
I very strongly recommend that everyone read "No Logo". Brands in education is a problem.
--
Simon
Here is an article on that incident. It does force you to wonder what the licensing scheme will be.
"...today consumers have been conditioned to think of beer when they see a bullfrog..."
I used to attend a high school in North Carolina that tried the whole "Technology-centric School" thing and here is what I saw. Everything started out fine, we had a school wide network, a PC for every two students, web access and email for all, and enough server space to cover our collective file storage needs. After the school opened, things went down hill. Our net admin was a complete dolt. He managed to melt our main authentication server, causing a school wide network outage for almost two weeks. Our network was plagued with macro viruses, hackers, and faulty hardware. Ninety percent of the staff was completely incompetent when dealing with all the glitzy technology thrown in their face, and the turnover rate was horrendous due to technology frustrations. It seems public school teachers don't get paid enough to deal with technology inept PHBs. By my senior year the school computers, which were more often than not the same computers that were there when the school first opened five years prior, had become so overloaded that they were practically unusable. To add insult to injury, the entire school shared a single T1 line. During peak hours, internet access screeched to a halt.
If it actually goes to helping the most disadvantaged students, where it would be the most difficult to make succesful, I'd applaud the effort.
If it goes to mostly middle class and upper middle class students, then I'd have to view it as simply a further corporatization of the public schools.
I'd love to see a follow up on this in three years.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
It was fantastic the first year. New computers, servers, modem banks, everything a high school loser could ever hope for! But then IBM cut funding, leaving this little rural community footing the bill.
I kid you not, the next year, the school was so strapped for cash, students were required to bring their own toilet paper to school with them!
Sure, it good for some publicity photographs and it gets Micro$oft on Slashdot for something POSITIVE for a change, but will M$ continue to pour cash into the school, or will the tide turn when the paint dries?
:wq
1. Those who say the name of any open source project in any flattering matter will be suspended on the first offense, and on the second expelled.
2. Anybody who mods their xbox will be expelled.
3. Any photos of Linus Torvalds that are not unflattering will be confescated and burned.
4. All are required to have a picture of our lord and master Bill Gates in their locker.
5. You all love blue screens.
Support Israeli punk bands. Man Alive.
I grew up in Philly and left about four months ago. Here's what I know.
The Philly public school system is shite. They're in their fourth year of budget problems and the state actually stepped in and bailed them out on one of them. Packed classrooms, lack of textbooks and teaching materials, etc. It's nasty. I spent a year at Southern before my mother pulled me out and put me in Catholic school.
I would only think that this could be a good thing, especially considering that the city likes building football and baseball stadiums instead of improving things like public education. Outside interests can only help. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that it's the greatest thing in the world and it skeeves me out just a bit, but it's more of a 'better than nothing' situation. Kids can only benefit. Let them find open source the way I did-- I like to think of it as being chosen:)
As ever, this is neither good or bad; it can't be anchored to either extreme. It's good in as much as the more kids get access to technology, the better. If it has to be MS tech, then even the most cynical can take comfort in the possibility that the kids will be desperate to get away from Windows by the time they're freed. But there's no competition between a kid with access to a PC and a kid without; the kid with a PC is undoubtedly better off.
But this is also bad in that branded education is arguably undesirable. One of the dangers, for example, is that the school won't be free to teach students about Microsoft's less desirable traits and tactics, or about the problem with monopolies in general. As the article notes, MS is pursuing this as a case study - it may decide it wants to market this service far and wide in the future. A Microsoft school is obviously going to reflect Microsoft's interests. You may not think this a problem today, but how might this develop in the future, as MS' strategies develop and the schools they created are bound to follow? Now, I'm not proposing GNU-sponsored schools here, but at least such schools would have guaranteed freedom and flexibility in terms of their IT setup and how they choose to use it.
The big difference is, of course, that MS is able to do this here and now, and potentially make great improvements to kids' educations. So for once, this isn't a theoretical debate. Which, you know, makes the whole thing ten times more difficult.
And I welcome the day Microsoft makes like investments in libraries. . .
Just so long as they make sure they have the complete O'Reilly catatlog and don't put up a fuss about the Linux backend running the catalog.
I'm reminded of one of my favorite bumper stickers:
"Welcome to New Jersey! Leave your money and go the fuck home"
KFG
When was the last time someone donated money to start a school just for, say, writing? Or philosophy? Who the fuck cares about technology? Anything they would teach in high school I could pick up in a couple of O'Reilly books or, failing that, The Art of Computer Programming.
Microsoft is not building the school, they are only contributing the associated technology and services. With spending cuts hitting schools hard, Linux looks more tasty each passing day. This cunning move by microsoft assures them that this school will pump out thousands of students per year who are brainwashed to believe that computers = microsoft.
Linux? eh? Mac? What's that? It runs inside of WindowsXP right? Behold, the next generation of systems administrators, purchasing directors, and CTO's.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
Philadelphia school district is among the poorest funded in the nation. In 1998 Microsoft and the BSA nailed the district to the tune of $4.8 million.
Now, Philadelphia is going to Microsoft and helping them market their products in return for funds to help build a new high school (which is desperately needed). I think Mayor John Street and his team have done a good job in turning that loss in 1998 into a win 5 years later.
Not blinded at all. And in fact, I would say that I feel it's the other way around.
This donation of M$ dollars (not the school itself) is bad for 3 reasons:
1. Regardless of the kindness, M$ is an unethical company. Period! A free lunch today will not be one tomorrow. You need no more evidence of this than to scan the various news source headlines for the last few years. Corporations don't give anything out unless there is a business or tax reason. And while some in the opulent halls of M$ may see this as a worthy cause, more see it as a business opportunity. Ugh, open your eyes. There is obviously some tax write off or future opportunity to hook more people on their products - or both. This is the nature of big business/capitalism, plain and simple. Get 'em while they're young.
2. A public school should not be financed in any way by a corporation. However, these things can happen because so many people in this country do not put as much emphasis on quality public education as they should.
I'm horrified by the stories my sister tells me of the parents having to contribute money and supplies to her kids school because the school can't afford it! Personally, when I have kids, they're going to public schools and I'm going to PTA meetings, etc., and I'm gonna put my time in and at least if things still continue to go down hill, at least I'll say I did something. My parents never did that. There is a complete lack of caring and responsibility of the majority of voting public and our esteemed leaders on this subject. It needs to change and that change would benefit everyone. Why this doesn't horrify anyone else is beyond me. If you don't have an educated public, then you have close to nothing.
While I'm sure most kids will have to work at some point in their life using M$ tools, I see no reason, being the company M$ is, to promote their usage before their professional career. Why muddy up their most impressionable years with the horrors and inflexibilities of an M$ world? They'll have plenty of time to see that on their own when they can make their own choice on what OS and tools they want to use. I'd rather my kids and my sister's kids learn about history, math, etc.., instead of service packs.
3. All this 'neat' stuff, being an expirement and all, will go right back to benefit M$ and no one else. It would be such a better idea to use free software and open standards because the creation (the mind of someone young is a wonderful thing!) and fixing of said technology would go back into the common good - royalty and patent free (one would hope). This is a no brainer; using public funds not just for educating our kids properly, but also improving technology - that anyone can have - will in turn, give us more control over how and when we access information.
You know, the general public/govt./us did this before when we paid for the copper for phones to be laid down in the early/middle part of the 20th century. The govt. laid all the wire and let AT&T use it for next to nothing. Over the years, AT&T got 0wnership of it. Then, in the latter part of the 20th century, the baby bells used that free (as in beer) resource to stop local competition in their local markets. They cited the argument "why should we be made to lease our lines for little money to local competition?"
So I say the opposite, why should public funds go to helping figure out technical issues for the richest software company in the world? Because kids will be bug testing (and possibly fixing) on publicly funded time which is not what I or anyone else pay tax dollars for!
Nah, this is a sham and public relations magic hand waving. It's a $46mil bug test and fixit it school. Like the reality of the M$ office in which you're not amazed by all the marvels of the modern world and how much time and money they save you, but rather how you're locked into a buggy platform with escalating costs, little or no choice, and no c
Almost none of the posts that have been modded up point out the good side of what this can do for kids. It's really disappointing that the mods and most posters care only to crack jokes, shoot puns, and criticize this action. If I were a parent with a kid who could go to this school, I'll bet I'd feel pretty lucky. And I sure as shit wouldn't care if the entire school had Microsoft crap everywhere or Linux - hell, most parents probably don't have any exposure to this. Cry all you want that that's the problem, but you're missing the point. This does help - maybe not your agenda, but it's a selfish one in this case.
What about the good for this? Does anyone here even have kids? Does anyone here have exposure to schools that don't have enough funding, where education is lacking? It reads mo0re like people here don't have a clue in reality beyond their own political interests and paranoid agendas. Sad indeed.
What happens to the kids that won't get access just because someone makes some sort of arbitray ethical decision? The world is full of huge contradictions and paradoxes. If this gives these kids the chance to use computers and be comfortable with technology, why don't we trust the rest of the school system to teach them to think and make their own choices as they grow. The experience is more important then the who or what.
How about funding for other things first? Maybe money would be better spend on security and drug prevention than technology. The focus should first be on the other more important things and technology last. If a huge donation was made by Microsoft to hire security guards and teach awareness of drugs there wouldn't be any complaints.
Developers: We can use your help.
How many inner city students will be able to afford Windows XP -- now more expensive than entire computer systems? The same goes for MS Office. Poor kids can probably get now-obsolete-by-market-standards hardware for free. For example, I know of one university with a few hundred P200's sitting in storage. No one wants them, and its expensive to recycle them.
Linux user group(s) in Philadelphia should think about finding old, donated equipment, and offer it along with group Linux lessons and installfests to students of "MS High". Contact the student council. MS isn't running the school, they're only providing the technology & support. The exposure to technology that these kids will get at school may spark their interest, but they could have no money for the expensive proprietary software, and we know what happens when MS software is pirated. With some help, they could learn that great software isn't necessarily expensive.
Being a 'white middle-class' resident of Philly, let's set the record straight...
We're not so desparate that the city is building (built) 2 brand new stadiums at a HUGE cost to the taxpayers (see Monday Night Football this week). But, hey, the labor unions need their payoffs / kickbacks for their continued support of Mayor Street.
Philly has money for what it wants to have money for. That's always been the case. They could do better by the schools (considering they just upped real estate taxes again). They don't want to.
How else are they going to get street sweepers for "The Avenue of the Arts"?
Political correctness is the newest form of slavery.
Comparing Gates Foundation charities to MS business practices is a lot like comparing the J. Paul Ghetty museum in LA to oil drilling in the North Sea.
We may disagree about the morality behind some of the world's larger fortunes ('behind every great fortune, there is a crime'). However, I question the assertion that the nature of these philanthropic ventures is forever tainted by the origins of their corporate sponsors. To say this is to say that Carnagie hall, the Ghetty museum I menioned previously and all the educational institutions the world over who have been the beneficiaries of philanthropic donations by some of the world's wealthies people are suspect and liable to be tained still by the monies that created them. I for one, do not agree that history backs this assertion.
Here's to looking that gift horse square in the mouth,
- RLJ
This will end up costing the school system more money in the long run. To make this a real offer of generosity, Microsoft must give this school system a non-expiring license for their software.
I wonder if instead of "snow days" the students will be hoping for "crash days".
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
1. Textbook patches will be released biweekly. Application of the patches is mandatory.
2. When the blackboard suddenly turns blue, students must leave the classroom in an orderly fashion and return to their seats after ten minutes. No explanation will be given.
3. An alarm bell will sound to signal a massive virus outbreak or worm infestation at Microsoft High. Students are required to calmly exit the building. No drills have been scheduled for this procedure, as it is believed the bell will ring frequently throughout the term without them.
4. Visits to Open Source High are stictly forbidden. Students are, however, encouraged to visit other area schools and report any smaller, well-run institutions with innovative programs to expedite their hostile acquisition by the Microsoft School Board.
5. Our MSSAT exam is similar to--though subtly incompatible with--its government counterpart.
6. Please do not be alarmed by the video portraits of Bill Gates whose eyes follow you down every hall. He got the idea from reading Harry Potter.
The legal entity (corporation) does to other legal entities (other corporations) what the illegal one (mafia) does to other people: Threatens to "cut off their oxygen supply." So Microsoft absolutely has killed -- other corporations. Oh, and they did that illegally according to both the original court and the appeals court. You do get that, don't you?
Nevertheless, my point wasn't that Microsoft acts like the mafia. My point was to show how the original poster's logic doesn't hold up, and to demonstrate I used his logic in the exact same way but in a different context so that he could see how his logic was flawed. I wasn't intending anyone to assume I meant Microsoft = the mafia. If I had used an example involving fuzzy bunnies, would that have been clearer? Either way, the original poster didn't understand why people hate Microsoft even when they do something nice. I explained why.
...then I remembered where we get Computer Science lectures at Cambridge University: the William Gates Building. We also get free copies of Windows XP, amongst others. So it would be a bit hypocritical to object :-)
These things can go either way... we still have Linux on all the lab PCs and we get taught as much Linux-specific stuff as Windows-specific stuff, if not more. So, wait and see before you judge, is my advice...
I saw no reference to the audit MS did in the Philly public schools a few years ago, which forced one of the poorest school districts in the country to shell out cash they really didn't have. What happened? MS wrote off the balance due and called it a donation.
link
It's all Hood
I can just see it now
-I graduate from Bill Gates High
-goto Steve Balmer Community College
-transfer to Microsoft University
Go to work for (insert name of your favorite Linux vendor)!
I'm good with numbers -