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School Internet Program Audit Shows Fraud and Waste
uid0mako writes "CNN is reporting on the abuses of E-rate. E-rate is a government-sponsored program that provides discounted Internet access and internal connection gear such as wiring, adaptors and servers to underprivileged schools. One of the incidents includes $24 million spent on 74000 wireless network cards that never left the loading dock."
24000000 / 74000 = ~$324/NIC
guess they weren't buying Netgear cards at that price... ouch!
I have watched the e-Rate program since its inception, and am neck-deep in it now...this sort of thing happens over and over again. It is a multi-billion-dollar boondoggle, typical government program. Schools are forced to hire entire staffs, or outsource, just to fill out the hundreds of pages of paperwork. The end result? Rejection, or perhaps more paperwork. But in any case, all of those billions are funneled to IT giants like Microsoft and IBM, as well as the Telecom companies that are given "preference" for their stone-age T1 technology. Want to put in your own glass fiber between buildings? Not covered by e-Rate, because that would step on the phone company's toes. Better to lease a dozen T1 lines, in their eyes. The whole thing needs to be gamma-irradiated and shot into deep space...and the "Universal Service Fee" that covers it eliminated.
I'll keep this in mind when I get my next phone bill and notice the 30% taxes added on to it. At least half of that is the "Gore Tax", which was put to such great use as we see. Now that almost all American public schools have their intarweb installed, I see no reason to continue this financial rape of the public. This program should be phased out, since it has clearly outlived its usefulness. It's nothing less than irresponsible to suggest that a federal tax be used to pay the monthly internet bills for schools and libraries (neither of which are supposed to be federally controlled to begin with).
Why the surprise?
This is just another line charge placed on the American taxpayer designed to make some elected official either "feel" that he or she is "trying to make a difference" in the lives of some poor students. What a waste of the taxpayers money!
When will the dialogue in the US ever turn to spending cuts and elimination of wasteful programs in order to solve tax revenue shortfalls?
"The program, run by the FCC and administered by a not-for-profit corporation, is widely credited for helping poor and rural schools get wired, giving students better learning tools." ..
Of all the problems with poor and rural schools, they spend money on this? Technology is a good thing, but when my rural school only had an 800 average SAT score (of the people motivated enough to take it), you have to wonder why resources get wasted like this.
a) 1996 - Gore/Clinton tax *your* phone bill to "put internet on every school"
b) Any school can spend whatever money and get the ERATE fund to reimburse the school
Waste and abuse happens because this tax should not even have existed to begin with. If school districts had to spend their own money, based on *local* taxation, this sort of careless purchasing would not happen.
You vote for politicians who introduce taxes, you bring this upon yourself.
The next pasture is always greener
If they needed new carpeting and painting in the first plae but couldnt get the funds for it, I don't think it's that bad as it would have been funded by the gov't anyway.
I sure hope you're being sarcastic and that's not a kneejerk reaction. The problem isn't companies, the problem is SCHOOLS being morons and taking all this "free money" and spending it on multi-million dollar solutions when a $100 switch and a box of cable would fit their needs.
The real problem is that this all paid for through a tax on your phone bill (think: Universal Service Fee, meaning most people never realize how much they pay for it) and the structuring of the program encourages waste. "Buy the biggest and best things that you can so we can get good PR for helping the children!" Meanwhile, anyone who questions the program's merits stands a chance of being labeled "against education" or even a racist, since the program (supposedly) exists to help poorer schools.
A better article on this can be found at the New York Times.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Look - a clear and serious fraud has been commited. People should be livid about this, even more so if this kind of behaviour is the norm. Just because it always happens doesn't make it right, and only pressure and accountability will ever sort the situation out. Shrugging the shoulders and going "so?" is really not all that helpful.
Cheers,
Ian
By turning all landowners into renters from the school board we have given these bureaucrats way too much power. Year after year landowners pour money into the school system even if they have never placed their children into the local system. This power imbalance can't be fixed without dropping property taxes and restoring property rights. Money is power and spending all of the money budgeted (and more) is the way you preserve the power. Our school systems have become a NEA jobs program first, an underfunded teachers retirement plan second, and an educational system third (if at all). Until we end tyranny and restore property right this will never be fixed. The power balanced is too skewed as long as the right to endlessly tax property exists.
I think that the never leaving the loading dock issue is the smallest issue here. the price should tell you that actually shipping these cards was probably irrelevant from the beginning.
wonder how much they spent on the access points...
In 1999 the installation wasn't as easy or clean as it is today so it probably took a good hour. Drivers were buggy and sometimes Windows wouldn't play nice with them. The cards also cost in the neighborhood of $275-$300 to begin with. The price on those silly things has just come down in the last 2 years.
The local schools see this as free money. They can put in the biggest, stupidest possible proposal to the feds. If it is approved, great! Remember, the guys in DC that administer the program are paid to give out money to schools, not to teach them about networks.
If the local schools thought it was important to wire the schools, they would find the funds and would design a much more cost-effective system. This has the effect of concentrating power in Washington. I think that local school boards should avoid starting to rely on a steady stream of free money from DC. The money is free now, but might come with a lot of strings later.
Anyway, guess, who did she study to become, and is currently becoming? A Washington lobbyist! No kidding...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You stupid fucking retard. This shitstorm was dumped on us by the Clinton/Gore administration, you ignorant pile of rotted baboon jism.
The problems is, you're taxing people in other areas to pay for your school's facilities. Schools are, and should be, local entities. If the local taxpayers don't want to spend the money to maintain the infrastructure, then why should you and I, who don't even benefit? Then there's the whole issue of dishonesty - claiming the funds will be used for one purpose, while secretly doing something else with them. We have a highway "trust fund" that officially has billions in it, but has been borrowed against by Congress so that most of the money will never lay a single square foot of road. My local municipality has systematically looted the sewer fund. Now that routine pipeline breaks are dumping raw sewage into the ocean, they're screaming that the fund is broke and rates have to go up. Think of that next time some politician talks about another "trust fund" for some great purpose.
tell us something that isnt new with the US public school system.
Thing is, the people who run the school system are not good with managing money. this is proven fact, the dont look into the best priced software, or hardware, or anything.
it's whoever treats them to the best lunch.
Yes of course, because if *you* survived on 2400 bps in 1989, then kids in school today should be able to as well? That's the worst kind of logic I've ever heard. The bottom line is this: Kids grow up these days with broadband all around them. Learning needs to be mentally stimulating to be effective. You can't take a kid who has been exposed to flashy presentations (video games, et al.) and put him in front of a TRS-80 connected to "that internet-thingy" and expect it to be effective.
It's also true that, 95% of the time, it's really not worth it to cowtow to the federal/state governments to get the "free" money they're giving out for education, but public school boards are afraid of the bad PR they will get if the public finds out there was "free" money being given away by the federal/state government and they didn't get it. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Education has become big business, and it's what is killing the Public School System.
my hovercraft is full of eels
How about lets really get real. The reason the cards stayed on the dock is that the school teachers/admin simply didn't know how to use computers in the first place. They were not going to use them, they were going to set them like trophies on their desks.
I have had a running fight with my daughter's teachers for 4 years now that they should send me emails if there are any problems. I have offered to add my address to their email address book and been forbidden. I have been told that writing me would take too much time but a parent teacher conference was ok.
This year I finally had one teacher who actually notified by email. The others NOT! Most teachers classrooms you find that the computer is neatly covered with a dust cover and maybe a potted plant is mounted on the top. (NOT USED EVER!) This spring our school system disposed of several thousand 3 year old computers which were "Out Dated" and replaced them with new ones. The new ones are used jsut as much as the old ones. (Get out your dust blower please!)
How about discussing this in the MEDIA or how the Gore Tax was passed without a Vote of Congress which is a violation of the US Constitution or ...
Never Politically Correct ~ I prefer the facts If you don't like what I say, get a life, or comment yourself.
I'm not refusing to buy - you're either paying it directly or their charging the landlord and he's passing it along in the rent bill - but property taxes are a huge consideration. Good thing I love rural areas.
At the bottom of the endless pile of paper work which characterizes all regulation lies a gun.
Alan Greenspan
Then I posit that publickly funded free education is a bad thing. It's a government run youth progandizing system designed to keep the overachievers held down, the active doped up on Ritalin, the stupid made to feel good about themselves, and everyone docile enough to never question government and authority.
A more educated populace is a more prodctive populace
When Alexis de Toqueville visited the U.S. in the early 19th century, he found the populace was mostly literate and well educated. Note that this was before Massachusetts instituted the Prussian model of public education (conditioning young "commoners" to follow simple orders, be literate enough to read gun manual, and obedient enough to respond to bells and sounds - they were training them to be cannon fodder in future Prussian wars), when people were regularly schooled at home or in community run schools.
meaning that we'll have a stronger nation more easily to support us when we retire
That is the most socialist thing I have heard anyone say about education, and supports most of my vehement opposition to public education. Quite frankly, I don't want your kid's fscking money when I retire - that's why I have a retirement account and savings, so I can retire an not be leech on society. And I'll be damned if my kid's money is gonna go to support your socialist ass when you feel you'v earned a rest. You want a rest, grasshopper, stop playing away the summer and start saving for it.
defend us when we are invaded and too old to fight on the front lines
Are you saying that, should an armed invasion of the U.S. happen, that you wouldn't hobble your broken-down socialist ass onto your lawn to defend your home and family? I'd defend my home and family with a ball-point pen and some shipping twine in a wheelchair if I had to. Oh, but wait, you're a socialist (see previous paragraph) - I guess you'll just have to wait for the government to tell you what to do or save you. Have fun.
blame the cold war. The Federal government literally prints money
You're not going back far enough. Blame the Whig/Republican party during the Civil War. They illegally setup the national banking system and started printing fiat paper currency, backed by nothing more than promises and hot air. They setup to protectionist tariff system that crippled the economy and has left it wheezing ever since. They started the basis of the modern military-industrial complex we know and love today. Everything since then is resting on the cracked foundation the tyrant Abraham Lincoln left us with.
...and you run and you run and you can't stop what's been done...
You're drinking the government Kool-Aid if you think giving your kids and your money to the government to lock them inside a brick building six hours a day, keeping them calm and docile with drugs if necessary, taking years to teach reading (which is a necessary skill, easily learnable in 6-8 weeks with phonetic skills), and forcing socialization on them is for the "greater good".
Your arguments about taxpayers are spot on - no one wants to pay for it, so in steps the government to steal the moeny from you for it (yes, it's theft - they take my money without my consent under threat of violence. Muggers are actually more honest about it - they produce the gun before they ask for my wallet). So, if the current system isn't working and no one is happy with it, why are we continuing to try to patch it up?
The Indians have a saying: When you find yourself riding a dead horse, the best thing to do is dismount. However, it seems that when it comes to public education (which I posit is a dead horse), we are more willing to paint the horse a festive color, try to revive the horse, put more people on the horse, feed the horse more high-quality oats, or anything other than get off the damn thing.
How can you help? Simple - get off the horse. Home school your kids - when the government agents come knocking on your door to ask why your kids aren't in school, tell them your home-schooling, don't need your schools, thankyouverymuch and close the door. When you reward poor choices with more money (like raising funding to schools based on the number of kids in the school), the best way to help is to reduce your involvment in the behavior.
...and you run and you run and you can't stop what's been done...