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Microsoft's High School Opens in PA
Joopndufus writes to mention a CNN article about a Microsoft-planned high school, newly opened in the Philadelphia area. Funded entirely by that city's school system, Microsoft offered its management skills and personnel to design every aspect of the high-tech setting. From the article: "After three years of planning, the Microsoft Corp.-designed 'School of the Future' opened its doors Thursday, a gleaming white modern facility looking out of place amid rows of ramshackle homes in a working-class West Philadelphia neighborhood. The school is being touted as unlike any in the world, with not only a high-tech building -- students have digital lockers and teachers use interactive 'smart boards' -- but also a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques."
I work in tech. support for schools and certainly our catchment area (171 schools) now successfully has an interactive smart board in every single class room. Also thanks to a goverment initiative, the laptops for teachers scheme means all teachers have a laptop which they can create lesson plans and produce teaching content on and then move around class rooms with to hook up to the smart boards. We also have an average ratio of 1 computer for every 4 students across all our schools too.
:p
Whilst not many schools here have digital lockers (lockers aren't popular here full stop like in the US) we do have things like card systems for pupils to register entry into the toilets with (kinda big brotherish I know, I'm against it but the technology is cool) so there is a paper trail if someone vandalises or smokes in the toilets. The cards double up as well as being able to provide dinner ladies with information on what kids don't need to pay for school meals and such due to their family being poor and on benefits, some schools the few that do have digital lockers - the swipe cards also work for these.
Certainly schools here in the UK have come a long way in the 8 years since I left, they were only just replacing blackboards with those nice whipeable whiteboards when I left!
As for a learning process modelled on Microsoft's management techniques, I've also seen evidence of this in the schools for kids with behavioural problems who are there because they've been expelled multiple times from elsewhere, the main evidence being that they've often threatened to "fucking kill me" and thrown chairs about the room
It's not $63 million spent on only 170 students. $63 million was spent as a capital investment into building the school, infrastructure, and other things which can be amortize over the usable lifetime of the school. I know of high schools that have been around for at least 50 years, although of course there are occasional renovations. Assuming the school lasts for 50 years, you have to divide by the total number of students that attend the school. You would have to calculate the capital investment into the school by $63 million / (170 new students per year * 50 years) = $7,411.76 per student cost to build the school. If the school lasts longer or increases the number of new students per year, the per student cost decreases.
There is also the yearly cost of teaching and maintaining the grounds, but that is a separate statistic.
I just found a new sig.
The current school systems are already being pumped cash, but still show horrible results. Especially when compared to private schools.
/
That simply isn't true. The report came out a couple of months ago from a government study that privately run charter school students scored lower than public school students. The report didn't get a lot of press for obvious reasons. Here's the first google news link I found:
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/9765/1/338
And here's a link to the actual study.
"MS isn't there to tell them how to educate."
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From the article, it looks different:
"...Their laptops carry software that assesses how quickly they're learning the lesson."
. .
"Lessons will have more incorporation of current events to teach subjects. For instance, a question of whether Philadelphia is safe from the avian flu will teach students about geography, science and history."
MS is definetly getting involved in class content and the educational process itself. And of course, MS has no agenda at all, and can be trusted completely. In spite of the positive idea reflected in the above quoted paragraph, should a commercial interest drive education?
I mean, perhaps the answer is yes, and maybe no. But, it does have a natural outcome in that kids will almost certainly end up better at conforming than thinking for themselves. That might be what we need, although I don't think so.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
I can say from personal experience that you're allowing your preconceptions to get in the way. Private schools are far from a playground for the rich. For example, the private school I send my children to actually has quite a number of low income families sending their children there. As a whole, the school has produced academically superior children.
There's also the case of home schoolers, who continue to outperform their public school peers. A large percentage of home schoolers are in the lower to middle classes. i.e. Nothing special.
So there's absolutely no evidence that the success of non-public schooling has anything to do with the students being superior from the get-go. If there is any area of superiority, it's in the choices the parents have made in ensuring that their child gets the best education possible.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Having been in the education business for awhile I take exception to your comment that school systems are already being pumped full of cash. I assure you that they are not. Most schools I have taught in are woefully short on basic supplies; instead most teachers have to buy their own supplies. I am a science teacher and if I want to do cool science labs then most of the time it is up to me to buy those supplies. The $800.00 budget our science department gets (10+ science teachers in the building) just does not go far.
Most schools I have been in are short on textbooks and those textbooks are usually outdated and worn out. If a teacher wants to offer something cool and educational to their students we usually are told there just isn't any money. I run a highly successful robotics club in my middle school which was largely funded in the beginning out of my own pocket. I also run a rocketry club after school which, once again, is largely funded by me. I spent my summer school paycheck on a complete hybrid rocket motor system and ground support equipment to use with the kids.
I can certainly tell you that the massive influx of money is NOT going towards my salary. Everyone I know with a college degree earns generally far more than I do. Am I complaining, yes, but it is the life I chose to live. I knew what I was getting into from the beginning, salary wise.
This brings me to my main point If we want to better the educational system in America we need to raise teachers' salary (among other things). As a teacher I am generally disappointed by the people attracted to education. I am a science geek, I live, eat, and breathe science, however, most science teachers I know (especially at the middle school level) are NOT science oriented people. They are not passionate about science and this disappoints me greatly. However, many of the people I know who are passionate about science and I think would make good teachers do not want to take a massive cut in pay. The argument is that the low pay attracts people who really WANT to be teachers. I do not wholly buy that argument.
In general, I think the educational system that we have in America is a very good system and that most of the problems are not intrinsic to the educational system. For example, I teach in a school that is over 79% economically disadvantaged. My students have very little support at home and I get little to no support from the parents. My students are mal-nourished and under cared for. In general when I have problems with a student I cannot get hold of the parents, much less get support from them.
I can tell you, from my own observations that the single greatest factor that influences whether a student gets a good education or not is the parents. The students that I have that do very well in school, are not behavior problems and are active in the school community have parents that are actively involved in the their life and supportive of them. The students that do not do well in school, are constant behavior problems and have little to no involvement in the school community have parents that simply do not care to be involved in their child's life and general well-being and expect the school to be their baby sitter. It does not their socio-economic or racial background.
Go ahead, flame me.
You are correct, we actually do agree on most points.
I agree that elementary education is severely lacking in most respects. It REALLY disappoints me that my kids come to me in middle school with almost no science education at all. Our district has taken an active interest in improving elementary education by forcing elementary teachers to teach science. Now, when I get kids from the elementary they at least have some science information and it continues to get better each year. The elementary teachers do not like it because it is forcing them to do science and math, which they abhor.
On to your other point about extra curricular activities becoming more important than curricular activities. I agree with you on that point in a large way. Football is king here in Texas and I have seen school districts pour millions into the football program while ignoring the fact that they need textbooks and other basic necessities. As a teacher I will always make the minimum district salary, no matter how well my students perform. However, if I were a football coach I could easily negotiate my salary, we have a high school coach in our district that makes over 100K per year. As I said before, I run a very successful and recognized robotics program at our school and I have to beg and plead for any money at all from or district or from private corporations while the football team got all new uniforms and pads this year. Our football team practices 5 days a week, before, after, and during school and God forbid if something interferes with it.
Your point about normalizing children is so very true and I hate it with a passion. However, I really believe that hiring more GOOD teachers in order to reduce class size could go a long way in helping the problem.
Once again, you are correct in that the vast majority of the problem lies is socio-economic. I cannot tell you the number of times I have called a parent wanting to discuss their child and the fact that their child is interfering with the education of others by being disruptive and have been told "I cant handle him at home, he is your problem at school. Deal with it."
Smart boards aren't anything special at all. It's very good technology, don't get me wrong. You display your computer's screen up on a board, and you can write on the board / click buttons / etc, and it all works correctly.
However, it's nothing new. The high school my mom teaches at in Jasper, MO has had them for about 5 years. They have a graduating class of around 30 each year, and the students are often late to their first class because it took longer than usual to feed the cattle that morning. They have never had a single non-white student. They are that far behind the rest of the country, and they have these Smart Boards. The school I went to in Neosho, MO is slightly larger, with 250 kids in my graduating class, and we have the Smart Boards as well.
MO schools have them. It's not specials that M$ schools would.
I can't believe how many comments there are (and have been modded up too) that think M$ should have given them money and left the teaching to the same old union-backed teachers and administrators. We've been trying to solve this problem with more money for years and there has not been any significant return (i.e., increased learning) on that investment. The following numbers are from the US Dept of Education statistics site (http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d04/tables/dt0 4_365.asp) (in thousands of current dollars)
1970 4,625,224
1975 7,350,355
1980 13,137,785
1985 16,701,065
1990 23,198,575
1995 31,403,000
2000 34,106,697
2002 46,324,352
2003 57,442,854
2004 62,864,595
Note that this is federal spending. There are billions more collected at the state and local level. For example, the estimate in 2003 was nearly $450 billion nationwide. That's just for K-12. FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS.
Democrats and Republicans alike have both tried to throw money at this problem for a loooong time. Increases in education spending far exceed inflation or personal income. The problem is not money! You can google those facts all day long.
Microsoft may or may not be an answer to the problem, but the fact that they're getting in there and trying to fix the problem should be embraced.
I encourage you to poke around www.schoolmatters.com, which is a free service provided by Standard & Poors. They specifically ask that you don't take numbers out of context, so I won't post anything here. It's better to see then in context anyhow.
Take the 63 million dollar cost of the school divided by the number of students attending the first year...
And that is WITHOUT Microsoft charging for any of their "expertise..."