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."

Comments

More information

[LiquidCoooled]

Staff at the school were happy with how the opening day went, the pupils were welcomed in by a Brian Eno classic on the tannoy system.
This informed them that the tannoy system was working and it was now safe to enter the building.

However, once the day got underway things quickly went downhill in the English letter writing class.

"Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all,"

Meanwhile the gymnasium had to be rebooted twice after some children overloaded the basketball hoops.
Several pupils were stuck in the changing rooms for a few hours until the scandisk procedure managed to locate all the fragments of the key to unlock the door.

The music class was interrupted because someone brought in an illegal sample of a track in mp3 format and forgot to include a verification document from the parents of the original composer signed in blood.

On top of all these problems, the school is hunting for the person responsible for posting "goatse" on every single whiteboard, this shocking image appeared at 14:21 and remained on screen for 15 minutes whilst technicians located and removed it.

Re:More information

[sirnuke]

Do they have deadlines on assignments?

Re:More information

[aplusjimages]

Plus there wouldn't be any video games to distract the kids with.

Re:More information

[maxwell demon]

Yes, but they get bonus points for missing them.

Re:More information

[h00pla]

Will there be 'blue blackboards of death'?

Re:More information

[HarvardAce]

I hear there has been quite a cost saving, as the number of teachers required is lower than a traditional school because English is now being taught by Clippy.

"I see today we are trying to write a formal letter. Would you like help?"
Also, two students were expelled on the first day for giving an apple to the teacher.

Re:More information

[toadlife]

What high school would that be?

--Your friendly BSA agent

Interesting 'idea'

[MECC]

"but also a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques"

Does that mean that students only get help on the first Tuesday of each month?

Does anyone else see a problem with modeling a school after a management style better at spin than substance? Or with MS managers telling teachers how to do their jobs? I wonder if the lockers will have DRM built-in? The sheer magnitude of bullsh*t this promises is nearly limitless, based just the amazing lack of common sense found in the idea. Its like modeling a operating room after a CPA office. They may as well model it after circus clowns, for all the similarity the two have.

Why not just give money to the school system? That way if things go south, MS wouldn't bear part of the blame. This way they do. I wonder if that little bit of management wisdom will find its way into the classroom along with heavy-handed DRM.

Seriously, MS really needs to replace Larry, Curly, and Moe.


Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has famously called high schools "obsolete"

This from the guy who also said nobody will ever need more than 640k of memory.

"-- and mental acuity is especially critical to Microsoft"

From the company that only thinks, if you can call it that, in term of covering up old problems with new problems - fix is a four letter word at MS. They just want the opportunity to shape impressionable minds in their mold. I wonder how free speech will size up at "MS High".

Worst of all, MS conned the PA school system into paying for their little experiment. They could have at least come up with part of the cost, as a show of good faith. I guess they'll kids how to be good con artists.

"The high school will use an "education competency wheel," patterned after a set of desirable traits Microsoft encourages among its employees. Officials, teachers and students are to be trained in dozens of skills, including organizing and planning, negotiating, dealing with ambiguity and managing relationships."

So, they'll graduate a bunch of MS employees. Will the graduation speeched extoll how great it is to work for Microsoft?

Re:Interesting 'idea'

[AKAImBatman]

Why not just give money to the school system?

Because that isn't the answer. The current school systems are already being pumped cash, but still show horrible results. Especially when compared to private schools. What Microsoft is doing is not a bad idea. I just cringe at the idea of applying "Microsoft Management Procedures" as a panacea to all the school's problems. Most likely, all that technology will just mean that the students do just as badly, but in a high tech environment! :-/

Of course, the problem really stems from poor elementry education. Students are rarely taught a solid foundation that they can grasp, and concepts like personal responsibility, individual talent, and academic achievement are wiped away as unimportant. Just so long as nobody feels they're special and nobody feels that they're not normal, then who cares if the academic bar is going lower and lower?

Unfortunately, I find it doubtful that things will change as long as Political Correctness rules our schools and parents see elementary as nothing more than free day care.

Re:Interesting 'idea'

[jd142]

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/

Re:Interesting 'idea'

[CosmeticLobotamy]

What you're saying isn't entirely meritless, but

The current school systems are already being pumped cash, but still show horrible results. Especially when compared to private schools.

No, public school children show horrible results compared to private school children. The children of typically wealthy parents that care enough about their child's education to go to the effort of putting them in a private school perform better in school. Public schools could obviously be run better in many cases, but you sure as heck can't do a one-to-one comparison. Although I'm all for a test case, privatizing an existing, poorly-performing public school and forbidding an increase in expulsions (if you're going to do it on a large scale, you can't just send the less-exceptional kds off to public school to pad your "look how great the students that are still here do" numbers) and seeing how well things go. I'd absolutely love to see that data, 'cause I want there to be an easy fix. I just doubt there is one.

Students are rarely taught a solid foundation that they can grasp

Sure they are. They're taught until their teachers are blue in the face. But other than the 10% that are going to grow up to be the important people, the students just generally don't give a damn. You can't teach an interest in learning.

But you're right that Microsoft's stuff won't help much.

Re:Interesting 'idea'

[gstoddart]

What Microsoft is doing is not a bad idea. I just cringe at the idea of applying "Microsoft Management Procedures" as a panacea to all the school's problems. Most likely, all that technology will just mean that the students do just as badly, but in a high tech environment! :-/

They may even do worse in some cases.

One of the things I really noticed in the article was the following: In addition, students at the school must apply to college to get a diploma.

Since they set up this school in an inner city area, I worry that the condition of applying to a college as a requirement of getting a high-school diploma could severely limit people, and end up denying them a high-school diploma which they have earned. Getting more people to attend college is a good goal, but doing it in such a way as to make it more difficult to get your high-school may not help.

I'm imagining a worst case scenario where (assuming it costs money to apply to a college) someone can't afford the application costs, let alone actually attending. It would be a shame to penalize people because they can't afford to even apply to college.

Of course, I'm not an educator, and I'm not really up on the whole process of applying to a college in the US. So I could be way off base and this won't be an impediment to anyone at all. I would just like to hope that people have considered this eventuality.

I also question whether anyone has seriously studied if Microsoft Management Procedures are actually helpful in getting highschool kids to learn.

Cheers

Re:Interesting 'idea'

[AKAImBatman]

The children of typically wealthy parents that care enough about their child's education to go to the effort of putting them in a private school perform better in school.

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.

Re:Interesting 'idea'

[xanthines-R-yummy]

I'm actually all for paying teachers more but I'm not entirely sure they're "underpaid." I think a more accurate term is "undervalued." See this."

Re:Interesting 'idea'

[DevStar]

Applying for college is not the same as attending college. BUT there is an important reason why they're doing that. There is some data that suggests that one reason that many students don't go to college is that they think they can not get in. By requiring them to apply it at least addresses that issue. The students can decide whether or not they want to go to college after the college decision.

And applying to college does cost money, but virtually every college will waive the fee if you can't afford.

Re:Interesting 'idea'

[dculp]

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.

Re:Interesting 'idea'

[AKAImBatman]

Go ahead, flame me.

Ok, you asked for it...

Having been in the education business for awhile I take exception to your comment that school systems are already being pumped full of cash.

Having taken an interest in school systems and their results, I take exception to the fact that incredible amounts of money is being spent, but that this money is not finding its way into the education. As you say, you may end up with an $800.00 budget for science experiments. Yet a school might invest hundreds of thousand to millions into a new football field or sports equipment.

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. 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).

I don't think it's that simple. I think if we want our kids to have good schools educators, we need that money flowing into their educations. Unfortunately, that's unlikely to happen as long as extra-curicular activities are seen as more important than the curicular activities.

However, I feel compelled to point out that a large number of high schools teachers manage to do quite well despite the shortfall of funds. Like yourself, the teachers look to pass on as much science and technology as they can. The problem is, if the kids are missing a good elementary education, they tend to take less interest in a higher education.

Which brings us back around to...

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.

Which comes back to what I was saying. You've got a two-fold problem with elementary education:

1. The parents don't care enough about their kids education, and treat it as daycare.

2. The teachers are trained to normalize the children rather than recognize individual achievement and ability, lest the school be accused by the parents of making Johnny feel unimportant or underachieving. Never mind that part of growing up is to learn that you can't be the best at everything, and that each person has their own talents and abilities.

Simply increasing funding will not solve these problems. These are socio-economic issues that go beyond simple greenbacks. The sooner the public is made aware that the problem is elementary (my dear Watson... sorry. :P), the sooner we can raise awareness of the needed participation. I would hope that this would encourage parents to make changes to ensure their child's education, but I'm afraid that's unlikely. There's a huge backlash against the idea of acting like a traditional parent. The very idea of accepting a lower income so that one parent will always be available to supervise the children's upbringing is considered quaint, outmoded, and even sexist. (Since it's usually the mother who takes on the nuturing role.)

So I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to NOT disagree with you, but just point out that we're in full agreement, but that the situation is complex and fraught with a large number of competing issues. ;)

Re:Interesting 'idea'

[cayenne8]

"Soooo... a private school publically funded is worse than a public school publically funded. But a private school privately funded is supposedly better than both? So, what... the money is cursed?"

No, but, the govt. regulations and bureaucracy imposed on the public versions of schools is what curses them. Political correctness, teachers unions, regulations....and lack of discipline kill all versions of the public model.

In private schools...they can at the very least discipline you, and kick your ass out if you act up.

Perhaps we need to change the public school model some...why not make education a privilige rather than a 'right' in the traditional sense. Maybe a 3 strikes and your out thing? If you can't cut it in regular school, we send you to a vo-tech type school to at least try to train your for a trade....at least till they're 18.

Not everyone has the mentality nor the interest in regular education, but, why not remove those who distract and bring down the 'common denominator' from those students who do have the proclivity to learn.

Not everyone is a rocket scientist....and the world does need its ditch diggers.

Re:Interesting 'idea'

[dculp]

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."

Re:Interesting 'idea'

[urbanradar]

> You can't teach an interest in learning.

Excuse me, but IMHO, you most certainly *can*. Teachers rarely can, but that bit isn't up to them, anyway. It's up to the parents.
Children are naturally curious and eager to learn. If you are a parent, you can encourage your child to ask questions, you can answer the questions, you can capture your child's interest, you can teach your child to use its mind. You can do all sorts of stuff to teach your children that learning can be fun and rewarding very early on.
The sad fact, however, is that many parents today don't tend to do that - they'd rather leave their children to be raised mainly by the franchises of the media and big corporation - Disney, Barbie, the X-Box, Britney Spears, you just name it. By the time these parents' children get to school, it's already too late.

(PS: I'm not advocating trying to push your children to success as hard as possible. It's been time and time again before that putting too much pressure on them is very likely to backfire. I'm not about pushing children, I'm on about teaching them to follow their natural curiosity and nurturing their natural instinct for learning.)

Re:Interesting 'idea'

[CosmeticLobotamy]

And who picks the textbooks the teachers will use? Government.

Yeah. Go read a textbook. Any textbook. Assloads of information, most of it useful, I promise. Some better than others, but almost all good. Hardly any switch to Chinese in the middle, and those ones don't get picked very often, even with the evil, evil government doing the work.

Most of this is done locally rather than at the federal level

The local school board is trying to keep people dumb so they won't question invasions? I think you've landed on Occam's bad side.

But local governments can fubar things just as badly - look at the influence that Texas has over textbooks, or Kansas for example.

A large number of people being stupid does not always indicate a conspiracy. Stupid people are quite capable of creating complex results by acting stupidly alone.

Re:Interesting 'idea'

[nasch]

No, public school children show horrible results compared to private school children. The children of typically wealthy parents that care enough about their child's education to go to the effort of putting them in a private school perform better in school.

Not according to the Department of Education. They quietly released a study that finds no significant differences in academic acheivement between public and private school students after controlling for variables such as wealth, income, geography, etc.

Crash Course?

[ruiner13]

Do they offer crash courses? Do all the windows have blue screens? Does every student get a clippy to help with their homework?

Ok, i'm done.

Who wants to bet...

[isecore]

that open-source is banned in that school?

"Say, that's a nice school we helped build... wouldn't want any open-source in there, that would mean bad things, and we don't want bad things to happen, right?"

Re:Who wants to bet...

[owlnation]

and bringing an Apple for the teacher gets you expelled...

Fresh Prince of Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Now this is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute just sit right there
I'll tell you how I became a student owned by Microsoft
In West Philadelphia born and raised
On Slashdot where I spent most of my days
Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool
And writing some code outside of the school
When a couple of guys said "we're up in no good"
Started making trouble in my neighbourhood
I hacked into one little computer and my mom got scared
And said "you're going to that new Microsoft High School"

Re:Fresh Prince of Microsoft

[xdjyoshx]

I whistled for a segway and when it came near
the sticker said "pwned" and the dude had flakes in his hair
if anything i could tell that he was ready to throw a chair
but i thought nahhhh forget it wait
YO HOLEMS YOU SMELL WAREZ?

I
pulled
up to my laptop around 7 or 8
and yelled to the teacher
yo melinda page ya later
i looked at my kingdom
it was all white and bare
and there it was known as MS High School despair.

Sorry i had to finish the song.. geez

vista

[Anonymous Coward]

but also a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques

I'm not trying to be a troll but with the way Vista has been handled, hasn't MS shown that their management techniques aren't exactly very good?

Re:vista

[kripkenstein]

I'm not trying to be a troll but with the way Vista has been handled, hasn't MS shown that their management techniques aren't exactly very good?

Exactly what I was thinking. When I read "[Microsoft] didn't pay the $63 million cost -- that was borne by the Philadelphia School District -- but shared its personnel and management skills" in TFA, my reaction was: it would have been better for them to just donate a big stack of cash and keep their 'skills' to themselves. Money is something Microsoft have more than enough of; 'management skills' - doubtful at best.

And even if they did have 'management skills' - they have no idea of how to teach those skills to children. All their experience is with hiring already-skilled adults.

Had I heard "Microsoft donates $1 billion to the Philadelpha public school system", I would have applauded Microsoft for their generosity (despite everything I have against them). But this project just sounds like a bad idea to me.

Re:vista

[Joe Snipe]

Would you prefer to stick with the current teaching system; modelled after Rockefellers management structure of his mills and factories? At least this school will require literacy...

This is becoming simple MS bashing, akin to reflexive racism. ANY changes or contributions made by the private sector are a good thing. If we can start preparing children to work in the white collar sector rather than the blue collar, maybe there is a chance we can thin out the low-income population that you and I currently support!

As for MS donating $X to the school system: why don't you show them how it's done? ;)

Re:vista

[e4g4]

Admittedly - Microsoft's management structure is no ideal model, but MS's money (were that all they provided) would surely be wasted in the _extremely_ poorly managed public school systems. Public school systems do not necessarily need more money (though that is by no means a universal truth); they simply need to learn how to spend the money in ways that actually improves education.

Having developed student management software and attempted to sell it (responding to an RFP) to a very large North Eastern school district, losing the bid to a company who's software cost 4 to 5 times more per year (our price being on the order of $200k per year), only to have this school district come back to us after discovering that the software did not do what they want, whereas ours did (this being after they signed a 7 year contract), and they offered to buy our software (which, I might add, contains a proper superset of the features of the contract winning software). So, seeing a school district waste $5.6 million so easily, one can only imagine what they'd do with more (like, say, spend $63 million on a "school of the future").

Forgot One

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot Chair Throwing 101.

It replaced their Communications courses.

What the ...

[khasim]

The company didn't pay the $63 million cost -- that was borne by the Philadelphia School District -- but shared its personnel and management skills. About 170 teens, nearly all black and mainly low-income, were chosen by lottery to make up the freshman class. The school eventually plans to enroll up to 750 students.

$63 million
Supporting 170 students
$370,588 per student right now.

At the 162,000-square-foot high school, which sits on nearly eight acres, the day starts at 9:15 a.m. and ends at 4:19 p.m., simulating the typical work day. Officials said studies show students do better when they start later in the day.

That's a lot of resources thrown at very few students.

Re:What the ...

[rayde]

consider though, that the numbers will look a lot different when it's 750 students a year, and it's been running for 20 years. sure it's a lot up front, but school districts don't build new buildings every day

Re:What the ...

[Ron Bennett]

Interesting end time ... 4:19? Another sign of the "420" culture at Microsoft? LOL!

Ron

Re:What the ...

[jblake]

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.

Re:What the ...

[OneSeventeen]

That's a lot of resources thrown at very few students.

You forgot a word... needlessly...

That's a lot of resources nedlessly thrown at very few students.

I wonder what it would be like if that money went towards regular supplies, like paper and pencil for all the other schools in the district, how far that amount of money would go?

I also wonder if before this happened they analyzed Microsoft's Management skills, perhaps with a case study on Vista?

This looks like a fun idea but it sounds like one giant Microsoft Advertisement to me, and that is only going to stifle the kids' innovation.

With all the Microsoft products I saw around me when I was a kid, I seriously thought you had to work for microsoft to become a programmer. I hate to say it, but this is only going to grow our kids' technology addiction, which I for one do not find healthy. As an IT manager, former programmer, and avid Geekon at my church, I want my kids to read books with paper, ink, and binding. (think about the librarians! won't someone please think about the librarians?!)

All in all, it looks cool, and it is nice of Microsoft to offer their management skills and personnell (that does cost them money), but I find it all kind of pointless when I bet the same result could have been achieved at a quarter of the cost if they got MIT or UC Berkley involved instead. (and open source developing universities actually have a more positive track record on quality and punctuality that Microsoft doesn't.)

Re:What the ...

[thesolo]

That's a lot of resources thrown at very few students.

Exactly. Speaking as someone who lives in Philadelphia, this has not been very well received here. The school system in this city is grossly underfunded, but now we suddenly have this new $63 million school, where all the freshmen get laptops and the lockers open with smart cards. The entire building is wireless, the students don't even have textbooks. A commentator on NPR this morning declared the school to be, in regards to money well spent, "a total waste"

Just the other day, there was a /. story about opposition to HS students having laptops, which pointed out the obvious: the students are using the technology to send IMs and play on networking sites like myspace. The laptops get beat to the ground and loaded full of spyware, the kids don't learn, and it becomes a giant waste of money. My brother-in-law, who is a teacher in Philadelphia, mentioned that they had to block Wikipedia on their school computers because kids would just copy the articles verbatim for book reports, make up a few sources, and hand them in. Having instant access to the answers isn't making students study harder...

Perhaps I'm sounding like a luddite, but I fail to understand how having interactive whiteboards & plasma TV screens all over the building are going to make kids learn calculus or a foreign language. I find this entire thing a bit ridiculous. Mind you, the students seem to love it, but apparently they're more interested in the bathrooms than the classrooms:

"They have those sinks that you just put your hands like that and the water comes out," said Sandra Nelson, 14.

"Toilets flush by themselves. It's all just so nice," agreed Bianca Gibson, 14. "I want to give a shout out to Bill Gates and tell him, 'Thank you, so much.' "

Where's that emoticon of the head banging against a brick wall?

Re:What the ...

[sharkey]

the day starts at 9:15 a.m. and ends at 4:19 p.m., simulating the typical work day.

I usually come in at least 15 minutes late. I use the side door, that way Lumberg doesn't see me.

Re:What the ...

[neo]

But man is that cheap for a commercial for Microsoft.

Re:What the ...

[argStyopa]

Because the way to teach someone to fish is by simply throwing lots and lots of fish at them?

No wait, that's not right....

Re:What the ...

[rolfwind]

I agree with most of your sentiment but this caught my eye:

My brother-in-law, who is a teacher in Philadelphia, mentioned that they had to block Wikipedia on their school computers because kids would just copy the articles verbatim for book reports, make up a few sources, and hand them in.

Isn't that a little shortsighted? Wouldn't the appropriate thing to do is punish the student? Because if they don't copy wikipedia, they same student will just copy another website or perhaps a book which is harder to track.

Anyway, on the issue of tech in the classroom - it's actually good in areas where technology just works. Think, for instance, about Graphing Calculators. Aren't they pretty good? I know I probably checked out a lot more functions than if I had to draw it by hand. Of course, I still know how to draw it by hand..... (thinking of all the cashier in places who can't add/subtract change w/o the register).

Technology tends to break down in the classroom when it stops being a pretty focused tool that's simply convenient and turns into some ill-defined and ill-focused panacea and prevent the student from thinking on their own.

There were lots of uses of technology which gave me a better understanding of the subject material, like in science classes there was Carl Sagan's excellent Cosmos series (I still consider the simple TV&VCR tech in the classroom). And Lego's mindstorms are pretty damn creative and a good intro to programming (thinking in that way).

But I haven't seen that many good software titles. When learning foreign languages, I'm still looking for a decent Japanese software title - but most edutainment (is that what they still call it?) sucks.

And learning/thinking still is hard work for many people. You can't sit the student in front of the computer and expect them to be taught. The programs/tools need to be focused on the job, and environments where you can just fire up the ICQ/browser when you should be working (speaking of which....) is a terrible temptation - especially for the young.

thinkofthechildren

[davidwr]

The borgification has begun.
Your children will be assimilated.

What are *you* doing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously. MS is trying to work in the ideas that made one of the largest most successful companies in the history of business. Sounds like there may be some carryover since making a good company is all about maintaining smart, happy employees. What have you done for education lately, besides complained about it? I applaud their effort, in the face of government and other big orgs who see 'business as usual' a fine mantra as our education system goes straight down the crapper.

Re:What are *you* doing?

[MECC]

"Seriously. MS is trying to work in the ideas that made one of the largest most successful companies in the history of business"

As in steal ideas from others, lie to federal judges, violate federal laws, and spin faster than a top?

"and other big orgs" Of course, MS isn't a "big org", and knows so much more about education than, say, educators. There are people out there who do turn around schools, and they do it by addressing the fundamental problems, not throwing technology at the situation as some kind of utopian panacea.

"What have you done for education lately"

One doesn't need to be a sailor to know that a ships float better than stones.

Really, from the article, it looks like MS just wants to train future MS employees. And have somebody else pay for it. And then not hire them.

Re:What are *you* doing?

[Dun Malg]

Of course, MS isn't a "big org", and knows so much more about education than, say, educators.

MS isn't there to tell them how to educate. Educators don't need to learn how to educate. They already know that. What educators seem to need but their own education completely ignored is how to manage.

Re:What are *you* doing?

[MECC]

"MS isn't there to tell them how to educate."

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.

Re:What are *you* doing?

[jthill]

Schools aren't businesses. Nations aren't businesses. Churches aren't businesses. This pretense that competence in business translates to competence in other areas is borderline insane.

Re:What are *you* doing?

[cayenne8]

You know...I am by far NOT a MS fan, but, given the sad state that US public schools are in, I'm willing to let almost anyone give a try to improving them. The US throws more money per student than ever, yet we get worse and worse results each year.

I don't think it is the lack of money...but, it is management of the schools. The teachers unions are a huge problem...the bureaucracy the entangles every aspect of public schools...and the corruption. (In NOLA pre-Katrina, a janitor made somewhere near $90K one year by filing bogus OT...he happened to be related to someone powerful on the school board).

I almost think we do need to somehow make US schools private run entities...or at least make the schools truely competitive, where people lose jobs and funding for lack of performance. Let the tax dollars follow the kids...lets schools compete for the students and the dollars that follow them. Hell, if school peformance is what drives what schools get the money...they will attract students...from all races I'd think...so, it might also end the dependance we have on busing kids all around.

Let the students decide where they want to go, let the dollars follow them, and possibly the school system can start to heal itself.

Re:What are *you* doing?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Microsoft didn't succeed due to its management ideas. Its management ideas have been a hindrance, as evidenced by the process problems behind Vista's development cycle. The reason Microsoft is successful goes all the way back to a single agreement with IBM in which Microsoft shipped the OS on all PCs while retaining the rights to the software. This brought in massive revenues and allowed them to expand into other areas, some successfully, most unsuccessfully. In other words, they got lucky. Otherwise, Microsoft is well-known for missing the boat on key technologies (hello, Internet) and generally being a follower, not an innovator.

Re:What are *you* doing?

[inviolet]

I almost think we do need to somehow make US schools private run entities...or at least make the schools truely competitive, where people lose jobs and funding for lack of performance.

It is a Hard Problem to measure the performance of a school, or even a teacher.

You allude to vouchers, as a stopgap measure, but that doesn't entirely solve the problem. A voucher is basically a way for individual parents to judge the school based on observations of their child. While this is more precise than a standardized test, it is not necessarily accurate, nor is it reliable on a schoolwide basis. In any event, it functions only in the presence of attentive, devoted parents.

Re:What are *you* doing?

[cayenne8]

"In any event, it functions only in the presence of attentive, devoted parents."

Agreed...but,seeing that parental behavior cannot be legislated, lets at least try something!

The current system is suffering. And as sad as it is...no system will help kids whose parents aren't interested in their progress, that is one aspect that noone but the parents can help.

So, given that there will always be some 'losers' out there due to bad parenting, lets at least open things up for the kids of parents that do care....let's not keep working towards the lowest common denominator any longer.

Re:What are *you* doing?

[forgetmenot]

Why is this rated "insightful"?

Since when did "having done something" become a requirement for criticizing something that many view with suspicion? Am I "not" allowed to complain about a landfill being built in my neighbourhood because I never built one myself?

Microsoft is a publicly trade company and as such is driven by shareholder value. They are not a charitable organization. Furthermore they have a track record of unethical and illegal behaviour. Around the world!

Why would you NOT be suspicious of their motives? And even if their intentions are noble... I concede, it may genuinely be a reflection of their desire to turn over a new leaf now that their master has stepped down... still it raises a concern: do we "really" want the education of our children in the hands of a corporation? They're aren't just donating textbooks or laptops.. they are spreading a corporate methodology and it's quite reasonable to ask if this is really appropriate whether you have personally contributed to public education or not!

Re:What are *you* doing?

[nickname225]

The janitor who over billed 90K was the father of the school district superintendent. He was required to pay back the overage. If the school was private - the father of the chairman could be put on the payroll at 90K and it wouldn't be a problem. Private corporations are hardly a guarantee of thrift and good stewardship. Just ask the former Tyco chairman.

Re:What are *you* doing?

[inviolet]

IMHO, public schools have gotten a LOT worse since I went. Much more PC "tollerance" crap [...]

Please don't include 'tolerance' in your package-deal of What Is Wrong With Public Schools. Tolerance is one part of the broader overcome-your-Tribalism effort, and this is a Good Thing. Tribalism squanders vast amounts of resources, as we waste effort on hate and fear and persecution.

Not to mention the fact that children are usually innocent of whatever it is that they are being persecuted for. Were it not for the tolerance movement you so brazenly deride, my own sons would have been hurt and made miserable for having two moms. But now, kids are becoming sophisticated enough to see that there is more than one codepath to happiness.

I suppose it is easy to harp about tolerance when you are solidly in the middle of the tribe. The majority, after all, is always sane.

Re:What are *you* doing?

[Blink Tag]

What have you done for education lately, besides complained about it?

Actually, I'm at my State Board of Education meeting at the moment. You can catch it streaming, if you like.

Re:What are *you* doing?

[asylumx]

The problem is, Schools do not have a way to build debt in anticipation of new students. Therefore, Bad schools become worse, and good schools become better. You don't get better teachers or student:teacher ratios by taking the money that the school would pay the teachers away from the school.

I do agree that there should be competition but I'm not sure that the incentive should be entirely financial.

You are also losing sight of rural school districts, where there may be one school that people travel miles to get to each day. Those students STILL don't have a choice of where to go, no matter who the money follows.

A huge part of the problem with American education is that there are so many parents who either don't give a shit about their kids or they don't have time to give a shit because they are either both working or are a single parent (and still working).

I don't entirely disagree with you but I just thought I'd point these things out.

Re:What are *you* doing?

[cayenne8]

"Since the average family has both parents working with many parents working 50-60+ hours, there is little time for parents to even know what is going on with their kid at school."

Gotta call bullshit on that one. My parents both worked as I went through school, and they damned sure knew what I was doing. They didn't stand over my shoulder, but, if my grades slipped....my ass was grass.

They took the time to ask how school was, and often in discussion at the dinner table would ask what I was currently doing in my classes. Yes, my parents worked full time jobs AND we made sure we had sit down dinners together as often as possible.

So, I don't buy it at all when people blame working parents for lack of interest in kids....just bad lazy parents in general. It can be done...a whole generation or two grew up with working parents, and we didn't have the problems showing up today.

Gotta be another answer.

Re:What are *you* doing?

[cayenne8]

"Rewarding schools for performing well leads to the abuses that you see in "No child left behind" where your incentive is to get rid of kids that aren't learning to boost your stats, rather than having to deal with them. Now the poor schools get poorer, and the rich schools get richer"

Well, then that is NOT a case of money following the students. Schools should have to compete for their students. If a school is underperforming, it does not need to be funded better...it needs to be closes, shutdown and replaced with a better one. if students all have the choice to go to the schools they want to, they will flock to the better ones...

And in cases of 'trimming' students. Well, not all kids are born with the same intellectual gifts. But, should you hold back a student that is bright so that a dimmer one can catch up...? Why not have special schools for slower students...their performance should not be rated against schools the may specialize towards the more gifted ones...

I guess performance can't just be based on standardized tests..although I don't see why that can't be part of it...after all, in all these years, I've never see 4 + 4 not equal to 8.

I do like the idea of teachers being more like contractors....high paying salaries...for those who perform. But, like any of us out here in the 'real world' you should be in danger of quickly losing your job if you don't perform.

But, schools that succeed, should win the students to them, and they will thrive. Bad schools should die, and be replaced to become higher performance educational options.

I think however, there does need to be some kind of alternate program to schooling...for students that are so disfunctional in behavior or learning abilities. If it is behavior problems, make them go to some kind of compulsory trade school or public service program till age 18....if mentally challenged...special schools. Throwing every one into one big pot forces you to cater to the lowest common denominator...and give disadvantage to all strata of student.

Jennifer Government ....

[LoP_XTC]

Anyone here ever read the book "Jennifer Government". Basically in the near future everything is corporate owned and your last name reflects the company you work for. So like John Nike works for Nike ...

Anyway in the book they describe how the main female characters daughter attends school owned and run by Mattel ... and reading a story like this makes you wonder just how close we are getting to a world that more closely resembles the one in that novel. All this needs is for the kids to be walking around with the last name Microsoft and there you go.

Aaron

Re:Jennifer Government ....

[ruiner13]

Isn't that how a lot of us got our surnames anyway? "smith" comes from a family of blacksmiths, "baker" comes from a baker, etc. What was once will be again, I guess. I'm not saying I think it would be a good thing, but it isn't new.

As a side note, "Bush" I believe comes from the long history of stupid twats in his family.

We have a lot of this in the UK already...

[Xest]

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.

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 :p

I would not.

[khasim]

Anyway, hwo much of you really wouldn't want to study at the school which is run by the world's biggest (I think it is) software company, which's products are used on 95% of computers?

Read the article. The library does not have books. It's all "digital".

That right there would be enough for me to avoid it.

Microsoft is great at MARKETING their products. They do not write great software.

And there is nothing to indicate that they know ANYTHING about education.

Say What You Want...

[Ctrl Alt De1337]

Say what you want about Microsoft and its management techniques (and plenty of jokes are already around) but I think this is a good thing. Whatever about Microsoft, they probably have better management techniques than most American school systems, and Bill Gates was right about schools essentially being obsolete.

There needs to be new ideas and new blood running things in the schools. Most administrators are former teachers, and just like good programmers don't always make good IT managers, so do good teachers have a spotty history at becoming good administrators. If this ushers in an era of trying new things to improve schools, then I'm all for it. Microsoft has the name recognition and technology chops to get its foot in the door, but other companies should give it a go. Imagine a GE-led school using Jack Welch's management techniques...

Graduation

[k4_pacific]

A: So you go to Microsoft High School?

B: Yup.

A: When do you graduate?

B: I was supposed to graduate in 2002. But I got held back. Then it was supposed to be 2003, 2005, then 2006.

A: Yikes! Are you that dumb?

B: No, they just tried to teach me too much unnecessary stuff. They kept cutting classes out of the requirements hoping I'd make it.

A: So, when are you graduating?

B: Right now, they're saying 2007, but many think it'll be 2008 or later.

Microsoft Management Techniques?

[rlp]

So if you try to transfer to another school does the vice-principal throw a chair at you?

Meanwhile, in Drew Elementary School

[TexasDex]

Meanwhile, students at Drew Elementary, deep in the low-income area of West Philly, don't even have keyboards and mice for the few old iMacs in the library because they can't afford them (I suspect NCLB is to blame for that). I am part of a student organization in Drexel University called Tech Serv and we are preparing to donate around 31 computers to the elementary school, some of them Pentium IIs but it's better than what they had, which was nothing. Most of the machines will be donated with edubuntu, because the school can't afford windows licenses; we're trying hard to find a few machines with windows stickers already on them for the engineering lab, which plans to use Mindstorms to teach kids basic robotics. And meanwhile that school gets $63 million in funding because Microsoft had a nifty idea.

Re:Meanwhile, in Drew Elementary School

[dslauson]

Hey, these kids going to MS Elementary are poor inner city kids as well. Lucky for them, they got selected to have a helping hand. Life isn't fair, and if you're saying that it's a bad thing that these kids get to go to a school that's well funded just because some other kids don't, then we might as well just implement communism, pool all our resources together, and distribute them evenly among everybody. We all know that doesn't really work, though, as nice an idea as it is.

Re:Meanwhile, in Drew Elementary School

[lachlan76]

Life isn't fair, and if you're saying that it's a bad thing that these kids get to go to a school that's well funded just because some other kids don't, then we might as well just implement communism, pool all our resources together, and distribute them evenly among everybody

It's hardly an unreasonable stance to suggest that adequate funding for all of the schools is better than underfunding the majority and overfunding a minority.

costs

[Joe The Dragon]

The $63 million cost could of been spent on more schools and teachers then just 1 high tech one. The mainly low-income teens are more like to have the laptops sold / stolen then people who are better off and that may even more likely at times of the year when it is dark at 4:19 p.m.

Also using smart boards and digital lockers seem like overkill for school and if there a hardware brake down the kids may have there stuff stuck in there lockers and the teacher may have a hard time teaching with out the smart boards.

Instead of a cafeteria, there's a food court with restaurant-style seating. How long is there lunch? Cafeteria style lets you have more people in there at the same time.

Also in the high school I was at the food cards did not work that well and the kids where getting doubled billed and the system was down from time to time making the cafeteria workers take the id number buy hand.

Students have scheduled appointments with teachers, typed into their online calendars, instead of being limited to structured times for classes. Their laptops carry software that assesses how quickly they're learning the lesson. If they get it, they'll dive deeper into the subject. If not, they get remedial help. I like the idea but how many teachers do you need to make that work and there are a lot of state mandated things that must be learned.

In addition, students at the school must apply to college to get a diploma. Sounds like a good idea but what do you with the people who can't pay for it?

This sounds like a good program but public education funds can be better spend on brining all schools up to a better level then just having one real good one.

I want to go there!

[dghcasp]

Microsoft management practices, eh?

Now, class, your assignment is due friday.

Of course, if it's not done by then, you can say the schedule slipped and take up to four years to complete it.

If you don't like your grade, submit a service pack for your assignment and I'll regrade it. You can do this as often as you want.

Footnotes are not important; if you plagerize something, just define it as your standard. Make sure to change one word so that your writing is different enough from the source.

And, of course, it's perfectly all right to buy someone else's assignment and then submit it.

At least someone is trying

[Infonaut]

Jesus Christ, there are a lot of sharpshooters in here. Everyone knows the US K-12 system, particularly in big cities, sucks goats through a straw. Philadelphia and MS are trying something new. Maybe it won't work, but at least they're trying to do something to fix the problem.

If I were a kid lucky enough to win that lottery, I'd be happy to have the opportunity to go to a one of a kind, modern school. I'd feel like someone actually gave a damn about my education. Why are so many urban schools so fucked up? Part of the problem is that the facilities are ancient, crumbling edifices left over from the 1800s. I'm not suggesting that every school in the country be razed and rebuilt, but it's no secret that the physical design of schools is a huge factor in the overall learning environment.

Bringing modern technology into schools isn't enough in itself, but I think it's worth trying. As for Microsoft's involvement, if you're badmouthing it, when is the last time you volunteered at a school?

Re:At least someone is trying

[idonthack]

Why are so many urban schools so fucked up? Part of the problem is that the facilities are ancient, crumbling edifices left over from the 1800s.

And the rest of the problem is that the districts spend most of their budget on stupid projects, when they should be applying it to the schools that need it. Think of what they could have done with 63 million dollars, instead of making a "high-tech" school for less than 800 kids.

MOD PARENT UP

[Abcd1234]

And here's a link to the actual study.

No, no; management, not technical

[geobeck]

...so before they can sit down, the kids will have to search the school to find where their chairs have landed.

And the principal will steal the core information from all of the textbooks to be used, change it so it doesn't crash their custom curriculum, then pay off the original publishers when they threaten to sue.

Students will only receive homework on the first Tuesday of every month, and only if they can prove that they are genuine students by showing the teacher their enrolment certificate.

Nah, I got nothin'.

Deadlines.

[twitter]

Do they have deadlines on assignments?

Graduation was expensively assured in two years but it will probably take six or so. The graduates will have minor, mostly cosmetic, improvements and be as reliable and trustworthy as any other Microsoft release. Some students, like Bob, will never make it.

Attempts to dominate gaming will produce a few interesting plays but will ultimately be an expensive distraction.

Sounds great, but...

[djlowe]

I'd wait for Service Pack 1, myself, before deploying.

Technology isn't the problem

[bhmit1]

Throwing technology at a non-technical problem won't fix it. I like some ideas including more self directed study and the new class times (though I'd worry about traffic if this was done across an entire city). And as much crap as MS will get for this, I don't think they have evil motives at heart.

However, the real problem with schools is the insistence upon including everyone and teaching to the lowest common denominator. The more we can get the high achievers into more advanced programs where they spend time around other high achievers, the better. The entrance requirements for this school shouldn't have been a lottery, but a skills test and teacher recommendations. The best colleges in the country don't use a lottery for admission, and neither should the best schools.

I'm sure there are a long list of other things that could be done. For example, we need ways to find and reward teachers that engage students and truly educate them. I have a hard time remembering the teachers that taught from a book, but the ones that brought in dry ice and had us build model rockets are at the top of my list. The first management technique that MS should have brought to the table was the proper identification of what the problems are and how they can find and implement the best solutions. Sadly, this was more about money and publicity than it was about fixing a problem.

Mascot Ideas

[neo]

CLIPPY!! He can help coach the team!

BOB!! The yellow face from the BOB OS!

BILLY GOAT!! With a face like Bill Gates who couldn't love him!

DEAD PENGUIN!! Picture a penguin that's been fucking killed by certain CEOs

BLUE SCREEN!! Nothing scares opposing teams like a looming crash!!

THE ARROW!! The cursor can run around "right clicking" on the opponents cheerleaders, if you know what I mean.

Been doing this for the past five years

[mutewitness]

I'm surprised I rememberd my password after all this time, anyways since I have been living this first hand for some time now I felt compelled to give some experienced input... long time listener first time caller?

Where I work the concept of interactive whiteboards and overflowing technology in every classroom is not a new thing. Granted there are several differences between this building and what Microsoft is trying to accomplish...

- High school students are limited to Juniors/Seniors and college credit classes are offered to both them and adult students.
- The curriculum wanders outside a normal high school where courses like automotives, engineering and simulation are taught.
- The majority of rooms have classroom computers, and those that have the interactive whiteboards also have your standard whiteboards so you have more than just a 60" screen to write on (the interactive boards are relatively tiny compared to plain old ones)
- Throwing instructors into technology is a learning curve for them as well as the students, and some of them still prefer to do things the old fashioned way despite whats available.
- I imagine the total student computer inventory here is at least 500 stations or so.

However, they (whomever thier IT staff is) need to be well prepared for the ensuing caveats involved with giving all these fun toys to high school students... and if these are all freshmen I cringe at the thought of what those computers will look like in a few months. The computers here take quite a beating on the operating system side and after trying to do all the standard tricks in keeping them in line we just went to where the most heavily used rooms revert back to a preset image on reboot. I cannot begin to describe what kind of spyware/viruses/adware gets on a computer that is set in front of a set of students who would rather play games than do anything constuctive all day. Granted, most students play nice and for the most part physical vandalism to the machines has been extremely minor. Troubled classrooms also get student control software (sold by the same company as the whiteboards, hmmm who could they be?) so the teacher may at thier discresion lock the workstations or observe if they are goofing off. Really this is all that it boils down to that the instructors maintain control over the students despite the technology at hand... even better when the majority of students are actually enthusiastic about what they are doing.

No idea if the Microsoft school has implemented or has any idea of what I just described, but when you dump alot of technology into your average high school and dont maintain control... all the students will learn is how to get really good at Trackmania and a bunch of flash games. I could continue going on elaborating about "well, you should have done this this and this to keep the students in line" but thanks to alot of educational software requiring administrator rights it becomes a hell of alot easier just giving them the keys to the car, except the car resets back to a new state every morning. Oh yeah, does the Philedelphia school district know that they will have to keep spending money on this school every 2-3 years as the technology is no longer up to date?

The keyword being....

[Chineseyes]

The children of typically wealthy parents that care enough about their child's education to go to the effort of putting them in a private school perform better in school.

They key phrase there being "parents that care" regardless of what studies show the problem has nothing to do with public vs private schools or teachers not performing the problem is with parents.

All of my cousins (34 or so of them my grandfather couldn't keep his pants zipped) went to big time private schools in NYC, I went to one of the largest and most poorly run public schools in NYS my entire life and I did better than all of my cousins in HS and in college. Why? Because my parents cared about my education just as much as theirs did and my parents desire to see me get the best education possible under the circumstances drove me to succeed as well. In elementary school when other children were watching TV or playing Nintendo during the summers my father handed me an algebra book and had my struggle to teach myself the material with no outside help. In HS when other children were out socializing on weekends my parents drove me to Stonybrook to take college courses (that were free because of some great programs StonyBrook has for underpriviledged kids) and at the time I absolutely hated every single minute of it but thank god my parents cared enough to force me into it. I am not here to boast about what I accomplished despite my past situation I am simply showing you that a parent that shows a high level of commitment to their childrens education will have a child who succeeds regardless of the school they go to.

Which brings me back to the question of why children in private schools perform better than children in public schools, in general? Easy, because the majority of parents who send their children to private schools care about their childrens education. To spend anywhere from 8K to 30K a year on private schools you have to care about your childrens education, despite what a lot of people think many parents of children who go to private schools aren't filthy rich they simply care enough to spend a very large percentage of their salary on their childrens future. Parents are the key to better performance in ALL schools not money, not teachers, not private schools, not microsoft. When there are studies done on children with parents who show equal levels of commitment to their childrens education in private vs pubic schools then I'll start listening.

Re:The keyword being....

[nursegirl]

That is so true. I have several friends who work in the Canadian school system, and parents make or break a student's education. Generally, if three students fail a test, one parent won't comment at all, one parent will try to get the teacher fired, and one parent will come to the school and ask how they can help their kid catch up.

Guess which kid actually moves forward in education and in life? The problem isn't primarily teachers. The problem is parents. Of course, eventually teachers get so tired of being stomped on by parents that they stop caring and start letting students slide. It's much easier to stop failing kids than it is to have to have a performance review multiple times every year.

stop hating already

[mwoliver]

Education in this country is broken, and this is a great attempt by a very successful software company to change the tide. It's sad that the bulk of the replies to this article are coming from MS haters who have nothing more to contribute than stale jokes about reboots, BSOD, etc. Why don't you catch up with reality? I haven't had a BSOD since I started using XP, and I only had BSODs under 2k when caused by lame ass drivers from third party hardware vendors. That is reality, whether you like it or not. Personally, I use FreeBSD on all of my personal machines and run Windows XP on the laptop provided by my employer, so keep that in mind when you come at me with the "he's drinking the MS kool-aid" rhetoric.

You LINUX sheep are so typical in your responses. Why can't you just love your distribution of choice and stop hating MS? There is nothing that MS can do that you can see in any other light than negative (at best) or illegal and malevolent (at worst). For all of your bitching about how horrible MS is, you likely haven't spent near as much time helping your local alma mater better their education processes. Typical armchair quarterbacks.

So, maybe this new antiseptic, all-digital approach isn't right, but who are any of us to sit here and say that it is worse than the status quo for education in this country? Do you have a better idea? I hear some say "just give the money to the school system, we don't need your management style", and I think that is about the most ignorant thing they could do. There is no shortage of money in the education system, though it is disproportionately focused on administration and not on the educators. Pumping more cash into the system will not help one iota, just as throwing money at any situation without a focused plan to use that money, and a way to make those in charge of those disbursements _ACCOUNTABLE_FOR_THE_USE_OF_THE_MONEY_, is a terrible way to manage any process, business, or endeavor in general.

I am excited to see some change in the education system in this country, and if it fails then at least they tried, hopefully learned a lot from the experience, and aren't too discouraged to not try again with an improved approach.

This is stupid

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

In my home town (Fort Collins, CO), the school district got a similarly crazy idea - build a brand-new, $36 million dollar high school. It was expensive, it was controversial, but in the end it had a far better idea: spend more now to spend less later. The new school, Fossil Ridge, was designed to be highly energy efficent - it is expected to save the district almost $60,000 per year in energy costs. Since the school is likely to be in service for 30+ years, that adds up to a substantial savings. The district also recieved substantial grants from the Feds for building an eco-friendly school.

Oh, and Fossil Ridge has SmartBoards too - but only in a few rooms. The lockers are manual, students aren't given laptops (although there are 180 laptops in "mobile labs" that teachers can bring to classrooms, and nearly 700 desktop PCs), and the rooms don't have plasma TVs. And, of course, students still use textbooks and good old pencil and paper.

In a district that has budget problems (as this PA district apparently does), building a "super-school" that costs 3x as much as a conventional school just doesn't make sense. In the real world, we have a term for that - incredible waste.

At lunch, in the teachers' lounge...

[StreetStealth]

The principal holds a lunch meeting, and runs out on stage shouting,

"EDUCATORS! EDUCATORS! EDUCATORS!"

only good thing is the start time

[bobalu]

I never could figure out why they make kids get up at the crack of dawn to go to school. You don't have to be a genius to realize people learn better when they're awake.

It's like some kind of holdover from farm days or something.

What?!

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>You can't teach an interest in learning.

You don't have to! Watch a kid sometime. No unopened box is safe from them. Their talk is an endless stream of "Why does ___?" and "How does that work?". Ever tried learning a second language? Hard work, right? Kids learn a first language quickly and fluently without anyone coercing them into "language school". They watch every move that adults make and try it out for themselves.

You can stop them from learning, by keeping them so hungry or abused that higher brain functions shut down. You can communicate that some places are not for learning, by turning those places into Lord of the Flies. But fundamentally "interest in learning" is something hardwired into all mammals and especially humans.

Re:What?!

[Brickwall]

You can stop them from learning, by keeping them so hungry or abused that higher brain functions shut down.

Or, more importantly and much more frequently, by boring them to tears for 7 hours a day. I would suggest the one reason that homeschooled kids seem to do better is they aren't forced to sit and wait while the teacher explains to the slowest kid in the class why 2 x 2 = 4 for the seventeenth time. My own two girls are in an accelerated program, and while they both say it's better than the standard classes, in that the other kids they're with are also bright, they still complain about boredom more than anything else.

I remember my own days in public school. Bored as above, I was quietly reading a textbook on another subject when my teacher came up behind and smacked me in the back of my head. Apparently, her program was that I was to learn what she wanted me to learn when she wanted me to learn it, and any independent curiousity or initiative was bad and warranted physical abuse.

This isn't that different from my high school.

[Washington Irving]

http://www.countryday.net/

WiFi on campus - check
Laptops for everyone - check
Virtual textbooks - they're being used in the junior high but haven't been adopted by the high school
Smart Boards - My teacher uses on for math class but he's the only one

Admittedly, Cincinnati Country Day is private and this is a public school but this has been done before and it worked reasonably well.

Smart Boards

[tonyr1988]

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.

Money is not the problem - c'mon /.

[dougman]

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.

Microsoft Bob left behind

[benplaut]

WASHINGTON, DC--President Bush announced Monday that he'll encourage Congress to back his new education initiative, the Microsoft Bob Left Behind Act. "It is my goal to close the achievement gap in our schools with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind--except for Microsoft Bob of Redmond, WA," Bush said at a White House press conference. "By 2014, I plan to see a significant jump in the math, reading, and science proficiency of 99.9999 percent of America's students. The children, excluding Bob, are our future." Bush was inspired to leave Bob behind after the child threw up all over the merry-go-round last week. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/32934