Open Source In Public K-12 Schools?

MissMachine writes "I'm a computer science major who has been recently getting involved in local grassroots politics in my county and state. I've been discussing the idea with some of my state legislatures of submitting a couple of resolutions, opening up to the idea of switching to open source software in our state's K-12 schools. I'm looking for more information/literature about this topic, open source solutions in public K-12 education, pros and cons, studies that prove or disprove many of the assumptions of open source and linux in public schools. Any help in this field?"

Comments

Re:Forget it

[sydneyfong]

YOU SUCK. ... just kidding :)

Re:Missing the point

[falcon5768]

HA thats a laugh... DO you REALIZE how paranoid your making yourself out to be. Let me actually straighten you out on a few facts though. First your lucky if ANY of the software in your respective district is younger than 4 years. I am still supporting a 8 year old testing program that will not work in Vista, or OS X Intel, and only runs in Classic mode on OS X PPC (yes that means it was written for OS 9!) Second, the amount of data being sent to a company is irrelevant to the sheer mass of data being sent to your states BoE on your kid. I am talking about case-files FEET thick in some cases, on EVERY child, most children's programs dont even have any identifying link to a child beyond a first name. Third our network is so locked down that some packages of ours need to be activated over the phone because they can not contact their company through our firewall. And lastly, we are SO understaff that your lucky ANYONE reviews a program coming into the district, and it wont be the IT department doing it, as rarely will you have someone there who has accreditation as a educator. In my department of 15, I am the ONLY person with a teaching degree, and NO ONE consults me on programs being brought in. They are either state mandated, or administrator mandated. Simply put your reasoning is flawed, because you dont know how public education works. Its underfunded, and so full of red tape and government mandates that it makes management structures of big business look like a cakewalk.