Slashdot Mirror
Bug Means High School Students' Schedule Errors May Last Days
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that thousands of high school students in Prince George's County missed a third day of classes Wednesday, and school officials said it could take more than a week to sort out the chaos caused by a computerized class-scheduling system as students were placed in gyms, auditoriums, cafeterias, libraries and classes they didn't want or need at high schools across the county and their parents' fury over the logistical nightmare rose. 'The school year comes up the same time every year,' said Carolyn Oliver, the mother of a 16-year-old senior who spent Wednesday in the senior lounge at Bowie High School. 'When I heard they didn't have schedules, I was like, "What have they been doing all summer?"' When school opened Monday, about 8,000 high school students had no class schedules and were sent to wait in holding spaces while administrators tried to sort things out." (More below.)
Well, let's see.... At the top of the list is not working because they aren't paid over the summer.
This is a particularly annoying version of complaining about inferior service when, in fact, you are the one who funds that service.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I suspect the schools don't run the scheduler until a few days before school actually starts - Teachers can die (happened my senior year), quit, not show up for work, classrooms may be unavailable for many reasons, etc... On top of this, they don't actually know how many students are going to show up until registration closes (typically a week before class starts).
Wouldn't that have been a perfect time to conduct audits and make sure everything was ready for the students to arrive?
I'm guessing you haven't worked in a public school? Two years ago I got my classroom assignment 3 days before students showed up. My co-worker had 1 day. Instead of curriculum planning, we spent the time running around the halls trying to find desks for students, the teacher's manuals for our books, get appropriate keys, etc.
Oh, and we also had a part time counselor in charge of 300+ students' schedules at our school and another 300+ at our neighbor school. A student shows up who hasn't registered? The secretary will put her in some temporary classes until a week later when the counselor can actually review her transcript and place her accordingly.
No one is sitting around that week. There's a thousand jobs that need to be done, but the districts keep cutting support staff and putting it on the shoulders of teachers and counselors. I wouldn't be quick to blame anyone in that school building.
Paul Grosfield - the quicker picker upper.
Maybe you've missed the huge argument over school vouchers and all the parents who'd like nothing more than to end socialized schooling for their kids? Of course, that does get to the point. Few would argue against having a governement option for health insurance, even assuming it will end up sucking and only poor people will use it (I'm a fairly hard core libertarian, but you can't escape the logic: diseases are contagious). There's pretty strong objection to having government-only health insurance, because it will end up sucking and no one will want to use it.
Every government program I can think of that doesn't suck badly has two things in common: a limited amount of money changing hands, and a limited amout of power over peoples lives.
Most of the debate, false information, prorganda, and shouting over this health care issue stems from a failure to distinguish clearly between "government option" and "government only" on all sides, including a fairly outspoken set who argue "pretend government option, but really governemnt only once we fool the voters". Fear of that last part seems to really be fanning the flames, and with the recent history of congresscritters voting on bills they haven't actually read, that last bit is a reasonable fear.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I've heard it mentioned dozens of times before over the last 6 or so years on the Internet but always ignored it as conspiracy rantings. I finally took the time to read John Taylor Gattos "Underground History of American Education" and when I was done walked around in a dazed stupor for a few weeks at the scope of the education "system" and the people and utopian (distopian?) ideals that have gone into building it over the last 100 years.
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm
I dare anyone with a child to read it and not feel sick with the new understanding history and ideals behind the system that they're sending their kids into that that book brings.
A choice quote from the first mission statement of Rockefeller's General Education Board one of the biggest movers in the creation of mass government schooling:
"In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way."
W.T.F
Sir, I congratulate you for your insight into this matter, being as you are neither an American or a "conservative". Very few people realize today - even, or maybe especially, Americans - that the US Federal government is more synonymous with Brussels than it is with, say, London or Berlin.
The US was formed with (at the time, 13) sovereign states in the vein of the states of ancient Greece: autonomous in government, civics, and citizenry. But unlike Greece of yore, it was formed with a national government and a constitution with an attempt to retain unity amongst the states - both politically and culturally. They did not want to see the destructive in-fighting that the Greeks experienced, despite their common "Greekness".
Unfortunately, that all kind of snowballed here in the United States 150 years ago when we had that little Federalists vs. Secessionists conflict. That, as well as subsequent and repeated Federal malfeasance, has resulted in a great deal of mistrust in said Federal government. The comparison to Brussels is true to a large degree for many Americans.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
They are, essentially, paying over $512 per student for this software.
No, there are 130,000 students in Prince Georges County public schools. So that works out to $31.54 per student.