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Chicago Mayor Praises Google For Buying Kids Microsoft Surfaces
theodp (442580) writes "Google earned kudos from Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel this week for teaming up with Staples to fund the projects of 367 of the city's 22,519 public school teachers on "begfunding" site DonorsChoose.org. "Everything that you asked for...every project that the teachers put on to help their students learn, exceed and excel here in the city of Chicago, you now have fully funded," Mayor Emanuel said. "Chicago's hardworking public school teachers are doing all that they can-and more-to support their students, but they need more help," said Rob Biederman, head of Chicago Public Affairs at Google. "We jumped at the chance to join with DonorsChoose.org and Staples to make Chicago's local classroom wishes come true." So what kind of dreams did Google make possible? Ironically, a look at Google Chicago's Giving Page shows that the biggest project funded by Google was to outfit a classroom with 32 Microsoft Surface RT tablets for $12,531, or about 6.5% of the $190,091 Google award. Other big ticket projects funded by Google included $5,931 for a personal home biodiesel kit and $5,552 for a marimba (in the middle of the spectrum was $748 for "Mindfulness Education"). In addition to similar "flash-funding" projects in Atlanta (paper towels!) and the Bay Area, Google and DonorsChoose have also teamed up this year to reward teachers with $400,000 for recruiting girls to learn to code (part of Google's $50 million Made With Code initiative) and an unknown amount for AP STEM teachers who passed Google muster (part of Google's $5 million AP STEM Access grant)."
Surface sales must have just doubled!
This $190K expense will buy google an awful lot of free press.
It's nice that Google did this, but let's be clear - the Chicago Public School system has a staggering number of problems, and a marimba and a classroom full of MS Surface laptop/tablets won't really make a difference outside of the handful of children that will be able to actually touch/use these items.
Ken
Chicago Public School teachers are paid between $50-97K, based on education and time in job, plus pension and healthcare benefits.
http://www.ctunet.com/for-memb...
Ken
The marimba is good .... and maybe the home bio-diesel kit.
And then there's
$400,000 for recruiting girls to learn to code
Because doubling the workforce without doubling the jobs has worked out so great for every other sector of the economy since 1970 or so when it took off.
This isn't an ipad? Crap this sucks.
How can a Marimba (which from a look at Google is similar to a Xylophone) cost so much money?
They are very large, professionally made musical instruments.
Check out the prices for other major musical instruments ... if you want to get any quality, they are not cheap.
Just wondering ... but why didn't public schools need to engage in constant fundraising and beg-a-thons in the good old days, for basics? Governments weren't spending more on them then, proportionately.
We are spending a river now. Where is it going?
outfit a classroom with 32 Microsoft Surface RT tablets for $12,531 [...] $400,000 for recruiting girls to learn to code
How do these fit together? Since when were programming tools ported to Windows RT?
What schools should be teaching is basic entrepreneur skills so that people can create their own jobs after they graduate.
Chicago Public School teachers are paid between $50-97K, based on education and time in job, plus pension and healthcare benefits.
http://www.ctunet.com/for-memb...
Yep. Teachers in general are not underpaid. But there's a taboo against saying so.
Last research I heard, a few years back, was that computers in the classroom actually harmed academic performance except in the sole case that the point was to learn about computers, because they were a distraction and also students didn't tend to take longhand notes, which is an important part of learning.
And if the class is a computer class, tablets seem like the worst possible choice.
Good instruments cost money. My wife is a professional flutist and her flute cost $65k. I have a low-end trombone that cost $12k.
Ya, because a bunch of toys that will distract from coursework and be broken in 2 months are "needed equipment".
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
If I read this right, the amount give is peanuts and will not have any significant impact whatsoever. If you play it right, apparently positive press can be have for cheap trinkets these days.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I would argue the reverse, they are in GENERAL underpaid, but there are definitely some who are NOT underpaid: see Chicago.
Here is a list of median and starting salaries for teachers. In my state, California, the median is $67k. In my county, Santa Clara, it is $79k. They also receive generous benefits, and summers off. Teachers are paid fairly well compared to other non-technical college graduates.
Well, then your spouse dosen't know how to account for their time very well.
When I was teaching, I topped out at $52k a year. This was in the midwest, and the top-paid teacher in the district I think made near $60k.
We were required to be in the classroom for 990 hours. IF you just count that, 52,000 / 990 = $52/hr.
But I was required to be in school more than just the kids. This averaged to be 1 hour before they arrived, and 3 after. (4hrs*5days*39weeks) = 780 + 990 = 1770 hours required to be in school. Now, the per-hour figure goes down to just under $30/hr.
Oh, and if I don't get my grading, lesson plans, meetings, and everything else done in those four hours (I rarely did), then I had to do that as well. Lets be really conservative and say that was only 6 hours a week. 6*39 = 2,004 hours. $25/hr.
Oddly enough, ~2000 hours is what an average blue-collar worker gets paid for per year, including vacations. $52k is pretty good, but I was also at top-pay. That is what was worked-up to.
What I don't get is what's wrong with _desktops_ in a school lab. They can't be broken or lost as easily. They are more powerful. Each desktop can be shared between several pupils. They're also cheaper, even with larger monitors, have better input devices (real keyboards and mice), and since they're not mobile, they can be set up to boot from the network with zero maintenance.
Why burn perfectly good money on shit kids don't need, especially when research shows it does nothing for their academic achievement?
Indeed. It also potentially starts setting a dangerous precedent. Once other corporations see the benefits of "donating" like this they will want to do more of it. It wouldn't surprise me to see the government happily oblige and also reduce the funding it provides, as incentive. This continues and the corporations will soon be making quite meaningful "donations". With that will come some very strong influence over how things are run and I'm sure it will be to their benefit as opposed to ours.
Soon enough it won't be the corporations not paying their taxes to the government but the government not paying it's rent to the corporations.
Ryans Tutorials - A collection of technology tutorials.
The myth is that a technology like Surface will help in education. It doesn't. From palm pilots, educational software, computers, they don't work with kids. I know, I threw away tens of thousands of bucks on technology. I should have spent it on a hell of a good night in Vegas for as much good as it did. Good old fasioned learning works. Looking at subjects, actually doing them to the point that you can teach them does work. Problems, problems, problems to get the brain to work on it. This is the very thing that they - DON'T - teach in school. How to learn. At least not intentionally. Sometimes you come across a real teacher instead of an educator who will actually teach you.