All of these 'situations' assume embassies that look a lot like the embassies that the US or Britain might normally have in foreign capitals.... Big mansion-like buildings surrounded by a fence... certainly something with a nice private place for a limo to pull up and still be on embassy grounds. Equador doesn't have one of those.
Equador has a bit of office space in the middle of a building that has other office space. There is no private helipad or carport or other place to try any of the 'situations' that anyone has suggested. You can safely assume that he elevators/doors/stairs/windows are under surveillance. There'll be no sneaking.
This has nothing to do with climate change, which is a change to the underlying system.
By that logic, there is no such thing as climate change. CO2 emissions do not change the underlying system, and were they do stop completely, the system would, in time, revert/adjust. By your logic, climate change can't exist unless thermodynamic laws (or whatever) are changed.
Anyone who thinks that the deployment of [technologies] across large portions of Earth's surface will not have significant impact is delusional. Don't be that guy.
All "clean" energy, whether wind, solar, hydro, coal, fission, etc. is merely "relatively" clean. Wind kills birds and warms areas downstream. Coal makes smog and dumps carbon. Hydro kills fish and and alters local climate. Fission makes giant lizards emerge from Tokyo bay...
Let's stop software developers from testing their work as well. Be serious.
Testing is not the "problem" and is probably not the "solution". If you do not check for progress, you cannot know whether your effort (in teaching, programming, rocket construction) has been successful.
The real problem with teachers' union contracts is not the contracts themselves or the steps or the pensions or the benefits... the problem is that we place Kindergarten teachers (whose main skill is being 'good with kids') on the same scale as Physics teachers (who still have to have rapport with their students but also have to have a mastery of science and mathematics).
The contract writers do know this, so they try to split the difference since the union won't let them fix the problem. K-7 teachers are ridiculously overpaid in general and advanced subjects teachers are still underpaid by a wide (50%+) margin.
An education isn't about the facts taught, but about the learning process that prepares you for a lifetime of learning as you deal with new technologies, products, and ideas during your time on this planet.
Strongly disagree here. This is the drivel (IMO, sorry) that has become popular in amongst educators and education speakers in the past decade or so. Yes 'learning process' is important, but the 'facts' we ask primary and secondary students to apply this to are not arbitrary.
We have learned over a time as a species (or culture or nation perhaps) that this particular set of facts is important. The reading, writing, mathematics, history, and more, and their associated 'facts', are all absolutely worthy, important, and necessary in and of themselves. It is for this reason that we have developed organized systems to pass theses facts on to future generations. The facts are important. Period.
We wonder why young students discount the value of these facts. We should ask first whether their opinion matters. Youth have _always_ discounted the value of their elders' knowledge initially - but we have weakened our own position by accepting this drivel - this indefensible position - that the facts are not worthy of being passed on.
As for 'learning process', as we value the 'facts' less, we do a poorer job of conveying learning process as well. We have so discounted (for example) the memorization 'process' [after all, why should students memorize dates or people or events?!] that many of our students can't... but try to approach calculus without memorized multiplication facts. Writing skills (not handwriting) have declined as we teach less grammar (grammar is the SYNTAX of the language; important 'facts'). The fact that we can google (or duckduckgo) the facts does not help much in practice...
If that is true, you are correct. Publishing something that was sent to him is not and should not be a crime.
Even if he solicited it- begged for someone to send him helicopter videos- it is not and should not be a crime.
If, however, someone wrote to him and said 'i think I know where i can get some diplomatic cables but I'm not sure how to get them without getting caught' and he offered any advice.... well then that's conspiracy.
If accessing or disclosing confidential records without explicit permission of the owner(s) or subject(s) (or conspiring to do so) is a crime in a jurisdiction where he gets caught, then extradition is a possibility. If doing this is not a crime (or is a protected right) in that jurisdiction, he is in the clear.
Even if we assume that Manning was doing 'the right thing by [caring] about freedom of information, exposing war crimes, and holding the powerful responsible for their atrocities , his acts are those of a vigilante. Thus, his methods subvert his cause.
This right here is plain nonsense. Sometimes it's necessary to break the law to improve justice. When the law protects evil, working within the law is evil.
The reason working societies mostly make acting within the law the only accepted determination of "good" and "evil" are that these things can be relative. Think abortion; drug use; immigration; sexuality; gambling; "marriage"; colonialism; slavery; education; evolution; climate policy... even contract and tort law... Reasonable people disagree about the correct position on these and more. Some have strongly held beliefs.
Sometimes it's necessary to break the law
Ok, which? Laws against killing? Should an anti-abortion activist kill aborters? Too incendiary? Killing is absolute?
How about property laws then? Should stealing from teachers who teach (or don't) evolution be OK? What if it's just data being stolen? Credit info? Diaries?
Maybe we don't steal from people we dislike... maybe we just remove the veneer of privacy; let the world judge them? Maybe we release their communications? Their address? Maybe we release evidence of what may be bad acts (or good acts) and let the world judge?
Maybe it's just OK to do this to governments? Laws that protect life and property and whatever apply only to individuals who have not acted on behalf of a government? Or maybe that's just property laws?
Manning worked for the US military and eventually made it his purpose to subvert it. He entered the military voluntarily - the US does not have a draft and Manning was not part of a social class that had no options. He abused his position, broke his oath, and acted to place materials whose secrecy he was supposed to protect... into the hands of enemies (and friends, frenemies, neutrals, and basically anyone who cared to look). Frankly, he deserves what he gets.
There is a larger debate that should be had about how much of that information really should be secret, and if so from who, and then for how long. Even if we assume that Manning was doing 'the right thing by [caring] about freedom of information, exposing war crimes, and holding the powerful responsible for their atrocities , his acts are those of a vigilante. Thus, his methods subvert his cause.
If he did what he did and blindly uploaded to wikileaks... well then that's the end of it. He's a naive fool who thought his cause of the week was worth the risk. Maybe he still feels that way?
If, OTOH, he asked wikileaks for help... if JA helped him decide what to steal; how to steal it; how to cover his thefts, etc... if JA persuaded Manning to do as he did... well then he may well have participated in a crime (conspiracy; accessory; theft of data; unauthorized access) at a US military installation. Why would we want to support this?
Investigative journalism is worthy of our protection. We need to ask and obtain answers to difficult questions. The "press" (at least in the US) really does have the right to ask the questions and to publish the answers. Determining what to ask, who to ask, and what to publish is the critical role of the 'investigative journalist'. So long as the journalist is simply asking questions and getting answers, they deserve our protection.
If the "journalist" stops asking questions and starts directing... [for lack of a better term, literally] agents to steal that data, we DO need to reassess their role. I'm not sure if JA crossed that line, but it seems reasonable that we should ask. Who watches the watchers, etc...
so I wonder if the superintendent is aware of what's happening.
Speaking from direct experience, it makes little difference. In every district I've worked at, transfers beyond a certain amount have to be approved by the school board/committee. A large city supt may be able to move $100k without approval, a small district fiscally challenged supt may only be able to move $2500. Bear in mind that's $2500 _at_a_time_. Transfers beyond the threshold will absolutely have been approved by the 'board or committee.
Allowing transfers is fundamentally ethical. The district budget is not a suicide pact.
If the Supt or ASupt or Business director say that the transfer is in the best interest of the students (even if you and I think otherwise). "The Rules" don't require that IT staff (or custodians, or misc. teachers, or school nurses) be consulted before a budget is modified. These transfers are generally approved without much debate. Good 'boards (and bad ones) trust their administrators to manage their schools and school budgets within reason. It really is for the children...
Spending the discretionary budget ASAP is the single best defense against this... negligence. The pet projects will happen. Let them happen to someone else. Run out of money fast.
The next best defense is to go to the board meetings (all of them). Being there makes you a player. It puts you at (or near) the table when a 'board member asks innocently "well are we sure this is the best place to take that money from?"
Fiscal Policy is a red herring. Your Superintendent controls your budget and has the power to set and change priorities. No doubt he/she follows the letter of the rules. There is nothing to blow the whistle on unless you can represent criminal activities BEYOND mere negligence.
You must USE the system. You must must PLAY the politics.
In most K-12 districts, the fiscal year begins; your budget for the year becomes active; on July 1. 90-95% of your budget MUST BE encumbered (POs written against it) by July 15. All planned hardware and supply purchases are ordered and probably in transit by July 30. This is self defense.
Some POs are for bills that may not come due until December or later... but these are not items that can easily be cancelled. Adobe & MS School agreements like to renew in January... pity the MEd who cancels Windows and Office for any pet project...
So yes, they can grab up the 5-10%. That's basically contingency anyway. USE the system. When a critical system breaks in April and you don't have the parts on hand you will be the one grabbing the leftovers in other accounts to get it fixed. Trust me, if the server that hosts payroll needs a HDD, it will arrive tomorrow and nevermind the budget.
USE the system. In April, your Superintendent is looking for projects to spend any leftover dollars on. Yes, s/he's going to use them to go to a conference in Hawaii... but if there is anything left, you might have a shot at it. You need your proposal - 3 quotes; i's with dots, t's with crosses - ready to go immediately. Hypothetical doesn't sell when the money has to be spent now.
PLAY the politics. Find a convention in Hawaii that you and your Superintendent(s) can go to. People that do that are called TEAM PLAYERS. Be one.
Wrong. I work in a district much like GP. What you describe is probably how the last guy got this one into this mess.
a) "Open Source" is not a magic fix-it. If OP/GP is a windows/PC tech, he has a sharp learning curve ahead and he already has no time. If he makes a switch and can't make it work, he's on the street. Even if he can make it work, training the users will be nearly impossible. Sure, a browser is a browser, but K-12 is a strange industry where uncooperative employees tend to survive to weigh down the process for years. "You can't expect me to use this thing without training!" "You can't expect me to show up to training seminars without extra pay!" "I can't do my job because you gave me a computer that I can't use!" "Test scores are down because I spent all my time trying to use your system!"
b) $1500? This guy is bidding against the donated 5yr old crap and "Black Friday" new pricing. They're going around him because he (or the last guy) was taking your advice. YES, $1500 is a good budget number for a midrange computer and monitor, standard MS software, and related infrastructure. He won't get that. You can play that game in your research environment only because everyone does....
c) The reason you need MS Office is not for the Principals... The teachers will want an office suite on their computers that matches the instructional materials they can buy to aid their instruction. Yes, they should teach it differently, but they don't and this guy is a decade away from having the street cred to tell them how and still keep his job.
d) Your best advice. If he can get them to come to him, get at least two vendors to fight for the business. Don't go the sealed bid route. Tell each about the other bid. Rinse and repeat.
e) He has no budget. If he has a discretionary budget, infrastructure is the way to be. No you don't need cisco- I am personally a fan of HP switches...
My advice: Setup a meeting with the Superintendent(s) and the business administrator. Share your reasonably priced vision of what their district could be in 3-4 years with consistent, managed investment. (Include their pet projects - grit your teeth and do it!) Tell them what it costs both in terms of dollars and procedural changes. Do this every 6 months or so regardless of the result.
Regardless of the result: 1: Core infrastructure first. Those switches. 2 Servers. Good backup for critical data (business office; stuff used by superintendents).
1a: Business critical systems must be setup and managed correctly. This is the ONLY item I would take to the school board if you can't get cooperation. This means domain, authentication, good enterprise class AV, VPN access for semitrusted systems that need access. You should insist on this in the strongest way possible.
2: Inventory and Ticket system. Knowing how many of what you are responsible for is important. Knowing how many times you've had to fix the lab of black Friday rejects is critical too.
3: People that work through you take priority. If they did it your way and bought what you wanted the way you wanted, it MUST work. MUST! If you have to sit there a switch the bits yourself...
4: That means you get to those home OS mistakes when you can. NEVER order parts for these machines. NEVER spend a lot of time servicing these machines. DO NOT be afraid to declare these systems "no longer usable without significant repair investment". When asked about that cost, quote the dollar amount of a properly spec'd new machine.
5: DO NOT leave non-functional machines deployed. Non-functional equipment makes you look bad. Insufficient quantities of equipment may lead to proper budgeting...
Finally: If you find yourself with a small budget for user endpoints (computers) and want to deploy to gain the most budgetary 'bang for your buck', consider deploying in the K-4 / K-6 segment of your district. Most districts put their best in the 9-12 space and place progressively older / less r
Everyone jumps to space opera when the question of space combat comes up. Cruisers. Remotes. Lasers fired from absurd distances. F***ing death stars. Rail guns. Doomsday machines.
Sure they could happen I guess, but the events that would get us there remain bad science fiction. My first thought when I think about space combat though is...
Marines. Hand to hand.
Blowing stuff up is one thing. Capturing cargo ships is where the value lies in space combat. So how do you capture that load of ore/food/gas? Or to the other side, how will you and your crew of 7 stop those 23 hardsuited boarders from taking your ship?
For people who are not _creators_, whose main work is talking to people and being seen, the laptop was a big screen for their calendar and facebook and youtube. The ipad is a better screen for this. Their laptop was too big and took too long to boot and wasn't cool and felt like work (which they don't do).
The people I am talking about - VPs and trust fund executives and celebrity types don't do work but do drive culture. And tablets will remain cool because they say so.
Sure, but I never said NCLB was the cause of the bubble. Maybe I never really tied it back to the OP, though.
The OP complained about education requirements and degree inflation. I think s/he's right about that. I've already seen plenty of college graduates who aren't worth a damn. And I've known fantastic admins and systems engineers who were college dropouts.
Me too.
The tie-in to NCLB is that NCLB means more high school students graduate.
The success of NCLB is that more students are verified to meet the minimum graduation requirements and then do graduate. High School diplomas are less a filter and more a process. If this is what you mean, I agree.
More high school graduates means more potential college candidates. This increased demand means that colleges can charge more.
This doesn't quite follow unless you add that the non-dischargability of student loans has led to an immense availability of money for those demanding college education. Demand is high and cost is mostly not a factor. Continue...
They hire a few more faculty. Class sizes increase.
These offset. Once you are doing education on the scale that a large college or uni does, it all boils down to cost per student. If a student needs to take 4 classes per semester, the cost of instructors, TAs, etc. vanish into the statistics. Something else must drive the numbers.
More people manage to get degrees who wouldn't have been able to (not due to cost) 10 years ago. The degree becomes less meaningful.
So the degree is worth less. This means that the rising cost is even more inexplicable. Except that anyone can pay any cost now...
It's certainly not the only reason for higher tuition, but I'd bet it's a part of it. If we could let kids flunk out and just learn a trade, everyone would probably be better off.
You are proposing that High School be modified in some way to make it a better filter for the college application process. HS dropouts can be plumbers or squeegee men and HS graduates can get PHDs. The problem with this is that even a plumber can require post-secondary education these days and the PHD will still cost too much. HS as a less permeable filter does not address the problem at hand.
You are correct (in my view) that ONE problem with higher ed in the USA is that the degrees are too common. Reducing the applicant pool might well address the problem, but addressing the problem will not meaningfully change the tuition problem. Yes fewer students would temporarily put downward pressure into the market, but once the bottom-of-market schools closed due to lack of enrollment, the remainder would have every market incentive to increase tuition again.
Studies have shown that increasing tuition generally increases enrollment...
without affecting the ability of students to go to college
You want the benefit without the cost. How American of you!
Students can get as much money as the schools want because the lenders know that only death can discharge the loan. Credit-worthiness is not a critical factor though it can provide an excuse for lenders to get higher interest rates. Eventual repayment is virtually assured as Student Loans can be collected using methods that are difficult or illegal to use for other debts. Virtually all of the risk in the system has been shifted to the student. Because of this, virtually any student can get money to go to college. Because of this, many enjoy indentured servitude (effectively) and harassment for years afterward.
Because 'anyone' can pay the cost, demand is increased. Schools raise prices to differentiate themselves. Higher cost must be better. But anyone can afford better. The cycle repeats; a few new buildings get built. Repeat. Repeat.
To change it, you have three realistic options, all bad: - Change the system so that not everyone can afford better. There are many ways to do this. One is to allow these loans to be more easily discharged. This means that some who might have attended college now won't. - Regulate tuition and require government approval for any tuition increase. Set initial targets at 60% of current levels. Some unis will go bankrupt - those nice new buildings were too expensive - some that might have gone to college wont. Eventually maybe new options will emerge at a more reasonable cost basis. Someday. - Keep doing what we are. Eventually people really won't be able to afford better. Lots of unis fold. Lots of people who might have gone to college don't. Maybe there's riots in the streets of uni towns first. Maybe.
What we really need is a system to provide college equivalency to for non college experience. If Experience in the workforce could generate a "Bachelors or Masters Degree" or equivalent for free (Think FOSS), or nearly that, and if this were recognized and accepted, then a "free" option in the system would provide downward pressure on tuition. Colleges would need to justify their cost. This is not realistic of course - at least not right now.
Disclaimer: I coordinate Information Technology for a School District.
NCLB was a response to high illiteracy rates among High School "Graduates" during the 80s and 90s. After over a decade of the education 'industry' trying to address the problem internally on an ad-hoc basis, the federal government stepped in. The Feds demanded testing...
Prior to NCLB, the education 'industry' largely lacked a QA/QC model. Again, on an ad-hoc basis, some systems were doing better than others, but illiterates with High School Diplomas were still being produced in quantity. Standardized testing, especially where passing the test is a graduation requirement, stepped in to fill the QC gap. State analysis of tests and results across schools and state funding tied to scores represents a rudimentary QA effort.
Standardized testing has flaws. The fact that some snowflakes "don't test well" is not one of the flaws. Many of the flaws are correctable. Many have been corrected. - Some tests really do favor certian groups or demographics (mostly this has been addressed). - Tests may not actually test the "right" material. - Tests may not actually test enough material; may test too much material.
While there have been some cheating scandals in recent years, it has been years since I have seen a story about schools routinely graduating illiterate students. Since the press has no motivation not to produce these stories, I conclude that the incidence of such graduates is much lower now. I credit NCLB. Teaching to the test is only really a problem if the test is testing the wrong things.
The problems with NCLB are real: - Schools and teachers focus on tested subjects, often to the exclusion of others. This means that your graduates, though literate, lack broad exposure to ideas. - Because NCLB rewards schools and districts that get closest to 100% at bare proficiency, and does not reward schools that produce high numbers of 'advanced' students, effort to educate students ends once literacy and numeracy are assured at bare proficient. - Because (public) schools must educate all children, and because some children CANNOT EVER become proficient (children in Persistent Vegetative State still get an "education"), 100% is an unattainable goal.
So the program needs to be revised. Some measurement to the breadth of an education needs to exist. An incentive needs to exist to take merely proficient students to advanced levels. This all seems possible.
Back to the college funding bubble... NONE OF THIS is really relevant. Colleges may be be requiring more gen-ed or more 'Freshman English' courses, but this does not equate to a cost increase to attend colleges. Students aren't taking more classes and are not spending loan money taking remedial classes that do not apply to their degree.
The cost of each class and of each credit is higher and the cost grows at multiples of CPI. Love it or hate it, NCLB isn't the cause.
Or does the "free market" assume no government intervention - which I can't see ever being the case, there have been "governments" as long as there have been markets,
Western opinion has come to view excessive participation in corporations by government or government by corporations as being bad/corrupt. The line is gray and blurry and everyone cheats a bit... The Chinese government cheats more than most and in this case may have clearly stepped over the blurry line.
Since corporations that lack such direct assistance are at a disadvantage, they ask for help form their governments. Western governments don't want to (be seen to) give direct aid to corporations (looks like corruption), so will penalize their supported competitors and drive up their prices.
Yes governments have played in markets for as long as we have defined such. No, there is no such thing as free trade as long as government exists. Government isn't going away anytime soon.
I might be naive, and please educate me here, but I would have assumed this behaviour is part of markets and how they work, rather than external to markets (therefore considered not playing the game properly). Hence not cheating, but just part of what happens?
The "cheating" part comes in when and if government (aka the guys with tanks) take a direct hand making their own companies/industries successful. "The rules" assume that companies are mostly working with their own resources (or with resources that they pay for; market interest on loans, etc.) and that they have to show a profit or at least break even. There is also an assumption that companies exist in a balanced regulatory environment (IE poisoning the downstream villages should at least officially be frowned upon...).
Everyone "cheats" from time to time. Look at GM for an example of American cheating...
But there's cheating and then there's "cheating". It is being alleged that the Chinese Government (tanks...) is giving solar companies free money so that they can sell panels for less than they cost to make (even in China). This is resulting in other countries' (EU, USA, etc.) solar companies being unable to even approach pricing from their Chinese competitors. This is "cheating"!
What is really going on here is that the Chinese Government (tanks) is purchasing global dominance for a particular industry. This is not allowed in western economies and is frowned upon by just about everyone (unless they are trying to make such a purchase of course...). The Chinese Government (tanks) is external to western markets but not to the global market, but in a global market, anti-dumping tariffs are not external either... In effect the US and EU governments (tanks) are raising the opportunity cost of/for the purchase the Chinese Government (tanks) is trying to make.
The EU and US are becoming the seller from whom the Chinese must purchase. The cost may rise to infinity dollars (nukes) but will probably be less. The EU and US will try to set the price high enough that nobody will want to pay (for dominance). This is how markets work among nation states.
There's your economics lesson for the day. Normally I charge for this.
Killing anyone - probably - is not a moral act. I propose that self righteous journalists may be the exception that proves the rule. I am certain that anyone who actually calls themselves a "journalist" deserves no protection, sympathy, or remorse.
That said... I am aware of a video that seems to show individuals killed by a helicopter. The one or more of the individuals were probably journalists but may have looked like something else from the air (Press passes are hard to read from 1500 ft in a war zone). The killing of unidentified people by soldiers following their ROE... Well to be honest, the video makes me uncomfortable, but does not represent misconduct as far as I can determine. It sucks when that sort of thing happens.
I am not aware of a coverup. (A coverup requires awareness by the coverors that they are covering something. Never attribute an act to malice while incompetence is still in play.) I doubt that Mr. Manning was aware of a 'coverup'.
Committing immoral acts to expose other possibly immoral acts is... ?
Exposing military misconduct is obviously moral behavior. A system that punishes moral behavior is immoral. It does't matter whether he knew there would be consequences. It's the consequences that are the problem.
Behavior that I disagree with, which makes me uncomfortable, or that I don't like is not necessarily (or even probably) misconduct. But even if it was...
Doing 'whatever I want' with information that I do not own after agreeing not to do so is not a moral act. Stealing information is not a moral act. Imposing my discomfort or dislikes on you; making you conform to my personal likes; is not a moral act. Trying to avoid responsibility for committing an immoral act... is not a moral act. Committing immoral acts in the hope of exposing other immoral acts seems like hypocrisy at best.
Mr. Manning appears not to be a moral actor in this case. Any system that seeks to prevent immoral actors from acting immorally is...?
Slashdot Mirror
All of these 'situations' assume embassies that look a lot like the embassies that the US or Britain might normally have in foreign capitals.... Big mansion-like buildings surrounded by a fence... certainly something with a nice private place for a limo to pull up and still be on embassy grounds. Equador doesn't have one of those.
Equador has a bit of office space in the middle of a building that has other office space. There is no private helipad or carport or other place to try any of the 'situations' that anyone has suggested. You can safely assume that he elevators/doors/stairs/windows are under surveillance. There'll be no sneaking.
Together they are around 18 million acre-feet below their full capacity.
How much is an acre-foot? Is it like a football-field-hand? American or Brazilian or Australian Football? How many hogsheads is that? Or Troy Ounces?
This has nothing to do with climate change, which is a change to the underlying system.
By that logic, there is no such thing as climate change. CO2 emissions do not change the underlying system, and were they do stop completely, the system would, in time, revert/adjust. By your logic, climate change can't exist unless thermodynamic laws (or whatever) are changed.
Anyone who thinks that the deployment of [technologies] across large portions of Earth's surface will not have significant impact is delusional. Don't be that guy.
All "clean" energy, whether wind, solar, hydro, coal, fission, etc. is merely "relatively" clean. Wind kills birds and warms areas downstream. Coal makes smog and dumps carbon. Hydro kills fish and and alters local climate. Fission makes giant lizards emerge from Tokyo bay...
Let's stop software developers from testing their work as well. Be serious.
Testing is not the "problem" and is probably not the "solution". If you do not check for progress, you cannot know whether your effort (in teaching, programming, rocket construction) has been successful.
I seem to recall we saw this a while ago:
http://boingboing.net/2011/12/27/the-coming-war-on-general-purp.html
Odd to hear it so clearly from MS now.
Mod Up.
The real problem with teachers' union contracts is not the contracts themselves or the steps or the pensions or the benefits... the problem is that we place Kindergarten teachers (whose main skill is being 'good with kids') on the same scale as Physics teachers (who still have to have rapport with their students but also have to have a mastery of science and mathematics).
The contract writers do know this, so they try to split the difference since the union won't let them fix the problem. K-7 teachers are ridiculously overpaid in general and advanced subjects teachers are still underpaid by a wide (50%+) margin.
An education isn't about the facts taught, but about the learning process that prepares you for a lifetime of learning as you deal with new technologies, products, and ideas during your time on this planet.
Strongly disagree here. This is the drivel (IMO, sorry) that has become popular in amongst educators and education speakers in the past decade or so. Yes 'learning process' is important, but the 'facts' we ask primary and secondary students to apply this to are not arbitrary.
We have learned over a time as a species (or culture or nation perhaps) that this particular set of facts is important. The reading, writing, mathematics, history, and more, and their associated 'facts', are all absolutely worthy, important, and necessary in and of themselves. It is for this reason that we have developed organized systems to pass theses facts on to future generations. The facts are important. Period.
We wonder why young students discount the value of these facts. We should ask first whether their opinion matters. Youth have _always_ discounted the value of their elders' knowledge initially - but we have weakened our own position by accepting this drivel - this indefensible position - that the facts are not worthy of being passed on.
As for 'learning process', as we value the 'facts' less, we do a poorer job of conveying learning process as well. We have so discounted (for example) the memorization 'process' [after all, why should students memorize dates or people or events?!] that many of our students can't... but try to approach calculus without memorized multiplication facts. Writing skills (not handwriting) have declined as we teach less grammar (grammar is the SYNTAX of the language; important 'facts'). The fact that we can google (or duckduckgo) the facts does not help much in practice...
Sorry for the rant but this stuff bothers me.
If that is true, you are correct. Publishing something that was sent to him is not and should not be a crime.
Even if he solicited it- begged for someone to send him helicopter videos- it is not and should not be a crime.
If, however, someone wrote to him and said 'i think I know where i can get some diplomatic cables but I'm not sure how to get them without getting caught' and he offered any advice.... well then that's conspiracy.
If accessing or disclosing confidential records without explicit permission of the owner(s) or subject(s) (or conspiring to do so) is a crime in a jurisdiction where he gets caught, then extradition is a possibility. If doing this is not a crime (or is a protected right) in that jurisdiction, he is in the clear.
Even if we assume that Manning was doing 'the right thing by [caring] about freedom of information, exposing war crimes, and holding the powerful responsible for their atrocities , his acts are those of a vigilante. Thus, his methods subvert his cause.
This right here is plain nonsense. Sometimes it's necessary to break the law to improve justice. When the law protects evil, working within the law is evil.
The reason working societies mostly make acting within the law the only accepted determination of "good" and "evil" are that these things can be relative. Think abortion; drug use; immigration; sexuality; gambling; "marriage"; colonialism; slavery; education; evolution; climate policy... even contract and tort law... Reasonable people disagree about the correct position on these and more. Some have strongly held beliefs.
Sometimes it's necessary to break the law
Ok, which? Laws against killing? Should an anti-abortion activist kill aborters? Too incendiary? Killing is absolute?
How about property laws then? Should stealing from teachers who teach (or don't) evolution be OK? What if it's just data being stolen? Credit info? Diaries?
Maybe we don't steal from people we dislike... maybe we just remove the veneer of privacy; let the world judge them? Maybe we release their communications? Their address? Maybe we release evidence of what may be bad acts (or good acts) and let the world judge?
Maybe it's just OK to do this to governments? Laws that protect life and property and whatever apply only to individuals who have not acted on behalf of a government? Or maybe that's just property laws?
I guess I don't get it.
That's awful shortsighted.
Manning worked for the US military and eventually made it his purpose to subvert it. He entered the military voluntarily - the US does not have a draft and Manning was not part of a social class that had no options. He abused his position, broke his oath, and acted to place materials whose secrecy he was supposed to protect... into the hands of enemies (and friends, frenemies, neutrals, and basically anyone who cared to look). Frankly, he deserves what he gets.
There is a larger debate that should be had about how much of that information really should be secret, and if so from who, and then for how long. Even if we assume that Manning was doing 'the right thing by [caring] about freedom of information, exposing war crimes, and holding the powerful responsible for their atrocities , his acts are those of a vigilante. Thus, his methods subvert his cause.
If he did what he did and blindly uploaded to wikileaks... well then that's the end of it. He's a naive fool who thought his cause of the week was worth the risk. Maybe he still feels that way?
If, OTOH, he asked wikileaks for help... if JA helped him decide what to steal; how to steal it; how to cover his thefts, etc... if JA persuaded Manning to do as he did... well then he may well have participated in a crime (conspiracy; accessory; theft of data; unauthorized access) at a US military installation. Why would we want to support this?
Investigative journalism is worthy of our protection. We need to ask and obtain answers to difficult questions. The "press" (at least in the US) really does have the right to ask the questions and to publish the answers. Determining what to ask, who to ask, and what to publish is the critical role of the 'investigative journalist'. So long as the journalist is simply asking questions and getting answers, they deserve our protection.
If the "journalist" stops asking questions and starts directing... [for lack of a better term, literally] agents to steal that data, we DO need to reassess their role. I'm not sure if JA crossed that line, but it seems reasonable that we should ask. Who watches the watchers, etc...
so I wonder if the superintendent is aware of what's happening.
Speaking from direct experience, it makes little difference. In every district I've worked at, transfers beyond a certain amount have to be approved by the school board/committee. A large city supt may be able to move $100k without approval, a small district fiscally challenged supt may only be able to move $2500. Bear in mind that's $2500 _at_a_time_. Transfers beyond the threshold will absolutely have been approved by the 'board or committee.
Allowing transfers is fundamentally ethical. The district budget is not a suicide pact.
If the Supt or ASupt or Business director say that the transfer is in the best interest of the students (even if you and I think otherwise). "The Rules" don't require that IT staff (or custodians, or misc. teachers, or school nurses) be consulted before a budget is modified. These transfers are generally approved without much debate. Good 'boards (and bad ones) trust their administrators to manage their schools and school budgets within reason. It really is for the children...
Spending the discretionary budget ASAP is the single best defense against this ... negligence. The pet projects will happen. Let them happen to someone else. Run out of money fast.
The next best defense is to go to the board meetings (all of them). Being there makes you a player. It puts you at (or near) the table when a 'board member asks innocently "well are we sure this is the best place to take that money from?"
Fiscal Policy is a red herring. Your Superintendent controls your budget and has the power to set and change priorities. No doubt he/she follows the letter of the rules. There is nothing to blow the whistle on unless you can represent criminal activities BEYOND mere negligence.
You must USE the system. You must must PLAY the politics.
In most K-12 districts, the fiscal year begins; your budget for the year becomes active; on July 1. 90-95% of your budget MUST BE encumbered (POs written against it) by July 15. All planned hardware and supply purchases are ordered and probably in transit by July 30. This is self defense.
Some POs are for bills that may not come due until December or later... but these are not items that can easily be cancelled. Adobe & MS School agreements like to renew in January... pity the MEd who cancels Windows and Office for any pet project...
So yes, they can grab up the 5-10%. That's basically contingency anyway. USE the system. When a critical system breaks in April and you don't have the parts on hand you will be the one grabbing the leftovers in other accounts to get it fixed. Trust me, if the server that hosts payroll needs a HDD, it will arrive tomorrow and nevermind the budget.
USE the system. In April, your Superintendent is looking for projects to spend any leftover dollars on. Yes, s/he's going to use them to go to a conference in Hawaii... but if there is anything left, you might have a shot at it. You need your proposal - 3 quotes; i's with dots, t's with crosses - ready to go immediately. Hypothetical doesn't sell when the money has to be spent now.
PLAY the politics. Find a convention in Hawaii that you and your Superintendent(s) can go to. People that do that are called TEAM PLAYERS. Be one.
Wrong. I work in a district much like GP. What you describe is probably how the last guy got this one into this mess.
a) "Open Source" is not a magic fix-it. If OP/GP is a windows/PC tech, he has a sharp learning curve ahead and he already has no time. If he makes a switch and can't make it work, he's on the street. Even if he can make it work, training the users will be nearly impossible. Sure, a browser is a browser, but K-12 is a strange industry where uncooperative employees tend to survive to weigh down the process for years. "You can't expect me to use this thing without training!" "You can't expect me to show up to training seminars without extra pay!" "I can't do my job because you gave me a computer that I can't use!" "Test scores are down because I spent all my time trying to use your system!"
b) $1500? This guy is bidding against the donated 5yr old crap and "Black Friday" new pricing. They're going around him because he (or the last guy) was taking your advice. YES, $1500 is a good budget number for a midrange computer and monitor, standard MS software, and related infrastructure. He won't get that. You can play that game in your research environment only because everyone does....
c) The reason you need MS Office is not for the Principals... The teachers will want an office suite on their computers that matches the instructional materials they can buy to aid their instruction. Yes, they should teach it differently, but they don't and this guy is a decade away from having the street cred to tell them how and still keep his job.
d) Your best advice. If he can get them to come to him, get at least two vendors to fight for the business. Don't go the sealed bid route. Tell each about the other bid. Rinse and repeat.
e) He has no budget. If he has a discretionary budget, infrastructure is the way to be. No you don't need cisco- I am personally a fan of HP switches...
My advice: Setup a meeting with the Superintendent(s) and the business administrator. Share your reasonably priced vision of what their district could be in 3-4 years with consistent, managed investment. (Include their pet projects - grit your teeth and do it!) Tell them what it costs both in terms of dollars and procedural changes. Do this every 6 months or so regardless of the result.
Regardless of the result:
1: Core infrastructure first. Those switches. 2 Servers. Good backup for critical data (business office; stuff used by superintendents).
1a: Business critical systems must be setup and managed correctly. This is the ONLY item I would take to the school board if you can't get cooperation. This means domain, authentication, good enterprise class AV, VPN access for semitrusted systems that need access. You should insist on this in the strongest way possible.
2: Inventory and Ticket system. Knowing how many of what you are responsible for is important. Knowing how many times you've had to fix the lab of black Friday rejects is critical too.
3: People that work through you take priority. If they did it your way and bought what you wanted the way you wanted, it MUST work. MUST! If you have to sit there a switch the bits yourself...
4: That means you get to those home OS mistakes when you can. NEVER order parts for these machines. NEVER spend a lot of time servicing these machines. DO NOT be afraid to declare these systems "no longer usable without significant repair investment". When asked about that cost, quote the dollar amount of a properly spec'd new machine.
5: DO NOT leave non-functional machines deployed. Non-functional equipment makes you look bad. Insufficient quantities of equipment may lead to proper budgeting...
Finally: If you find yourself with a small budget for user endpoints (computers) and want to deploy to gain the most budgetary 'bang for your buck', consider deploying in the K-4 / K-6 segment of your district. Most districts put their best in the 9-12 space and place progressively older / less r
To make it work over interplanetary distances, you'd have to let the drones decide the targets. What could possibly go wrong with that?
Everyone jumps to space opera when the question of space combat comes up. Cruisers. Remotes. Lasers fired from absurd distances. F***ing death stars. Rail guns. Doomsday machines.
Sure they could happen I guess, but the events that would get us there remain bad science fiction. My first thought when I think about space combat though is...
Marines. Hand to hand.
Blowing stuff up is one thing. Capturing cargo ships is where the value lies in space combat. So how do you capture that load of ore/food/gas? Or to the other side, how will you and your crew of 7 stop those 23 hardsuited boarders from taking your ship?
For people who are not _creators_, whose main work is talking to people and being seen, the laptop was a big screen for their calendar and facebook and youtube. The ipad is a better screen for this. Their laptop was too big and took too long to boot and wasn't cool and felt like work (which they don't do).
The people I am talking about - VPs and trust fund executives and celebrity types don't do work but do drive culture. And tablets will remain cool because they say so.
The other 99% of use have to work. lol
Sure, but I never said NCLB was the cause of the bubble. Maybe I never really tied it back to the OP, though.
The OP complained about education requirements and degree inflation. I think s/he's right about that. I've already seen plenty of college graduates who aren't worth a damn. And I've known fantastic admins and systems engineers who were college dropouts.
Me too.
The tie-in to NCLB is that NCLB means more high school students graduate.
The success of NCLB is that more students are verified to meet the minimum graduation requirements and then do graduate. High School diplomas are less a filter and more a process. If this is what you mean, I agree.
More high school graduates means more potential college candidates. This increased demand means that colleges can charge more.
This doesn't quite follow unless you add that the non-dischargability of student loans has led to an immense availability of money for those demanding college education. Demand is high and cost is mostly not a factor. Continue...
They hire a few more faculty. Class sizes increase.
These offset. Once you are doing education on the scale that a large college or uni does, it all boils down to cost per student. If a student needs to take 4 classes per semester, the cost of instructors, TAs, etc. vanish into the statistics. Something else must drive the numbers.
More people manage to get degrees who wouldn't have been able to (not due to cost) 10 years ago. The degree becomes less meaningful.
So the degree is worth less. This means that the rising cost is even more inexplicable. Except that anyone can pay any cost now...
It's certainly not the only reason for higher tuition, but I'd bet it's a part of it. If we could let kids flunk out and just learn a trade, everyone would probably be better off.
You are proposing that High School be modified in some way to make it a better filter for the college application process. HS dropouts can be plumbers or squeegee men and HS graduates can get PHDs. The problem with this is that even a plumber can require post-secondary education these days and the PHD will still cost too much. HS as a less permeable filter does not address the problem at hand.
You are correct (in my view) that ONE problem with higher ed in the USA is that the degrees are too common. Reducing the applicant pool might well address the problem, but addressing the problem will not meaningfully change the tuition problem. Yes fewer students would temporarily put downward pressure into the market, but once the bottom-of-market schools closed due to lack of enrollment, the remainder would have every market incentive to increase tuition again.
Studies have shown that increasing tuition generally increases enrollment...
without affecting the ability of students to go to college
You want the benefit without the cost. How American of you!
Students can get as much money as the schools want because the lenders know that only death can discharge the loan. Credit-worthiness is not a critical factor though it can provide an excuse for lenders to get higher interest rates. Eventual repayment is virtually assured as Student Loans can be collected using methods that are difficult or illegal to use for other debts. Virtually all of the risk in the system has been shifted to the student. Because of this, virtually any student can get money to go to college. Because of this, many enjoy indentured servitude (effectively) and harassment for years afterward.
Because 'anyone' can pay the cost, demand is increased. Schools raise prices to differentiate themselves. Higher cost must be better. But anyone can afford better. The cycle repeats; a few new buildings get built. Repeat. Repeat.
To change it, you have three realistic options, all bad:
- Change the system so that not everyone can afford better. There are many ways to do this. One is to allow these loans to be more easily discharged. This means that some who might have attended college now won't.
- Regulate tuition and require government approval for any tuition increase. Set initial targets at 60% of current levels. Some unis will go bankrupt - those nice new buildings were too expensive - some that might have gone to college wont. Eventually maybe new options will emerge at a more reasonable cost basis. Someday.
- Keep doing what we are. Eventually people really won't be able to afford better. Lots of unis fold. Lots of people who might have gone to college don't. Maybe there's riots in the streets of uni towns first. Maybe.
What we really need is a system to provide college equivalency to for non college experience. If Experience in the workforce could generate a "Bachelors or Masters Degree" or equivalent for free (Think FOSS), or nearly that, and if this were recognized and accepted, then a "free" option in the system would provide downward pressure on tuition. Colleges would need to justify their cost. This is not realistic of course - at least not right now.
Disclaimer: I coordinate Information Technology for a School District.
NCLB was a response to high illiteracy rates among High School "Graduates" during the 80s and 90s. After over a decade of the education 'industry' trying to address the problem internally on an ad-hoc basis, the federal government stepped in. The Feds demanded testing...
Prior to NCLB, the education 'industry' largely lacked a QA/QC model. Again, on an ad-hoc basis, some systems were doing better than others, but illiterates with High School Diplomas were still being produced in quantity. Standardized testing, especially where passing the test is a graduation requirement, stepped in to fill the QC gap. State analysis of tests and results across schools and state funding tied to scores represents a rudimentary QA effort.
Standardized testing has flaws. The fact that some snowflakes "don't test well" is not one of the flaws. Many of the flaws are correctable. Many have been corrected.
- Some tests really do favor certian groups or demographics (mostly this has been addressed).
- Tests may not actually test the "right" material.
- Tests may not actually test enough material; may test too much material.
While there have been some cheating scandals in recent years, it has been years since I have seen a story about schools routinely graduating illiterate students. Since the press has no motivation not to produce these stories, I conclude that the incidence of such graduates is much lower now. I credit NCLB. Teaching to the test is only really a problem if the test is testing the wrong things.
The problems with NCLB are real:
- Schools and teachers focus on tested subjects, often to the exclusion of others. This means that your graduates, though literate, lack broad exposure to ideas.
- Because NCLB rewards schools and districts that get closest to 100% at bare proficiency, and does not reward schools that produce high numbers of 'advanced' students, effort to educate students ends once literacy and numeracy are assured at bare proficient.
- Because (public) schools must educate all children, and because some children CANNOT EVER become proficient (children in Persistent Vegetative State still get an "education"), 100% is an unattainable goal.
So the program needs to be revised. Some measurement to the breadth of an education needs to exist. An incentive needs to exist to take merely proficient students to advanced levels. This all seems possible.
Back to the college funding bubble... NONE OF THIS is really relevant. Colleges may be be requiring more gen-ed or more 'Freshman English' courses, but this does not equate to a cost increase to attend colleges. Students aren't taking more classes and are not spending loan money taking remedial classes that do not apply to their degree.
The cost of each class and of each credit is higher and the cost grows at multiples of CPI. Love it or hate it, NCLB isn't the cause.
Or does the "free market" assume no government intervention - which I can't see ever being the case, there have been "governments" as long as there have been markets,
Western opinion has come to view excessive participation in corporations by government or government by corporations as being bad/corrupt. The line is gray and blurry and everyone cheats a bit... The Chinese government cheats more than most and in this case may have clearly stepped over the blurry line.
Since corporations that lack such direct assistance are at a disadvantage, they ask for help form their governments. Western governments don't want to (be seen to) give direct aid to corporations (looks like corruption), so will penalize their supported competitors and drive up their prices.
Yes governments have played in markets for as long as we have defined such. No, there is no such thing as free trade as long as government exists. Government isn't going away anytime soon.
I might be naive, and please educate me here, but I would have assumed this behaviour is part of markets and how they work, rather than external to markets (therefore considered not playing the game properly). Hence not cheating, but just part of what happens?
The "cheating" part comes in when and if government (aka the guys with tanks) take a direct hand making their own companies/industries successful. "The rules" assume that companies are mostly working with their own resources (or with resources that they pay for; market interest on loans, etc.) and that they have to show a profit or at least break even. There is also an assumption that companies exist in a balanced regulatory environment (IE poisoning the downstream villages should at least officially be frowned upon...).
Everyone "cheats" from time to time. Look at GM for an example of American cheating...
But there's cheating and then there's "cheating". It is being alleged that the Chinese Government (tanks...) is giving solar companies free money so that they can sell panels for less than they cost to make (even in China). This is resulting in other countries' (EU, USA, etc.) solar companies being unable to even approach pricing from their Chinese competitors. This is "cheating"!
What is really going on here is that the Chinese Government (tanks) is purchasing global dominance for a particular industry. This is not allowed in western economies and is frowned upon by just about everyone (unless they are trying to make such a purchase of course...). The Chinese Government (tanks) is external to western markets but not to the global market, but in a global market, anti-dumping tariffs are not external either... In effect the US and EU governments (tanks) are raising the opportunity cost of/for the purchase the Chinese Government (tanks) is trying to make.
The EU and US are becoming the seller from whom the Chinese must purchase. The cost may rise to infinity dollars (nukes) but will probably be less. The EU and US will try to set the price high enough that nobody will want to pay (for dominance). This is how markets work among nation states.
There's your economics lesson for the day. Normally I charge for this.
P.S. This is slashdot, so nuclear has to work its way into the conversation.
Thanks for bringing nuclear energy into the discussion, but how will this all affect my bitcoins?
Killing anyone - probably - is not a moral act. I propose that self righteous journalists may be the exception that proves the rule. I am certain that anyone who actually calls themselves a "journalist" deserves no protection, sympathy, or remorse.
That said... I am aware of a video that seems to show individuals killed by a helicopter. The one or more of the individuals were probably journalists but may have looked like something else from the air (Press passes are hard to read from 1500 ft in a war zone). The killing of unidentified people by soldiers following their ROE... Well to be honest, the video makes me uncomfortable, but does not represent misconduct as far as I can determine. It sucks when that sort of thing happens.
I am not aware of a coverup. (A coverup requires awareness by the coverors that they are covering something. Never attribute an act to malice while incompetence is still in play.) I doubt that Mr. Manning was aware of a 'coverup'.
Committing immoral acts to expose other possibly immoral acts is... ?
Exposing military misconduct is obviously moral behavior. A system that punishes moral behavior is immoral. It does't matter whether he knew there would be consequences. It's the consequences that are the problem.
Behavior that I disagree with, which makes me uncomfortable, or that I don't like is not necessarily (or even probably) misconduct. But even if it was...
Doing 'whatever I want' with information that I do not own after agreeing not to do so is not a moral act. Stealing information is not a moral act. Imposing my discomfort or dislikes on you; making you conform to my personal likes; is not a moral act. Trying to avoid responsibility for committing an immoral act... is not a moral act. Committing immoral acts in the hope of exposing other immoral acts seems like hypocrisy at best.
Mr. Manning appears not to be a moral actor in this case. Any system that seeks to prevent immoral actors from acting immorally is...?
Which secret documents did George Washington steal and / or publish?