MS is trying once again to takeover the minds of the children. Get them using only Windows in school and watch what they will ask for at home. It worked for Apple a long time ago, and now MS is trying to follow suit. In the words of an obscure tech, "Give me linux or give me an apple"
In West Virginia, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation just handed the state department of education 16 million dollars.
In return, the state board of ed sold out the public schools.
They handed down a memo saying that all students *must* take part in a questionaire administered by the teachers during school time. One teacher I know estimated that it would take 20 minutes per student, given that there are issues with reading ability at the age of the students being given the test.
This questionaire:
* Was given online. Teachers were required to have Internet Explorer (not "a browser", Internet Explorer) installed on all school computers used in this. Cute way for a monopolist to propogate their products. * Involved asking students the number and type of products such as camcorders and computers they have at home. Many parents are not willing to give out this information, so building profiles of families by asking adults doesn't work very well. However, when students, children, are required to take an questionare like this by a teacher, they don't have much of a choice, though I suppose they could lie if their parents have taught them the importance of privacy. Microsoft was given the go-ahead to repeat this study two and four years from this point in time. All results get sent to Microsoft. * Was given during school time. Taxpayers spend enormous amounts of money to pay for *children to be educated*. State laws are put in place to require students to be in school *to be educated*. These resources are supposed to go to education, not to (in my opinion, rather invasive) Microsoft marketing studies. * Finally, MS made another coup for those 16 million dollars -- they were given a right to appoint a consultant to conduct overviews and approve or deny technology education curriculum. Now, it's possible that this consultant is a totally objective person who really *will* choose Linux or the Mac OS over Windows, or competing office/database products over MS's offerings if those things are better choices in a given scenerio. However, I rather doubt it. This is traditionally a large Apple market, but in one fell swoop, MS cut the legs out from Apple throughout the entire state.
I'm wondering whether this is just my state, or whether this is happening elsewhere. Anyone else hear about similar things in their own states? I could be a new Microsoft offensive against Apple, or just something that's been going on for a while, but I feel more than a little uncomfortable with it, and I doubt any letters I write are going to quite measure up to 16 million dollars in terms of legislators' decisions.
Yes, this is what happens when drug wars, open-ended wars in the Middle East, and corporate bailouts/handouts/tax-breaks take priority over education spending. Schools end up squeezed and have to go begging.
Simply requiring Internet Explorer seems odd, but since it's the default browser on both Windows and Mac OS I don't see the problem. It's not like the schools had to go out and *buy* the darn thing.
I agree, it's odious that students are being polled about their consumer behavior. I'm surprised this action is not illegal (not saying it is or isn't, but it seems like something normally proscribed). And I'm not sure I see the value in demographic information collected this way, it wouldn't seem to be very complete or reliable.
School time is wasted on millions of non-education related tasks, many wholeheartedly endorsed by taxpayers. Pledging allegiance to a piece of colored cloth. Disinformation about drug use. Abstinence pledges. Etc. In many cases the education value of the material is highly questionable, but the social agenda is clear.
$16 million may seem insignificant to Microsoft, but to a school district that's huge. My local school district (I'm a parent, not a student) is short about $30 million right now. Given the low impact IT decisions have on schools overall (except maybe as an expense item), I wouldn't be too opposed to some sort of quid pro quo in my own district. I'm not so worried about Microsoft products in the schools, the schools canoot be the vanguard in the fight for a new OS-- especially since that's traditional Apple territory. Frankly, I think it would be cheaper for Microsoft to obtain this demographic data by simply paying adults to participate in a good survey or two (or buying it from company's whose main business is demographic data-- since when is market research a core competency over at Microsoft?).
The worst aspect of this is the consultant role you mention. That seems to be a lock on Microsoft making sure that as much of that $16 million gets spent on Microsoft products.
Have I heard of this in my area? No. The schools here use Macs and if my daughter said they were using school time to take consumer surveys, everyone from the teacher to the school board would hear about it. That would be front-page news in one of the states taking the hardline against Microsoft in the anti-trust suits.
Simply requiring Internet Explorer seems odd, but since it's the default browser on both Windows and Mac OS I don't see the problem. It's not like the schools had to go out and *buy* the darn thing
Sure, because all PC's come with either Microsoft Windows or MacOS burned into the hardware. It's not as though you have to pay for them (or access to Internet Explorer), right?
Hmm, as I remember it, a couple of courts have decided otherwise.
The odds of these schools having computers and not running either Windows or Mac OS or both are so extremely low as to make your point completely irrelevant. If the school district were running all Sun or Linux machines, then you'd have to wonder about their sanity in accepting this offer from MS. You'd also have to wonder how they got to be so enlightened in the first place, but now suddenly are kow-towing to Microsoft.
I took that test in school this week. I'm in Virginia, actually. Wasn't so bad, really. I in fact took it during my post-AP Computer Archetecture class. The funny part is that it asked dumb questions.
"Q: How skilled are you with databases (rank 1-5)?" Comment to friend: "Gee, I'm a little rusty with my MySQL."
"Q: How often do you make webpages (with programs like Microsoft Frontpage)?" Comment to friend: "Well, I'll say 'Never.' I prefer Vim 6.0, myself..."
All in all, it was a dumb and poorly-designed survey. Technically, all the students had to do it. But, as our school receives most of our *nix-running computers from generous non-Microsoft business donors, we didn't feel like we owed them many favors. In fact, under "Other Comments," I bitched about how it was a stupid waste of time.:)
As far as I know, there aren't news articles on it (yet). I'm not a teacher, and was just speaking with some teachers I'm friendly with about it. I was back in town for spring break when the memo reached the elementary school and was handed out at a teacher's meeting. I don't even know when it was to be given -- at that time I was in town, the only people that knew about it were the teachers. It came from the state board of education level, so it's no local initiative. I asked for and got a copy of a page that the teachers were receiving precisely because I wanted to scan it in, but the paper itself is not particularly interesting. The teachers were apparently walked through how to give students the exam -- and since these are step-by-step instructions, they mandate IE. The school currently uses Netscape Navigator 4. It mentioned the donation (and, if I remember correctly, the consultant), but the questionnaire (which I didn't get to see myself, since I wasn't at the meeting) was the particularly nasty item...consumer questions are a no-no in my mind.
Apparently the principal of the local school was asked by one teacher whether the questions might cause privacy complaints from parents, and he evidently sent the question up the chain of command and after getting a response said that only aggregate data would be used -- to be fair to Microsoft, I did omit that bit.
As one of the other posters has pointed out, it's probably not illegal. Schools also desperately need money as much (if not more...WV is quite poor) in West Virginia as elsewhere. To them, the choice to use Microsoft products is pretty much already made -- they're trying to train people for the workplace. So it isn't that likely that Linux would be chosen, and Microsoft is, at least in the short term, doing more good than harm, since we don't even have computers at some schools in the state, and the money will go a long way.
I do rather dislike this, but can I prove that the Microsoft questionnaire (or Coke Day, or any similar sponsored public-school marketing events) is bad for the students in the school? No. Advertising and market research is all over PBS and the school educational channels anyway, so students are hardly getting a perfectly product-neutral viewpoint in schools. I just don't like *Microsoft* being the one doing it...:-)
I'm sorry I can't mention names, but there have been people laid off for three years now as funding drops, and making waves at the school that point back to specific people is likely to get people fired. People were willing to talk about this, but not to say anything that would get their names negative marks.
You can probably ask a primary-school educator in West Virginia, as they're likely to have been briefed on the questionnaire.
I don't know whether this questionnaire is the same as the one another respondent mentioned [slashdot.org] -- his "Microsoft questionnaire" was apparently in high school (post-AP?) and one state over.
Finally, as another respondent mentioned, if Microsoft can do this, so can the FSF -- doing this is not some special use of Microsoft monopoly power that lets Microsoft and Microsoft alone do things. I'm not claiming that what was done is illegal -- just frustrating, and not enough people know about it -- I'm not sure that everyone would agree that it's a good idea.
I'd love nothing more than for a reporter to investigate it (find and talk to the education officials involved and do a story on it). I'd just rather not get anyone I know in this in hot water...
What a crock (Score:3, Insightful)
You think this is bad? MS bought out WV (Score:5, Informative)
In return, the state board of ed sold out the public schools.
They handed down a memo saying that all students *must* take part in a questionaire administered by the teachers during school time. One teacher I know estimated that it would take 20 minutes per student, given that there are issues with reading ability at the age of the students being given the test.
This questionaire:
* Was given online. Teachers were required to have Internet Explorer (not "a browser", Internet Explorer) installed on all school computers used in this. Cute way for a monopolist to propogate their products.
* Involved asking students the number and type of products such as camcorders and computers they have at home. Many parents are not willing to give out this information, so building profiles of families by asking adults doesn't work very well. However, when students, children, are required to take an questionare like this by a teacher, they don't have much of a choice, though I suppose they could lie if their parents have taught them the importance of privacy. Microsoft was given the go-ahead to repeat this study two and four years from this point in time. All results get sent to Microsoft.
* Was given during school time. Taxpayers spend enormous amounts of money to pay for *children to be educated*. State laws are put in place to require students to be in school *to be educated*. These resources are supposed to go to education, not to (in my opinion, rather invasive) Microsoft marketing studies.
* Finally, MS made another coup for those 16 million dollars -- they were given a right to appoint a consultant to conduct overviews and approve or deny technology education curriculum. Now, it's possible that this consultant is a totally objective person who really *will* choose Linux or the Mac OS over Windows, or competing office/database products over MS's offerings if those things are better choices in a given scenerio. However, I rather doubt it. This is traditionally a large Apple market, but in one fell swoop, MS cut the legs out from Apple throughout the entire state.
I'm wondering whether this is just my state, or whether this is happening elsewhere. Anyone else hear about similar things in their own states? I could be a new Microsoft offensive against Apple, or just something that's been going on for a while, but I feel more than a little uncomfortable with it, and I doubt any letters I write are going to quite measure up to 16 million dollars in terms of legislators' decisions.
Re:You think this is bad? MS bought out WV (Score:3, Insightful)
Simply requiring Internet Explorer seems odd, but since it's the default browser on both Windows and Mac OS I don't see the problem. It's not like the schools had to go out and *buy* the darn thing.
I agree, it's odious that students are being polled about their consumer behavior. I'm surprised this action is not illegal (not saying it is or isn't, but it seems like something normally proscribed). And I'm not sure I see the value in demographic information collected this way, it wouldn't seem to be very complete or reliable.
School time is wasted on millions of non-education related tasks, many wholeheartedly endorsed by taxpayers. Pledging allegiance to a piece of colored cloth. Disinformation about drug use. Abstinence pledges. Etc. In many cases the education value of the material is highly questionable, but the social agenda is clear.
$16 million may seem insignificant to Microsoft, but to a school district that's huge. My local school district (I'm a parent, not a student) is short about $30 million right now. Given the low impact IT decisions have on schools overall (except maybe as an expense item), I wouldn't be too opposed to some sort of quid pro quo in my own district. I'm not so worried about Microsoft products in the schools, the schools canoot be the vanguard in the fight for a new OS-- especially since that's traditional Apple territory. Frankly, I think it would be cheaper for Microsoft to obtain this demographic data by simply paying adults to participate in a good survey or two (or buying it from company's whose main business is demographic data-- since when is market research a core competency over at Microsoft?).
The worst aspect of this is the consultant role you mention. That seems to be a lock on Microsoft making sure that as much of that $16 million gets spent on Microsoft products.
Have I heard of this in my area? No. The schools here use Macs and if my daughter said they were using school time to take consumer surveys, everyone from the teacher to the school board would hear about it. That would be front-page news in one of the states taking the hardline against Microsoft in the anti-trust suits.
Re:You think this is bad? MS bought out WV (Score:2)
Sure, because all PC's come with either Microsoft Windows or MacOS burned into the hardware. It's not as though you have to pay for them (or access to Internet Explorer), right?
Hmm, as I remember it, a couple of courts have decided otherwise.
Re:You think this is bad? MS bought out WV (Score:1)
The odds of these schools having computers and not running either Windows or Mac OS or both are so extremely low as to make your point completely irrelevant. If the school district were running all Sun or Linux machines, then you'd have to wonder about their sanity in accepting this offer from MS. You'd also have to wonder how they got to be so enlightened in the first place, but now suddenly are kow-towing to Microsoft.
Re:You think this is bad? MS bought out WV (Score:1)
I don't believe you.
Post proof (a copy of the memo, or at least a news story discussing the memo) or retract.
I took that test. (Score:1, Interesting)
"Q: How skilled are you with databases (rank 1-5)?" Comment to friend: "Gee, I'm a little rusty with my MySQL."
"Q: How often do you make webpages (with programs like Microsoft Frontpage)?" Comment to friend: "Well, I'll say 'Never.' I prefer Vim 6.0, myself..."
All in all, it was a dumb and poorly-designed survey. Technically, all the students had to do it. But, as our school receives most of our *nix-running computers from generous non-Microsoft business donors, we didn't feel like we owed them many favors. In fact, under "Other Comments," I bitched about how it was a stupid waste of time.
Re:You think this is bad? MS bought out WV (Score:1)
Apparently the principal of the local school was asked by one teacher whether the questions might cause privacy complaints from parents, and he evidently sent the question up the chain of command and after getting a response said that only aggregate data would be used -- to be fair to Microsoft, I did omit that bit.
As one of the other posters has pointed out, it's probably not illegal. Schools also desperately need money as much (if not more...WV is quite poor) in West Virginia as elsewhere. To them, the choice to use Microsoft products is pretty much already made -- they're trying to train people for the workplace. So it isn't that likely that Linux would be chosen, and Microsoft is, at least in the short term, doing more good than harm, since we don't even have computers at some schools in the state, and the money will go a long way.
I do rather dislike this, but can I prove that the Microsoft questionnaire (or Coke Day, or any similar sponsored public-school marketing events) is bad for the students in the school? No. Advertising and market research is all over PBS and the school educational channels anyway, so students are hardly getting a perfectly product-neutral viewpoint in schools. I just don't like *Microsoft* being the one doing it...
I'm sorry I can't mention names, but there have been people laid off for three years now as funding drops, and making waves at the school that point back to specific people is likely to get people fired. People were willing to talk about this, but not to say anything that would get their names negative marks.
You can probably ask a primary-school educator in West Virginia, as they're likely to have been briefed on the questionnaire.
I don't know whether this questionnaire is the same as the one another respondent mentioned [slashdot.org] -- his "Microsoft questionnaire" was apparently in high school (post-AP?) and one state over.
Finally, as another respondent mentioned, if Microsoft can do this, so can the FSF -- doing this is not some special use of Microsoft monopoly power that lets Microsoft and Microsoft alone do things. I'm not claiming that what was done is illegal -- just frustrating, and not enough people know about it -- I'm not sure that everyone would agree that it's a good idea.
I'd love nothing more than for a reporter to investigate it (find and talk to the education officials involved and do a story on it). I'd just rather not get anyone I know in this in hot water...
Re:You think this is bad? MS bought out WV (Score:1)
Get your kids out of public school. (Score:2)
http://www.sepschool.org/