Windows HS: Microsoft designs a school system

[SKKY]

This sounds like a very, very forward thinking idea. As someone who hopes to be a teacher some day, and as someone who has
worked in the IT field for most of his 15 year Naval career, I find this very interesting. I thought some of you might
as well.

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has famously called high schools "obsolete" and warned about their effect on U.S. competitiveness. Now, his company has a chance to prove that it can help fix the woes of public education.

After three years of planning, the Microsoft Corp.-designed "School of the Future" opened its doors Thursday, a gleaming white modern facility looking out of place amid rows of ramshackle homes in a working-class West Philadelphia neighborhood.

The school is being touted as unlike any in the world, with not only a high-tech building -- students have digital lockers and teachers use interactive "smart boards" -- but also a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/09/07/school.of.future.ap/index.html

[Atman]

1. "a learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques."

WTF? Lie, steal and strongarm, then rip off your customers? Ought to be a great breed of future citizens Bill is creating!

[shadowknows69]

2. Classes promptly start at 8AM

With a reboot scheduled for 8:15

[SKKY]

3. All apropos Microsoft jokes aside...

...I still think this is a potentially exciting advance in education.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

4. They don't have a library with books.

As far as I'm concerned, that is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard of a school doing. They need more than just the internet.

[SKKY]

5. Actually, my first thought on this was...

..."Good lord, what the hell is going to happen to our spelling and grammar skills if these kids rely on the SpellCheck in Word?"

[Tesha]

8. They'll just lurn to put little grien and read liinz under everything

> Actually, my first thought on this was...
> ..."Good lord, what the hell is going to happen to our spelling
> and grammar skills if these kids rely on the SpellCheck in Word?"

Our kids will just learn that all writing in the world
has little green and red squiggly lines under it.

Tesha

[Liberal Veteran]

12. When I worked for MS Office support....

...I got a call from a woman who was upset because her version of Word apparently had the (and I quote) "ghetto version of the spelling and grammar checker".

She rattled off about 10 examples of "suggestions" that it made to her writings and honestly, some of them were appalling.

[The2ndWheel]

6. Digital lockers

Of course! That's what was holding back the kids. Messing with locks is too much!

Mmmmmmm, letting global corporations fund, create, and mold our children. Basically as bad as the state doing it. But hey, I already know I'm ooooooob...solete.

[mccoyn]

7. I like the idea.

As long as MS isn't running the school its a good idea to have this countries most successful business advise schools on what skills are useful. The investment in productivity tools is also good. If MS can make money using smart boards and providing wireless to their employees, can't those things help our students study better, too.

[Fierce]

9. No thanks.

Business running schools? No thanks.

[Norrin Radd]

10. Do the few jocks get picked on by roaming gangs of nerds? n/t

[The2ndWheel]

11. That'll happen later

when the nerds send the jocks to war.

[Generic Other]

13. Don't fall for the hype

Running a school on a "learning process modeled on Microsoft's management techniques" means teachers are treated like minimum wage workers in a non-union shop, and students are treated like products on an assembly line. Anyone who does not embrace the Gates' model is marginalized, treated as though they are obsolete, and driven out of education. The "new" educators meanwhile think technology is the ultimate answer to all education's problems. The best teachers are replaced by machines and Gates consultants made up of teachers who left the classroom because they were crappy teachers in the first place. Mediocre "yes-men" get to run the show.

Like all efforts to privatize education it is done by the wrong folks for the wrong reasons. You can't package kids like canned peas and expect them to be fresh caviar.

Be very afraid of efforts by Gates to take over your local schools. So far their record is abysmal.