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Maryland will hand out 133k Chromebooks to the public

statescoop.com

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Re: Maryland will hand out 133k Chromebooks to the public

#101

Post by paleotrope »

explaininjs wrote: post #50
orangepurple wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all, over the last decade, the [teachers] union spent $6,448,327 on travel expenses. That comes out to an average of $53,736 a month, every month, for 10 straight years. How does that fulfill the union’s tax-exempt mission to “elevate the quality of public education for all students”? That amount does not include "Conferences, conventions, and meetings." https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/marylands-te…

The real question is whether the state standards should be expected to apply to inner city schools. The knee jerk reaction is to say yes of course how could they not, but that ignores all sorts of socioeconomic context that goes into education.

So not only are we not teaching them, we are going to not even pretend that's what we are trying to do.

Re: Maryland will hand out 133k Chromebooks to the public

#102

Post by explaininjs »

paleotrope wrote: post #101
explaininjs wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real question is whether the state standards should be expected to apply to inner city schools. The knee jerk reaction is to say yes of course how could they not, but that ignores all sorts of socioeconomic context that goes into education.

So not only are we not teaching them, we are going to not even pretend that's what we are trying to do.

It would be a bigger failure of the education system for the youth blessed with stable families and no extracurricular commitments to achieve only at the level of those who need to support their families on the side/etc.

You can see this happening live in Oregon as they’ve removed all graduation/testing requirements.

Re: Maryland will hand out 133k Chromebooks to the public

#103

Post by hulitu »

madars wrote: post #13

Recent Chromebooks are extremely nice devices. For example, $299 at BestBuy gets you an Asus CM3401. It has AMD Ryzen CPU (with similar performance as 8th gen mobile i7), 1080p screen, and an M.2 SSD you can upgrade yourself. Downside is the weight -- 1.8kg (almost 4lbs) -- and that 16 GB RAM model costs extra. But perfectly good for using Crostini (ChromeOS's Linux VM -- you can run your favorite Debian programs, in…

Can you run linux on bare metal on them ?

Re: Maryland will hand out 133k Chromebooks to the public

#104

Post by robertlagrant »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #80
robertlagrant wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is people get Chromebooks, not that people get something of the value of $300.

If they need a laptop, they'll buy one. If they need something else, they'll buy that instead

See my comment. The goal wasn't to give people $300.

Re: Maryland will hand out 133k Chromebooks to the public

#105

Post by tomjen3 »

robocat wrote: post #68
sokoloff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. The amount of wasteful greedy/hoarding behavior that is induced by free and is curbed by charging even $20 is quite high. Charging 50% of the going resale rate is probably enough to prevent hoarding and substantially curb resale. That might be slightly too much for the aims of the program, in which case adjust as needed, realizing that you're trading off one outcome for another.

"user pays" prevents the benefit from occurring. For example in New Zealand (public healthcare) there used to be a $5 copay for prescribed medication (by government healthcare doctors). There is now no copay ($0) because 3% of people would not get the medicine because of cost. This was particularly true for low-income families, Māori, Pacific peoples, and disabled New Zealanders. That said, our conservative party wan…

I admit that I am hard pressed to have sympathy for people who won't even get themselves 5 dollars to scrap together for something as essential as medicine and that may cloud my judgement, but in your example there is still a filter that prevents hoarding, as somebody has to first go to a doctor to get the prescription and the medicine will only be given to people who have some need for it.

In this case essentially everybody could benefit from getting a government paid laptop, if only to resell it, which I think means that there is a big difference between the two cases.

Re: Maryland will hand out 133k Chromebooks to the public

#106

Post by Rebelgecko »

shortrounddev2 wrote: post #84
Rebelgecko wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, the most recent survey in the special unhoused enforcement zone near me found that the number of people living on the streets was almost identical to the number of empty beds at the shelter.

A lot of homeless people don't go to shelters because they can be more dangerous than sleeping on the street

I really can't imagine how having a tiny home with 4 walls and a door with a 24/7 security guard would be more dangerous than a tent on the sidewalk. I do know that 1-2 people per month get kicked out of the shelter for fighting, but not sure how that compares to life on the streets.

I think a bigger factor is that the tiny homes limit how much stuff you can bring (aka 1 bike per person, cant build your own structures on the land, no drugs, etc), which seems to be the most common reason people gave for not wanting to go.

Re: Maryland will hand out 133k Chromebooks to the public

#107

Post by jfengel »

If the goal is to "bring high-speed internet to all corners of Maryland", then Chromebooks won't solve the problem. Much of Maryland has either zero broadband providers or one extremely expensive one.

We do have a Maryland Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, but $15/month isn't going to make much of an inroads on a $100+/month bill.

Rural places often have no broadband at all. We have an office trying to solve that over the next three years, but even that's not going to help if the price is over $100 per month.

Re: Maryland will hand out 133k Chromebooks to the public

#108

Post by robocat »

tomjen3 wrote: post #105
robocat wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"user pays" prevents the benefit from occurring. For example in New Zealand (public healthcare) there used to be a $5 copay for prescribed medication (by government healthcare doctors). There is now no copay ($0) because 3% of people would not get the medicine because of cost. This was particularly true for low-income families, Māori, Pacific peoples, and disabled New Zealanders. That said, our conservative party wan…

I admit that I am hard pressed to have sympathy for people who won't even get themselves 5 dollars to scrap together for something as essential as medicine and that may cloud my judgement, but in your example there is still a filter that prevents hoarding, as somebody has to first go to a doctor to get the prescription and the medicine will only be given to people who have some need for it. In this case essentially e…

> no sympathy

I guess you think they chose to be both sick and poor. Perhaps you also believe children choose to be sick and kids get to select their own parents?

Fortunately I live in New Zealand where we collectively want to care for unfortunate people - even though sometimes the misfortune might be their own fault.

Yes, it costs me a car in taxes every year to pay for a first world government health system. But at least my country enabled me to be rich enough to do that. And I'm lucky to be healthy - for which I can thank my fellow citizens and past governments to a good extent.

I sincerely wish you the best of luck to be healthy and wealthy.

Re: Maryland will hand out 133k Chromebooks to the public

#109

Post by shortrounddev2 »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #106
shortrounddev2 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of homeless people don't go to shelters because they can be more dangerous than sleeping on the street

I really can't imagine how having a tiny home with 4 walls and a door with a 24/7 security guard would be more dangerous than a tent on the sidewalk. I do know that 1-2 people per month get kicked out of the shelter for fighting, but not sure how that compares to life on the streets. I think a bigger factor is that the tiny homes limit how much stuff you can bring (aka 1 bike per person, cant build your own structure…

> I really can't imagine how having a tiny home with 4 walls and a door with a 24/7 security guard would be more dangerous than a tent on the sidewalk

One: many homeless people feel dehumanized by how they're treated by the staff, and

Two: homeless shelters are full of homeless people

Re: Maryland will hand out 133k Chromebooks to the public

#110

Post by JaDogg »

graphe wrote: post #81
JaDogg wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not create jobs. Seriously, this is a good way to get people related to politicians in various places that just pay a salary. Now the whole neighborhood is worse off. This will only lead to corruption and nepotism. Helping businesses with something like an incubator is a good idea, and these businesses can create jobs instead of the government creating jobs. Hopefully, these Chromebooks will make it easier…

Let's accept that corruption will occur in all situations. What would be the best way to use Mr. A's tax from Mr. B's perspective for Mr. C?

More transparency isn't it.. (put all documents / budgets /etc in an easy to access / easy to understand and read public website, and please hire a UI/UX person to actually do the frontend)
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