"if you build the API, the app will come"
Parents built a school app. Then the city called the cops
31–40 of 62 posts
Re: Parents built a school app. Then the city called the cops
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let us spend our school tax money on schools of our choice then.
This is absolutely correct. Public schools can compete with private schools via vouchers. The crazy anti-gays can send their kids to whatever church or madrasa or whatever. The disruptive kids can go wherever. The smart kids can go wherever.
The problem of given that choice is that smart people will go to strong academic schools.
Then Billions wasted on "reducing the differences" will show that people want and choose to be different.
Then various narratives will die in the cemetery of good intentions...
Re: Parents built a school app. Then the city called the cops
#33For stories like this, 99% of the time it’s a government institution. That’s because the primary purpose of these is to leech money off people to provide an inferior service. This happens because the worse the service the more money they get. “We need more funding” is their common cry but the marginal dollar provides zero or negative value as even more corrupt leeches flock to the system to extract all excess dollars…
If you're going to extrapolate your experience of US governments to a story about Europe, you could at least localise "marginal dollar".
Re: Parents built a school app. Then the city called the cops
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Schools should work for kids. Period. They often don’t, but let’s keep our focus. Schools need to collaborate with parents to work for kids. Parents need to collaborate with schools to work for kids.
As a parent of five kids, I think the problem is in many districts, the schools do not want to collaborate with the parents. In fact, it seems like whenever possible, the schools do things to make it harder for parents to collaborate, especially on actual education: * Objectives are rarely published so parents can understand what is being taught. * Common core math makes it impossible for parents who did not learn co…
Tragedy of the commons - enough parents don't see their kids as anything but perfect to dissuade teachers from wanting to talk to the parents about issues their little darlings have.
That said,
> Common core math makes it impossible for parents who did not learn common core style calculation
Is false. I didn't learn common core as a child, but I was able to pick it up as an adult. There's a lot of good resources online.
Tip: It's how most of 'us' do mental math, spelled out and codified. Rough estimates refined in further steps.
Re: Parents built a school app. Then the city called the cops
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
[flagged]
It's just not extremely religious parents, and comparing them to Taliban says a lot about you. And who should dictate what kind of material school teach? Who should decide that this is benefitial to children and that is a harmful propaganda? Parents should have a say, because they are well, parents.
And many parents are idiots.
Society - our buffer against loud individuals - should have the say.
Re: Parents built a school app. Then the city called the cops
#36For stories like this, 99% of the time it’s a government institution. That’s because the primary purpose of these is to leech money off people to provide an inferior service. This happens because the worse the service the more money they get. “We need more funding” is their common cry but the marginal dollar provides zero or negative value as even more corrupt leeches flock to the system to extract all excess dollars…
I had this explained once by a civil engineer planning highway work. He said that teams who finish on-time and on-budget charge more. Newer teams less likely to meet requirements charge less to account for the higher risk. So it’s a risk vs. cost curve.
In civil engineering, risk is taken seriously and the cheaper pitches are less-often taken. In IT, decision makers don’t yet understand the risks so they always accept the lowest bid.
Re: Parents built a school app. Then the city called the cops
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Schools should work to produce well rounded educated productive citizens for the community. Agreed, but who defines this? Parents deserve input, as key stakeholders and as taxpayers.
Stakeholder != Owner Yes, parents have a role. Yes, parents have a stake. They are not exclusive in this.
Is there a better definition of who “owns” a school other than the public tax payers?
Re: Parents built a school app. Then the city called the cops
#38For stories like this, 99% of the time it’s a government institution. That’s because the primary purpose of these is to leech money off people to provide an inferior service. This happens because the worse the service the more money they get. “We need more funding” is their common cry but the marginal dollar provides zero or negative value as even more corrupt leeches flock to the system to extract all excess dollars…
If you're going to extrapolate your experience of US governments to a story about Europe, you could at least localise "marginal dollar".
The dollar is the universal global currency. It represents ,in a synechochal sense, money.
The behaviour is actually universal. Berlin wastes money on Linux conversion through the same process. Governments are governments wherever they are.
Sweden isn’t this paradise of non-corruption you think it is.
Re: Parents built a school app. Then the city called the cops
#39Hope this isn't too off topic: I've noticed increasingly in the past few years, news article headlines of this exact form: . Then . Personally it often feels like clickbait to the point that the title feels like a disservice to the actual content. But what I'm interested in is - is this a particular person's style of writing? Or is it actually a trend?
I have no actual evidence but it’s something I’ve observed anecdotally too. I strongly suspect it’s the reality of online journalism: analytics tells you exactly what headline format gets the biggest audience and everyone has discovered it’s this one.
I’m personally a little less convinced that it’s a disservice: in this instance it is an accurate summary of the article, as well as explaining the reasons why you might be interested to read it. The headline could be “The story of some parents creating an app for their school” but that’s actually less descriptive as well as less exciting. I don’t think it’s automatically better.
Re: Parents built a school app. Then the city called the cops
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let us spend our school tax money on schools of our choice then.
This is absolutely correct. Public schools can compete with private schools via vouchers. The crazy anti-gays can send their kids to whatever church or madrasa or whatever. The disruptive kids can go wherever. The smart kids can go wherever.
This is a terrible approach. Unless of course you’re ok with leaving the poor and handicapped and otherwise different kids behind.