Comptroller Scott Stringer announced that the DOE can't account for $347 million it spent to wire middle schools for high speed internet. Stringer also said that a survey of teachers and principals showed that large numbers were not satisfied with their internet service at school.
This is from a Daily News piece:
The city Education Department has no record of how it spent $347 million earmarked to upgrade internet service at middle schools, an audit showed Sunday.
The department began to update its broadband technology by installing fiber optic cables and other components in all of its 503 middle schools in 2007.
The project was completed last year, but there are no documents showing how much it actually cost, project plans or progress reports, according to city Controller Scott Stringer.
In addition, many educators are frustrated by the service, according to a user-satisfaction survey Stringer’s office conducted.
All told, 33% of the 440 middle school principals and staff who responded said they were not satisfied with the internet service, 45% said the speed did not meet their instructional needs, and 25% said the service was inadequate.
“If we’re going to be the greatest city in the world in this century and the next, we have to prepare our kids for the future,” Stringer said.
“It’s pretty hard to engage a child when the video takes five minutes to load,” he added. “It’s not easy to spread joy and promote the love of learning if a child is at a laptop watching the spinning wheel of death for an extended period.”
The Department of Education comment on this story is a classic:
In response to the survey, department officials argued there was no need to improve the internet service.
They said “school-based respondents were confused by the phrasing of the auditors’ User Satisfaction Survey question about bandwidth upgrades.”
DOE wastes a fortune; educators are unhappy and the DOE replies that nothing is wrong.
OK so this story is really a "dog bites man" piece that Harris Lirtzman sent me.
Is anyone in the least bit surprised by the DOE wasting money or people in the schools being unhappy with their internet service?
Do any of our readers have any stories of wasted money or slow internet?
14 comments:
Check diBLAHsio, Farina & Mulgrew's pockets.
The NYC DOE is disgusting! At my school the internet is AMAZINGLY slow! It takes minutes to load google home page, let alone a video. When the students go on their G-drive accounts it can take them half a period just to open it!
We do IXL an online learning tool, the principal needs to announce over the loud speaker that only ___ class is allowed on the internet now, just so they can access the internet!
I create a Hot Spot with my cellphone in the classroom and the kids can use the IPads to at least do some research. This is absolutely disgusting! My own children go to a school in the suburbs. The kids there all get Ipads given to them and do their work on them. They take all their tests online, and even the state exam.
We are really letting these kids down!
The DOE squandered the CFE money.
I agree the DOE is letting our kids down! What about all the money spent on useless PDs each week when teachers could be doing lesson planning, record keeping, grading, etc.? These PDs are contracted out and cost the school so much money that could be spent on getting more teachers, librarians, more elective classes (art, music, tech, AP classes) lower class size, guidance counselors, etc.
PD is one the biggest wastes in the DOE. Completely useless money sucking outfits that are there because they engratiated themselves.
Some of these bozos are getting $1400 a day to teach a class that would be rated ineffective by any Danielson worshipper.
I pretty much agree with everything said so far!
It is ridiculous how much the DOE wastes on useless things. You want to bring in some guy to tell us how to teach when we all know the principal and AP's would rate your lesson ineffective? Yeah...right.
The internet at my current school isn't bad, could be better. It's more the laptops are a bit old. We need those nice, shiny Success Academy laptops.
Yup--'dog bites man' but this is a very, very special kind of dog:
'Accountability of our tax dollars means that we want to see this money in our schools,” Stringer said.
“The DOE is one of the least transparent agencies in the government. They’d rather hide everything than open up their books.”
Why is deBlasio retaining control of the schools? They are hiding everything. The only time deBlasio does anything is if the media gets involved.
I wish there were some outside entity that could do a complete and thorough audit of the DOE. I am sure they would find that only .30 cents of every dollar actually makes it to the classroom. The rest goes to the clowns that claim to have all the answers, the Educrats and their never ending stream of BULLSHIT.
Now if only we had a real union to spearhead this effort.
Check out Principal Namita Dwarka from Bryant.....her off-shore bank account in Guyana is bustin!
She is very well liked by the Chancellor.
What about the de blasio staffer arrested on kiddie porn charges? Another shining star...
The internet is despicable in schools! I've been an ATR for 3 years and traveled to dozens of schools. The computers, ipads, smart-boards, etc. generally don't work. When they do work, they are processing too slowly, or the internet is impossible to navigate because it is so slow.
I just don't see anyone at all caring. They blame the teachers, they throw away the kids, and there is no accountability.
Unfortunately, you are describing reality in too many schools. What borough or district do you rotate in?
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