Teachers Protest After School District Scraps Macs Over Cost, Performance
11:45 am, January 22nd, 2010, Nicole Martinelli
The Toronto District School Board decided to phase out Apple computers — about 8% of the 63,000 machines used by some 250,000 kids — in mid-November.
It seems board members bought in to the idea that Macs are more expensive than PCs:
“The Apple computer in a large-scale network―their capabilities for automatically managing that many machines really pales to what’s available in the PC world,” Lee Stem, general manager of Information and Technology Services for the Board, told Torontoist.
“At the end of the day, it really comes down to getting as many devices in the hands of as many people as possible,” added Stem. “Every penny that we save…all that money is going to bring more technology into the hands of kids.”
Teachers in the district are using those last Apple computers to plead with the bureaucrats to keep Macs in the mix. (No more Apple computers will be bought for general use, though they may still be purchased for “special use” classes, like art, video editing or music composition.)
Chris Higgins, a Swansea Public School tech instructor started an online petition in protest. He’s collected over five hundred signatures so far, many from community members and TDSB employees.
Higgins is particularly peeved about losing Garage Band:
“It’s really a unique program,” he said, over Skype from a computer in his school’s Mac lab. “It does podcasting better than any other program. It’s unique to Mac. Not only can you record your voice and do the fade in, fade out, and all those types of effects, but you can put multiple tracks in.”
The video protest above by Colin McAuley, media literacy teacher, on a school iMac and posted on YouTube emphasizes how the computers help him assess student work, especially ESL students or those who aren’t great writers.
“I fire up iMovie and teach the kids to demonstrate their work and talk about it to the camera…It’s a fantastic way to assess their knowledge….That all comes out of the box with a Mac…It’s easy for kids to sit down and show me what they know.”
Scott Baker, a teacher at Pringdale Gardens Public School and a former technology consultant with the Board, also opposed the plan. He wrote a killer open letter to Chris Spence, the new Director of Education for TDSB, where he debunks the expensive Mac myth, among other points about performance and capabilities.
The Macs also have another powerful ally: Trustee Michael Coteau introduced a motion [DOC] that insists not only upon continued Mac support and the immediate integration of iPhones in the Board’s systems.
The motion will go before the Board’s Administration, Finance and Accountability Committee on January 27.
Stay tuned.
Via Torontoist
Posted by Nicole Martinelli in News, Top stories | Comment on this article
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I am a student from Toronto in the TDSB and so many teachers love using Macs in the schools and don’t want them faded out. Even with the sheer number of Mac loving teachers how can they get rid of them? I hate the argument I hear form allot of the financial distributors that work in the school say “It’s just too expensive” which is total crap because I always hear them complain that they always have computers going down, not allowing enough computers for the students and that to repair them all the time costs soo much. If only they moved 100% over to Macs would they see that this would never happen and they would save thousands if not millions of dollars on units.
Welcome to the sad reality of the uninformed.
DarkxPunk, on January 22nd, 2010 at 11:53 am
hmmm wow, look like tech people don’t want to loose their job. If they equip the school only with mac, no more job for technical support.
Man, what a bad decision, hope they will revise that decision
crobi, on January 22nd, 2010 at 11:55 am
If you are in that school, give to the uniform people who decide that to read that article. They will find,that their reason of higher cost is not true, really not.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/298043/Mac_Attack_An_enterprise_PC_shop_switches_to_Apple
crobi, on January 22nd, 2010 at 11:58 am
looks like those two fellows are doing it right. they aren’t using the whole “macs never have issues” which is a myth and the PC folks would slam them on it (the flicker and yellow screens ballywho is ripe for use).
but hitting them where it is being argued. Money. the cost of total ownership, the cost of replacement for existing Macs etc.
I will say at the least, kudos to the this board for recognizing that some classes and such are better off with Macs so they aren’t totally killing things.
Perhaps this board can be persuaded to lengthen the period of phase out. Basically instead of just trashing all the computers and making a ton of ewaste etc, why not simply wait for the computers in the ‘genpop’ to die and THEN replace them with a current PC. Unless the Mac is a PPC or an intel 4-5 years old already it could be a while. Perhaps they could also be persuaded to wait and examine the issue when that die out starts. see which the pricing, discounts etc are between the two realms and make a decision.
Charli, on January 22nd, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Shamefully short sighted. They should, of course, consider Open Source if they want to save some cash (they should anyway).
A Linux desktop + suite of complimenting open source apps is the way forward for business, education etc.
Mac for home.
Linux desktop @ work/school.
Linux servers looking after the web/databases (LAMP stack etc).
Microsoft servers at the back end for MS Exchange & Active Directory.
Job done, everyone is happy
RichBos, on January 22nd, 2010 at 3:15 pm
It makes sense to me, Mac’s have poor support for mass imaging, application deployment and group policy which means you don’t have any real economy of scale when managing with ten thousand macs instead to ten. For schools it would make more sense to run dumb terminals, net books and low end computers that use streaming applications which are connected to two or three Windows or Linux servers per school depending on what kind of applications are needed, and what sort of discounts or freebies Microsoft gives out.
MakesSense, on January 22nd, 2010 at 7:48 pm
Hey ho, MAKLESENSE you don’t read the article of computer world in a my post at 11h58 am today in this news???
crobi, on January 22nd, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Hey crobi,
I did read that article. It was from two years ago and discussed the cost benefit for a large firm of moving from a Windows XP workstation environment to an Apple OS X environment for the front end while keeping the back-end server environment largely the same.
In it there is no discussion about the economy of OS X having any economy of scale or a comparison between the two. The firm believed that the cost per Mac would be lower in the long run compared to running Windows XP computers across all of these sites, and given their large IT staff (remember they were coding their own Java applications) I suspect that it might have been.
My argument is that a school could easily save money by switching from Macs to using server based environment where nearly all computers are simply connected to terminal servers which host applications. Since most school districts want to restrict users from installing things and easily centrally manage everything, this makes the most sense. Also, when using terminals instead of full workstations your cost per unit is lower and the cost of deploying and provisioning each unit is also far lower (all it does is connect to the server).
Some independent workstations and laptops would still be required, but there is no reason that these couldn’t be Macs or locked down members of a Windows domain or Linux computers that are members of a managed LDAP group.
This is what is known as a thin client solution and relies on effective network communication to function correctly, but when implemented correctly it can result in a massive cost savings for management (there are fewer complex computers to manage), hardware costs (each terminal is extremely cheap, only the servers and switching equipment for the network are expensive) and deployment costs (all you need to do is plug in a terminal computer and users can freely move between all terminals on a network since their data is stored on the servers, not their computers).
MakesSense, on January 22nd, 2010 at 8:55 pm
If the teachers feel they are happiest and most productive using Macs, then why argue with them? The school administration might reason that switching to PCs might save on “cost” (i.e. that Mac hardware is more expensive). But if the switch makes those same teachers to be vocally unhappy (as is the headline in this article), resentful, dissatisfied, and less productive using the new PCs, then the “cost savings” would have been neutralized in the end.
Mattzook, on January 23rd, 2010 at 5:16 am
Macs are expensive. Its not a myth its the truth. That being said you get what you pay for. I’m not surprised the Toronto school chose to scrap their Macs and just go PC for the simple fact that for a third less they can get a crappy low end ugly looking PC thats just as powerful albeit clunky and probably loaded full of next to useless programs . Its a shame really. I wish Apple would give places like schools a break and maybe discount some of their Macs for school districts. It would be a win win situation on many levels.
1. the school districts would get their Macs and keep their budget within cost efficient parameters,
2. you would get the technology out to the kids
3. it would be excellent PR for Apple
4. it would put Apple in a far better position for the future in that considering those kids grew up using Macs in school when they’re adults they’ll be far more likely to buy Macs over PC’s
Just my 2 cents what do the rest of you think about my idea?
porkchop1234, on January 23rd, 2010 at 5:28 am
RichBos linux is for gay´s
linus torvard, on January 23rd, 2010 at 1:16 pm
The TDSB is so wrong. (Like many SB in other area’s are now realizing after making the same mistake.) The ONLY winners are those working in the IT department, as they continue with job security. With several 7 yr old mac’s in my house, things are still running as smooth as the day they come home. Extremely reliable machines compared to the PC garbage that’s out there. Apple is engineering products that no other company can compete with in quality and style, it’s a REAL shame the leaders of these school boards (who are payed by your taxes) cannot look past the initial price of a Mac. Yes I will agree they are more, however what you get in “out of the Box” software abilities and Mac quality is truly SECOND to NONE.
I feel SO sorry for the children and Teachers of TDSB. Good luck with the fight.
Buckwheat, on January 24th, 2010 at 1:14 am
The “teachers need to be happy” argument is garbage. They want to keep the Macs because it’s what they’ve been using. If they were forced to switch in the other direction you would hear the same argument. Hey – they’ll be happier if we raise their salaries by 50% so why aren’t we doing that? I applaud a school district that is looking to reduce costs. They can’t do it on salaries because of the choke-hold the union has on the budget so they have to do it where they can. BTW – my wife works for a school and is the beneficiary of said unions, but I still understand what a raw deal it is for the taxpayers.
BtotheD, on January 28th, 2010 at 11:00 am