Cry "Poverty!" And Let Slip The Dogs Of Tax Increases

Springfield schools have gotten a big bond issue passed and can't wait to spend that money frivolously, this time on interactive white boards in classrooms.  All of the classrooms.

By fall 2012, every Springfield Public Schools
classroom will have a smart board and projector.

The school board approved a trio of bids to purchase
and install the equipment at its mid-July meeting.

Bear that in mind the next time that Springfield Schools need help with paying salaries.  Instead of paying teachers or building new facilities, they've opted to spend money on technology.  Anyone with business experience will tell you that spending money on hardware is not an investment.  Not only does it depreciate immediately, but you have to continually spend money to keep the technology up to date.  For example, computers running Windows XP are soon to be out-of-date and unsupported, so if you bought 900 computers in 2005, you have to replace them, their operating systems at least, in 2010 or 2011 to keep them current.  And who wants students learning out-of-date technologies?

Aside from the purposefully short-term replacement costs, the operating costs of technology are pretty extreme, too.  Put in a lot of computers, and you have to hire a network administrator.  Put in a lot of smart white boards, and you have:

The smart board project carries initial and ongoing
expenses.

All teachers are expected to go through six hours of
training for the technology — at an average cost of $75 per person — and light
bulbs for the new projectors can cost up to $300.

The training will be paid for out of the 2010-11 and
future operating budgets, as it's expected to wrap up as the final smart boards
are installed in late 2012. The "site" budget — the amount allotted to
principals, based on enrollment, was also increased slightly to cover the cost
of replacing bulbs.

"They're getting a little bit cheaper and last longer,"
Kissinger said of projector lightbulbs, which have an average life cycle of 1.8
to 2.5 years. "It could potentially last longer."

1500 projectors times 300 dollars per every 2 years means the school district will need to spend $225,000 each year for bulbs for the projectors.  According to salary.com, that would be the salary of four midlevel teachers.

Here's a waste of money:

"If we could give every student a computer, we would,"
said Rick Green, director of information technology for the 24,000-student
district. "This is as close as we could get."

I don't mean just the idea of giving away computers.  Bloody heck, in my day, if I got one of the loaned textbooks dirty, I had to pay a fine, now they want to give students free computers.  Give them the textbooks instead.

No, I mean a Director of IT.  That's a position the school districts didn't have to pay for when I was growing up.

If you could prove to me that student scores were improving at a pace to justify the amount thrown away on technology, you might convince me it's worthwhile.  Maybe.  But this is not a good metric to prove success of technology initiatives:

"Using smart boards are an interactive means to engage
students in the learning process," said Mendel, who witnessed the technology in
action during weekly visits to classrooms. "When they ask for a volunteer, every
single hand shoots up. They just can't get enough."

You know what else would improve the interactive means of engaging the learning process?  Do a math problem on the chalkboard, get a shot of whiskey.  Or free ice cream.

So let's review: The school district gets a one-time bucket of money, spends it on a project that requires very expensive ongoing expenditures from the normal operating budget because students who like shiny things and administrators who like bigger budgets enjoy them (not necessarily because they work, but because they're expensive and shiny).  And next year or the next, the school district will need some additional revenue to close a budget shortfall.  Or am I the only one with that particular crystal ball that needs a new lamp every year or two at a cost of $300?