Verizon Charges New 'Spam' Fee For Texts Sent From Teachers To Students (arstechnica.com) 145
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A free texting service used by teachers, students, and parents may stop working on the Verizon Wireless network because of a dispute over texting fees that Verizon demanded from the company that operates the service. As a result, teachers that use the service have been expressing their displeasure with Verizon. Remind -- the company that offers the classroom communication service -- criticized Verizon for charging the new fee. Remind said its service's text message notifications will stop working on the Verizon network on January 28 unless Verizon changes course. (Notifications sent via email or via Remind's mobile apps will continue to work.) The controversy cropped up shortly after a Federal Communications Commission decision that allowed U.S. carriers' text-messaging services to remain largely unregulated. Verizon says the fee must be charged to fund spam-blocking services. Remind said in a statement: "To offer our text-messaging service free of charge, Remind has always paid for each text that users receive or send. Now, Verizon is charging Remind an additional fee intended for companies that send spam over its network. Your Remind messages aren't spam, but that hasn't helped resolve the issue with Verizon. The fee will increase our cost of supporting text messaging to at least 11 times our current cost -- forcing us to end free Remind text messaging for the more than 7 million students, parents, and educators who have Verizon Wireless as their carrier."
About time... (Score:2)
...them teachers switched to something like WhatsApp.
Re:About time... (Score:5, Informative)
...them teachers switched to something like WhatsApp.
Didn't see the sarcasm tag so I'm assuming that's serious. Teachers cannot use private messaging services like WhatsApp, at least in the US. All communication with students has to be archived as it should be accessible to parents via the Freedom of Information App. It also protects teachers from unfounded accusations by students.
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Teachers cannot use private messaging services like WhatsApp, at least in the US. All communication with students has to be archived
Why does the fact that they are "private" mean that messages can't be archived? Why doesn't the ban apply to Verizon, which is also a private company?
I don't use WhatsApp, but I do use WeChat, and one of the options for how long to keep messages is "Forever". I have a log of every message I have ever sent or received, going back over a decade.
Re: About time... (Score:1)
Who told you that? No archiving necessary.
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You have a log going back over a decade of every message you sent using an app that was first released in 2011?
Interesting...
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As a professor at a left-coast US university: holy shit, I would never give students my cell phone number, and I don't want theirs. Students are creepy and will take any opportunity to do all sorts of creepy things. Little future axe-murderers of America will sit through all your office hours or follow you around campus because they have no friends and because you look like the father figure they never had. The university provides me with an e-mail address for sending students reminders about things, and
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They have some Richards, as well.
Re:About time... (Score:4, Informative)
All communication with students has to be archived as it should be accessible to parents via the Freedom of Information App.
Wait, what?
You can't be talking about the Freedom Of Information Act, because that only covers making federal records available. It doesn't actually mandate keeping any records, though - that's covered by other acts like the Presidential Records Act which has been in the news lately.
For educational records, there is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, but that has a similar effect in that it allows for records to be reviewed and corrected, but it doesn't appear (in my quick reading) to actually require schools to make new records.
It also protects teachers from unfounded accusations by students.
That seems more like the actual reason.
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Most - if not all - states have a FOIA equivalent at the state level. In Tennessee, it's 10-7-503, for instance:
https://law.justia.com/codes/t... [justia.com]
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All communication with students has to be archived as it should be accessible to parents via the Freedom of Information App. It also protects teachers from unfounded accusations by students.
I would think this would make texting less attractive.
My kid's school uses ClassDojo.
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... because students should be compelled to agree with another abusive TOS
The messages are also available on the school website. The texts are for convenience, but the information can be either pushed or pulled.
... and be forced to have high speed Internet access at home?
Receiving a text does not require "high speed".
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Can a minor actually legally agree to a TOS? Don't legally binding documents need the approval of a parent or guardian?
At the beginning of the school year, a parent receives a packet of documents that are signed and returned. This includes authorization for direct electronic communication between school and student.
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WhatsApp has an abusive TOS and requires high speed internet.
WhatsApp is not the only messaging app.
Also, WhatsApp does NOT require "high speed" internet. It will work fine over 2G or DSL.
Misleading Summary & Article (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is *not* that Verizon has decided to go after one particular School SMS provider.
Rather, Verizon has decided to charge bulk SMS providers (in this case, Twilio [twilio.com]) a per-text-message fee. This fee is said to help pay for Verizon's anti-spam efforts.
Twilio then decided to pass this fee to customers in the exact amount Verizon charged.
Two other providers in Canada (Rogers & Bell) already charge Twilio similar fees, and other carriers are expected to do so soon.
Remind just happens to be a Twilio customer. But all Twilio customers {and customers of similar SMS services} are affected.
Fuck You And Your Facts! (Score:2, Funny)
How dare you try to tamp down an opportunity for another tempest in a teapot? This is my chance for daily pointless internet outrage and cyber-lynching. I will not have you sedating the rabble with your soporific "facts".
Please cease and desist immediately.
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So, this seems like a good place to ask...
Is there a competitor or similar service to Twilio out there? I just started using it a couple of weeks ago prototyping some internal stuff for our business. I don't have any high volume needs. If I send 100 texts in a single day that'd probably be really high.
It's easy enough to use but if I've been wondering if there's a better or cheaper alternative out there.
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So, this seems like a good place to ask...
Is there a competitor or similar service to Twilio out there? I just started using it a couple of weeks ago prototyping some internal stuff for our business. I don't have any high volume needs. If I send 100 texts in a single day that'd probably be really high.
It's easy enough to use but if I've been wondering if there's a better or cheaper alternative out there.
signalwire.com is very similar but also very new. Same developers as FreeSwitch.
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Thanks! Signalwire's published prices are 1/8th that of Twilio.
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This fee is said to help pay for Verizon's anti-spam efforts.
Said the company with $32B in net income [macrotrends.net] (profits):
Verizon net income for the twelve months ending September 30, 2018 was $32.258B, a 102.54% increase year-over-year.
Seriously, how much could anti-spam efforts cost them?
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This fee is said to help pay for Verizon's anti-spam efforts.
Said the company with $32B in net income [macrotrends.net] (profits):
Verizon net income for the twelve months ending September 30, 2018 was $32.258B, a 102.54% increase year-over-year.
Seriously, how much could anti-spam efforts cost them?
A few million for some good programmers and spam AI, which is probably off the shelf at this point.
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Depends if they use Hollywood accounting or real world accounting.
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Uh, some of us sign up for these things because it's hard to keep track of all your kids' various practices, homework assignments, and other school stuff. I don't have Verizon so this doesn't affect me, but if I did I'd be installing the app so that I continue to receive the messages.
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Verizon is charging Twilio more and they are passing the cost on to their users. Remind wanted an exemption to the fee increase bec
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This doesn't jibe with their announcement [remind.com]:
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Uh, yeah I did. You seem to have invented something that I can't find in there. Please cite.
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Technically, Verizon is charging the new fee to Twilio and Twilio is passing it on to Remind, Grey said. Remind has been paying Twilio to deliver text messages since 2011, he said.
But after re-reading the announcement from Remind more carefully as you suggested, and the additional story that came out today (Thurs), I acknowledge that I was incorrect in my assumption that this affected all users of Remind and not just Verizon users. Thanks for the clarification.
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Why did you have the kid, then?
Because someone actually wanted to procreate with me.
Re:The funny thing about spammers (Score:4, Informative)
Except that Remind actually IS NOT spamming. I'm not sure how often this is used to communicate directly with students in upper grades or college. My experience is with it used in elementary school for the teachers to send information to the parents. It also allows parents to respond back to the group, and one parent to respond to any other parent in the class. And it does this without anyone having to share their email address or phone number with each other. The parents voluntarily sign up for the list, so it's not spam even if you don't like the messages being sent.
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....so like a listserv. This app sounds fine if it works for a given community, but it seems like a solution in search of a problem given that email exists.
In my daughter's class the parents just got together and shared everyone's email address (and phone number if they wanted to), and the teacher sends out a weekly summary/reminder about what is going on, assignments, etc. I don't really see the big deal in sharing some basic contact information with people who are going to have a huge influence on your
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it seems like a solution in search of a problem given that email exists.
Not all parents are rich enough to already have a PC and Internet at home. Phones on Lifeline plans are less likely to support email.
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....so like a listserv. This app sounds fine if it works for a given community, but it seems like a solution in search of a problem given that email exists.
"Severe Thunderstorm Warning / Flash Flood Warning / Armed Robbery at University and Fourth. Seek shelter if on campus." If those messages go to email, no one will see them for up to 24 hours. There's not even a guarantee of delivery!
SMS serves a specific niche that apps and email don't.
Real world use (Score:3)
Except that Remind actually IS NOT spamming. I'm not sure how often this is used to communicate directly with students in upper grades or college.
My school district uses it and it's hugely helpful. The team I coach uses it to great effect. We send out a few messages a week with information parents and students need to know. It results in a few messages a week mostly. Nothing unreasonable and it's entirely voluntary. But the utility means most parents sign up since they tend to like to know what's going on and I'm not about to call them one by one to explain everything.
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Who said it was spamming? Verizon is charging text-based services (like Twillo) a fee to fund anti-spam efforts.
Remind runs 1.6 billion texts/year through Twillo on the Verizon network, and as the source of over 4 billion text messages year, Verizon is charging Twillo a fee to help fund anti-spam measures.
Remind isn't being targeted, it is being asked by Twillo to pay it's share of the fee Verizon is charging it.
Paying a fee to fight spam doesn't mean you are a spammer, just as paying a 9/11 anti-terrorism [tsa.gov]
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Wait, not all airline customers are terrorists? Based on current and past TSA practices I wouldn't believe that's true.
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Is that spammers never believe the messages they send are spam.
Sorry, I don't need a bunch of BS being sent to my cell phone. If I'm in school, tell me in person. If it's after hours, leave me the hell alone.
Don't sign up to it and you'll be fine.
This isn't spam (Score:3)
Sorry, I don't need a bunch of BS being sent to my cell phone. If I'm in school, tell me in person. If it's after hours, leave me the hell alone.
You obviously don't have children. It's not "a bunch of BS" and a lot of information needs to reach parents and students outside of school hours. I coach a sports team at a high school. We need to be able to reach parents and students and services like Remind (which we use) help a LOT with this. I am not a teacher and I have a real job. We send out information that everyone on the team needs to know in a timely and cost effective manner. Expecting schools to waste money chasing you down in person only
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And thus shows your bias.
I had girls in high school, and could not get the damn school to stop sending me automated calls for stupid shit. Maybe if they have to pay for each call/text, they will consider them more carefully.
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This services are stupid anyway (Score:1)
I hate services that text me stuff. There is a priority order for messaging:
* Look at it within a few days = email
* Look at it within a few minutes = text
* I need to communicate with you NOW = phone call & voice mail
I keep finding these services crop-up that use text & phone calls for things like "Don't forget that next Tuesday is a field trip! And Friday will be blue shirt day!" I do not need my phone buzzing during a work meeting for that.
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The school bus is going to be 25 minutes late, yes I'd like to see that notice from the school letting me know this in a timely fashion.
It's not my fault you lack the ability to not to look at your phone every time it goes buzz buzz in your pocket.
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I'm unclear why you insulted me when you provided an example that proved my point. ??? Your example is a good use of text messaging, thank you.
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That's pretty much the entire point of using Remind, so that the school can inform you of important things like that. Didn't really mean to come off so snarky, but people really do need to be better about not checking every little buzz buzz from the phone, especially during meetings.
it's unfortunate, but other things can be used (Score:3, Informative)
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They are charging Twillo a usage fee because they are a "heavy user" of the SMS services of Verizon, to the tune of 4.6 Billion message/year (that's over a half-million messages an hour, every hour of every day for a year). Twillo is (proportionally) passing that fee on to Remind, which generates 1.6 Billion messages/year (182K messages/hour, every hour of every day for a year).
Verizon isn't "charging" Remind anything, Remind chose to use a service that in-turn is choosing to pass on to it's customers (like
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It's double dipping. Each and every Verizon customer receiving those texts is paying Verizon for the ability to do so. The sender is already paying as well. It's just that Verizon decided to provide an inverse bulk discount because they can.
Why SMS? (Score:3)
Reach (Score:3)
The reason is reach.
SMS reaches 7 billion people.
Any app can only reach maximum 1-2% of that user base.
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Re:Reach (Score:5, Informative)
Not everyone has smartphones or data access. In my sons' school district there are plenty of kids whose financial situation isn't very good. They might have a bare bones phone with little to no data access. They can't afford to suck up data by installing apps (or their phone literally can't install apps) just to get reminders. For these kids, text messages work better.
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The school can simply switch to the premium plan, and all the children will get their text messages, even on Verizon, because Remind will cover the fee for paying customers.
The issue is that the vast majority of Remind users are using the free service Remind offers.
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What, you guys don't have phones?
Re:Why SMS? (Score:4, Insightful)
Install an app
I don't want another push app that simply re-implements SMS/MMS.
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Or use one of the other 3 major phone companies and dozens of resellers that still offer the service for free.
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Or use one of the other 3 major phone companies and dozens of resellers that still offer the service for free.
...until they charge a similar fee.
Seriously, why can't the school simply pay for this service if it really is so valuable?
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Our rich, well-funded school district does pay for a service.
But you can't seriously be asking why a school district would take advantage of a free service? Education is very much a zero-sum thing when it comes to funding. Revenue is limited, so a shiny perfect notification service comes at the expense of something else.
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Additionally, we don't plan on giving our daughter a smartphone until high school - so apps are not an option at all.
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Will your daughter have email? That's a zero-cost option, as is encouraging your district to actually pay for the service, rather than rely on a free service?
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Yes and in fact I'm not a huge fan of Remind. Our school district uses pretty much everything - SMS, email, twitter, automated phone calls, facebook - you can sign up for any/all of that. It looks like they use a service called School Messenger [schoolmessenger.com].
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Good point. Though at some point I think a cell phone of some sort has become as important as a telephone or computer - sort of the bare minimum to participate in modern society. Everyone will have a different threshold for their own kids, but "before they leave home" is probably best, so that they can learn to use it while still within their support structure.
Better reach with SMS than apps (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand why Remind wants to use SMS so badly? Install an app and communicate through that. This isn't a problem.
Because you can reach more people with SMS than any app. Not everyone has the latest smartphones. I have quite a few parents on teams I coach that still use flip phones. And even those who do don't really want to be checking unnecessary apps. Text messaging is close to universal so why not use it? Also not everyone has access to data connections at all times and SMS can reach more places more of the time.
Did an SMS cost study for a telco .... (Score:5, Interesting)
Including anti spam measures, all in cost per message that stays within the telco's system was less than 1 x 10 ^-5 cents per message.
All in cost included EVERYTHING: site loading, backbone network, data center, electricity, vendor support, etc.
SMS infrastructure is incredibly cheap. A telco is not giving up much when a plan includes unlimited messaging.
The only thing that inflates cost is when the message goes into another telco's system and a border fee is charged.
Caveat: Did this 10 years ago. I am sure costs have increased (dripping sarcasm).
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Remind, through Twillo, is already paying a small, per-text fee for their messages to be sent on Verizon. Verizon is assessing a separate fee to their major users to fund anti-spam measures, and at 4.5 Billion SMS messages/year on the Verizon network, Twillo is a major user of the system.
I love how Remind tried to convince Verizon not to lump in Remind's SMS messages to "free" users - why would Verizon do that? How is that in Verizon's best interest? Is Remind a non-profit charity or a for-profit business?
Remind is a very shady company anyway (Score:2, Interesting)
Remind sends emails to every teacher they can to try to get them to use their "free" service.
Once enough teachers in a district start using it, Remind contacts the school district to inform them that they are breaking the law and the paid version that archives the communications can be bought for tens of thousands of $$ a year.
This company has a business model based on borderline extortion. Hope they go out of business
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Interesting.... what law does Remind imply the school is breaking?
Not true at all (Score:4, Informative)
Remind sends emails to every teacher they can to try to get them to use their "free" service.
Not really true and even if it were there is nothing unethical about trying to reach a target audience.
Once enough teachers in a district start using it, Remind contacts the school district to inform them that they are breaking the law and the paid version that archives the communications can be bought for tens of thousands of $$ a year.
That is not their business model [hhttps].
This company has a business model based on borderline extortion. Hope they go out of business
This is quite simply a lie. I use their app and so does our school district. They don't extort anyone.
at least they are not billing the end user for inc (Score:2)
at least they are not billing the end user for incoming txts.
Verizon and others need to stop trying to pretend (Score:3)
"Remind" could easily spin up it's own "Reminders" app, get students/parents to install it on their phones, and have it periodically check for notifications like any other messaging app on the planet over the phone's data connection (and if they roll their own, then they can store/archive the messages sent as per any government regulation requirements). And doing so would allow them to appropriately whip the finger and Verizon and any other service provider that decides it wants to charge for text messages. The only problem with this approach is that it's yet another app that has to remain resident in your's/your kid's smartphone memory eating up battery life.
Remind has an app (Score:2)
"Remind" could easily spin up it's own "Reminders" app, get students/parents to install it on their phones, and have it periodically check for notifications like any other messaging app on the planet over the phone's data connection
They already have an app and it's pretty good. We use it for the high school team I coach and it works well. But expecting everyone to install an app and to check it religiously is unrealistic. Furthermore a surprising number of people don't have smartphones either by choice or by fiscal necessity. I have several parents who either have older flip phones (by choice) or who cannot afford smartphones. If you think "just install the app" is a good solution you haven't dealt with parents and you REALLY hav
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The app shouldn't require you to manually launch it to check for messages, it should be able to monitor and display notifications as needed. But as you said, not everyone has a smart phone.
Verizon's actions in this regard are why we can't just leave services up to the free market with no regulation. This is what happens when we let industry lobbyists brib
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Twillo pumps a half-million text messages into the Verizon Network/hour - how do you propose Verizon ensure none of those half million texts are not spam?
Verizon is assessing it's big users a fee to fund anti-spam efforts.
Privacy (Score:2)
Expecting students to hand over their personal information and cell phone number to a third party is also unrealistic.
Remind gets basically no personal information and cell phone numbers aren't private. Furthermore using it is 100% voluntary. The school can't make them use it if they don't want to. Some of the parents and kids I deal with don't have phones so they can't use it even if they want to.
You really haven't dealt with the reality of just how you've sold your students privacy down the river.
Ha! Are we talking about the same people who spend their entire lives on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat? Spare me your indignation. Remind is hardly going to make a dent in their loss of privacy which they don't
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Verizon and others need to stop trying to pretend that text messages cost them huge amounts of money.
Verizon isn't acting like texts cost them huge amounts of money - they are collecting money for anti-spam efforts, you know - AI-based tools, manual review of messages, etc.
Remind, through Twillo, already pays a per-message fee to Verizon (and every other carrier), this is separate from that expense.
I read TFS, TFA, and TFC ... (Score:2)
... and the short of it is that Verizon wants more money.
yvw
It's simply amazing (Score:2)
It's amazing how parents knew anything that was going on in the school before computers and cell phones were introduces. It's almost as if they had to talk to their child or something. Maybe even the teacher once and a while. Thank goodness technology has put an end to that!
I don't understand how this worked. (Score:2)
How was it free? Remind is spending money, and presumably not sending ads to students along with the teacher's messages. How were they making money?
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If Android and IOS could just put down the hand grenades for one moment and agree on a common texting over internet protocol, then we wouldn't have to rely on SMS texting in the first place.
Like email?
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Bulk SMS company's should pay.. they are the ones using it the most.
They are the only ones facing this fee. Remind uses Twillo, Twillo pumps 4.5 Billon text messages into Verizon, and it pays a fee for each message it sends. Remind uses Twillo to send out it's text messages, all 1.6 billion of them a year. Twillo represents a constant half-million texts/hour, Remind represents 183K of those messages each hour. Twillo, and it's major client Remind, ARE the heavy users of the system.
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Teachers today (apparently) want to be available to their students 24x7, for some unknown reason - it is amazing that education manages to occur without early--evening texts from the school reminding parents that tomorrow is "Taco Tuesday" and that "the big game with their cross-town rival is this Friday night."