FCC is Offering $200 Million To Protect Schools and Libraries From Hackers 50
The Federal Communications Commission is making up to $200 million available to help schools and libraries make their computer systems more secure. From a report: The Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program will be used to evaluate whether to fund this kind of program on a more permanent basis. The funding will come through a pool of money called the Universal Service Fund (USF), which is made up of contributions from telecommunications companies. Schools and libraries participating in the program will be able to reimburse things like advanced firewalls, identity protection and authentication services, malware protection, and VPNs.
When? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this like the $42 billion "for rural broadband" they gave AT&T and Verizon who hasn't bothered to connect even one rural person?
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Considering the amount of money thrown at private industry to get broadband in this country up to speed, we should all have 500 Mbps for less than $100/month and our choice of providers.
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Re: When? (Score:2)
Well, it's less than 1% of the Verizon program, so size-wise it's not comparable.
This is money that will reimburse items schools and libraries buy from various companies, rather than a block grant to one vendor, again, not comparable.
So no, it's nothing like the $42BN we gave Verizon.
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All this will be is an unexpected drain on schools/libraries that dont know what they are getting, and it wont do its job because its not a configure it and forget it thing. I really hate how companies, organizations, and public entities dont understand the
Re: When? (Score:2)
Sure, I'll take that money (Score:1)
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Re:Need Cash! Here Is Some Fear! (Score:4, Insightful)
Something needs to change for sure. Schools have been going downhill since "no child left behind". The quality has likely been dropping for a much longer period of time, but I can only speak to the scope of time I've been paying attention.
When you had unqualified jackasses like Besty DeVos, who had an agenda other than educating kids in charge of the DoE, what can you expect?
When you've had nutty ideas like the so-called 'whole language' approach to teaching kids to read being given creedence instead of continuing to teach phonics, what did you expect?
When you have our so-called 'conservatives' screaming 'socialism!!!' about making sure kids get at least one decent meal a day by providing school lunches, what did you think would happen?
When you say 'no child left behind', as you point out, yet you allow them to shove rote learning down kids' throats instead of actually teaching them, just so they can pass standardized tests, and it's all really about getting federal tax money given to them so they can build sports programs and other non-essential nonsense, how did anyone think that would go?
Last but not least, when teachers are paid so little for their efforts that some decide to go be bartenders and make dramatically more money, and the only teachers that schools can afford to pay are the literal bottom of the barrel, why would anyone think that kids are going to get a decent education from someone who doesn't give a shit?
Yes, Timmy, the public school system is a mess. It needs to be fixed, and that doesn't mean siphoning off tax money into bullshit 'vouchers' that end up getting spent on religious schools that give an """education""" biased against science and real truths and towards superstitious nonsense and 'white nationalism'.
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When you had unqualified jackasses like Besty DeVos, who had an agenda other than educating kids in charge of the DoE, what can you expect? When you've had nutty ideas like the so-called 'whole language' approach to teaching kids to read being given creedence instead of continuing to teach phonics, what did you expect? When you have our so-called 'conservatives' screaming 'socialism!!!' about making sure kids get at least one decent meal a day by providing school lunches, what did you think would happen? When you say 'no child left behind', as you point out, yet you allow them to shove rote learning down kids' throats instead of actually teaching them, just so they can pass standardized tests, and it's all really about getting federal tax money given to them so they can build sports programs and other non-essential nonsense, how did anyone think that would go? Last but not least, when teachers are paid so little for their efforts that some decide to go be bartenders and make dramatically more money, and the only teachers that schools can afford to pay are the literal bottom of the barrel, why would anyone think that kids are going to get a decent education from someone who doesn't give a shit? Yes, Timmy, the public school system is a mess. It needs to be fixed, and that doesn't mean siphoning off tax money into bullshit 'vouchers' that end up getting spent on religious schools that give an """education""" biased against science and real truths and towards superstitious nonsense and 'white nationalism'.
I agree with the vast majority of your statements (the statement I don't agree with is understandable when you have people with different perspectives). The teachers being underpaid is a major problem along with the curriculum angled towards passing standardized tests.
Slightly unrelated but a sister-in-law in Oklahoma working in a middle school library had a kid tell her another teacher was making sexual advances on him. She turned the teacher in and it's being investigated, but too many of these stories ex
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Also worth noting that teenage boys are more animal than some others, if you know what I mean, I ought to know having been one myself.
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Also worth noting that teenage boys are more animal than some others, if you know what I mean, I ought to know having been one myself. ;-)
lol, for sure! I have two sons in addition to my daughter. The boys are 10 and 7. I'm not looking forward to their teenage years.
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18 year teacher here (2000 to 2018). You sir are spot on! Mod this up!
Re: Need Cash! Here Is Some Fear! (Score:2, Informative)
A couple note:
When you have our so-called 'conservatives' screaming 'socialism!!!' about making sure kids get at least one decent meal a day by providing school lunches, what did you think would happen?
Please, when did "conservative" vote to not feed children?
Schools currently offer free breakfast, free lunch, and free take-home bags of food for dinner, and in many places offer free meals during school holidays (including summer).
On the off-chance you can find an example of someone that voted against EXPANDING the 'school lunch program' beyond its current offerings, I contend that does not qualify as refusing to feed children.
When you say 'no child left behind', as you point out, yet you allow them to shove rote learning down kids' throats instead of actually teaching them, just so they can pass standardized tests, and it's all really about getting federal tax money given to them so they can build sports programs and other non-essential nonsense, how did anyone think that would go?
You appear to be against "teaching to the exam", and that's reason
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I take exact opposite position; no private schools and homeschooling except for very, very special circumstances. Germany and Sweden for example ban homeschooling.
Are we (trying to be) a meritocracy or not? Can't say yes and then offer better education behind a paywall, not very meritocratic is it?
#1 focus if public schools are lagging is to improve the public schools, anything else is distraction. I think pretty much all the founders believed in public education, even Jefferson and Adams agreed upon it,
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I think you still need schools based on accelerated programs for students that would benefit from them. At my daughter's middle school, the accelerated programs were crap. They only did it for "social studies" classes. Absolutely pointless. She's home schooled now and
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made it into a private school based on merit
That's great but that isn't a law that private school must accept poor students, see Adam's specifically calling out "chairtable individuals", its a definite moral hazard. Fact is the school is private so they could (and most do) take a "can't pay, can't attend" policy. My parents sent me to a Catholic school for 1-8. If they didn't make tuition I would have gotten the boot.
At my daughter's middle school, the accelerated programs were crap
That's a problem and the actual problem. Private schooling isn't helping that problem, if anything it makes it worse.
If we want to
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Exceptions and anecdotes don't make an argument.
I'm happy to hear anyone's experiences. Each exception and anecdote added to the discussion gives a clearer example of what is going on with real people under these circumstances. Your anecdotes are just as helpful. You're absolutely right that many parents aren't equipped for the job of schooling their own kids. I'm lucky that my wife was previously a police officer and a teacher. I'm also lucky that we earn enough for her to stay home and not have to get a paying job just so we can meet our families needs
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...homeschooled kids who found out the hard way later in life they didn't actually have the fundamentals they were told they had.
I can give you nonstop anecdotes of public school graduates (some with Honors) in the exact same position.
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How is private school making it worse? You are still paying taxes to support the failing public system and then you are paying, post taxation, more to send your kid to a private school so they hopefully have better opportunities. If I were a parent and could work out the monthly tuition for private school, of course I would do that for my kid.
Want to help fix public schools? Mandate that states must provide equal funding per child. The easiest way to do this would be to take all funding, pool it at state le
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They pull resources that could well be used to help public schools, especially personnel and a for profit or endowed entity can honestly pay for more. It also segregates what I imagine is a demographic above average for most private schools and that tends to align with the most resourceful and influential people in a community not involved with their local schools, yeah they pay the taxes but that feels like a fee to copout on what should be a shared responsibility
Really though almost all of my opposition i
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I probably lack the vision of the bigger picture but are you certain that the existence of private schools comes at the expense of public schools? From my position, so long as everyone in society is still contributing tax dollars to maintain the public system, I don't see why that should mean we kill the private system. While I personally have no direct experience with private schools, I do have a coworker that has her two young daughters enrolled in a private school. To be clear, we both work in a grocery
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Should my coworker just forsake the opportunity to give her daughters a better chance at a fruitful life just because our country is sick and seemingly continuing down a worse path?
This is kinda exactly my point, your friend has no reason and no impetus to ever imrpove those local school now, so while i understand their drive to do best for their child it's an inherently selfish act and their community as a whole now suffers. We get 10% well educated and the 90% in "non-improving schools". As you said it takes more than just money. Schools are one of the most local institutions there is and your friend is basically just absolving any effort to make everything better. Why not jus
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I see your position. In a philosophical setting, you are correct. My friend should be, some how maybe via magic, organizing her community to demand better educational access for everyone. While she does this, her kid is the one that suffers because she's up against an entire system setup to benefit everyone but the children. Pardon me if I don't blame her being selfish, making personal sacrifices for her children and opting out of the dumpster fire that public education has become.
Say we go your route, how
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See now we reach the issue of why things can't get done in a way because we have normatized an individual to a systemic issue. Your friend is not a bad person, they are just responding to inventives, this is to be expected. The system issue created that incentive for them, my thing to correct what I feel is an incentive that leasds to bad outcomes. Systemic problems means individual actors are not to blame. Your freiends anecdotal situtation is, no offense, but it's emotional pleading that subverts the a
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Throwing the baby out with the bathwater via closing public schools is probably a bad solution to our problems. I do wonder though, if we setup a framework for how a private school should run, then provide each child regardless of income, race, sex, creed, address, etc, that must be accepted by any private school whilst also declaring these schools may not charge any extra could provide more options and more competition in the k-12 educational realm.
Where parents currently have one, maybe two choices based
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Yeah I've read a lot of theories talking abotu an all-voucher school system but to me once you put all those regulations like you mentioned, acceptance and to me any private school would have to be non-profit and the standards and you've kinda just recreated public schools with a funding change. All these good idea oculd just be implemented into the system we have now.
I think you hot the nail on the head about admin overshadowing teaching but I think those are reforms we could do now. There are just so ma
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True, if all the things I mention about private schools regarding regulations and vouchers, etc, would be applied to public school, we likely wouldn't have the issues we have with public school in the first place.
As you mention, the tricky thing is the school issue is a local thing but that's also one of the biggest problems. How many "local" areas are backwards as can be and teach gibberish?
Unfortunately for our children, it's all become insanely political with so many entrenched special interests that get
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No, we are not trying to be a meritocracy. Not in the least in fact. When kids can't be failed because of their self esteem, you left meritocracy at the door. When kids (and parents) can bitch and complain and actually get a grade bump, you left meritocracy at the door. When high grades translates to more money for the educational institution, you've left meritocracy at the door.
When you have shit like DEI, you clearly have stopped caring about hiring the most qualified person for the job and instead of try
Re: Need Cash! Here Is Some Fear! (Score:2)
You understand the 'state' doesn't offer homeschooling or private schools, right?
To homeschool is a huge commitment by the family, at almost no cost to the school district, while the parent pay the same school taxes as those families that have children in public school.
To send a child to private school is a tremendous financial commitment for the students family - and as a reminder, the family can not deduct the tuition from their taxes, and again they pay the same school taxes as a family that sends their
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while the parent pay the same school taxes as those families that have children in public school.
The fallacy in your statement is that by someone paying a tax, it is somehow supposed to magically go to their specific sprogs or that by paying a tax, it magically imbues them to "special considerations and allowances". I do not share that opinion.
That is not the case because society at large has decided that all children are to be educated. It is thought that an educated citizenry is a benefit to society as a whole. It matters not one whit if a person has zero children or, in the case of an Alabama man, 5
Universal Service Fund (Score:5, Insightful)
This fund is from fees collected by the Telcos from their customers. It is not, as the summary stated, "made up of contributions from telecommunications companies"
Re: Universal Service Fund (Score:1)
Re: Universal Service Fund (Score:2)
You may want to educate yourself on how the Universal Service Fund is funded - it isn't a line item in the federal budget, the money is collected as a fee, based on phone services a customer buys.
Re: Universal Service Fund (Score:1)
Weird pitch ... (Score:2)
FCC is Offering $200 Million To Protect Schools and Libraries From Hackers
Sounds like a good, steady, well-paying job for hackers ... :-)
How much does common sense cost? (Score:2)
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I recall when I was in high school, our computer labs were pretty locked down. We used Norton Ghost, so you always booted from an image. All the required software was always available. Viruses weren't an issue because you restarted, and you booted from a clean slate.
As you say, cybersecurity is mostly a people problem. Security versus availability. Make something to secure, and people either won't use it or will find ways around it.
You are 100% correct in your post though. This sounds more like a way to fu
Overstepping. (Score:3)
The IT sector has become the new administration bloat, school administration departments became so bloated they need more administration just to manage the administration department. IT is just another layer that now is self-feeding on expenses just like administrations did a few decades back.
Someday schools will become focused on teaching children again, oh who am I kidding.
I wasn't aware Linux licenses cost that much (Score:2)
You want to protect schools and libraries from hackers? Just ditch Windows and install Linux. That will get you 3/4th of the way there.
Which raises the question: what does $200m pay for?
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I'm still confused why every device can't just boot from an image or have an application whitelist and all user files not kept on a centralized server that can be locked down. It's far easier to secure a handful of servers then 1000s of individual devices. The end user doesn't need to install software and this would also prevent viruses as well.
Seriously, if someone could provide feedback on why my idea wouldn't work, I would be grateful for the information from people that really know about this from perso
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I'm still confused why every device can't just boot from an image or have an application whitelist and all user files not kept on a centralized server that can be locked down. It's far easier to secure a handful of servers then 1000s of individual devices. The end user doesn't need to install software and this would also prevent viruses as well.
Seriously, if someone could provide feedback on why my idea wouldn't work, I would be grateful for the information from people that really know about this from personal experience.
Most schools are using Chromebooks for students now. It's pretty much exactly what you are describing, except Google controls the server side. So it could work, but we have to make sure some giant corporation is in charge of it so that we get students used to the idea that EVERY aspect of their lives *MUST* be supervised by the good and righteous corporations. That way, they're well prepared by the time they graduate to be herded through the data-cow gates.
The bad thing (Score:2)
From what? There shouldn't be anything personal on the student network.
I thought US schools out-source nowadays, there will be little data (everyday stuff for teachers and students: timetables/rosters, attendance/hours worked) kept on the internal network. Education-sector CMS such as Connexus/Pearson online, means the physical school is a cubicle farm for 'workers': The good thing, one can move schools and the grades/textbooks are used at the next school. The bad thing, a private business owns a rec
You can't fix stupid (Score:2)
Are most schools and libraries valuable enough targets to attract the attention of profit-oriented malicious hackers? Aside from teaching staff and students basic security, how will they spend $200 million?
Perhaps the money would be better spent protecting libraries and schools from shooters rather than hackers.
Worst way to do this (Score:2)