We often hear schools’ complaints about the lack of this or that resource. I always assumed that was because of lacking something more fundamental: money.
I found out yesterday how wrong that simplistic thinking could be.
My wife brought me a computer from her office some time ago. “It doesn’t have any memory,” she said, “And there’s no operating system installed, but maybe you can use it.”
Can I use it? Of course I can use it. No teacher complains about having too many computers for his students.
The plan was simple: at the beginning of the year, I would take some of the funding I get from the state for supplies, buy a half-gig of memory, load some form of Linux on it, and I’d have a new computer for my room.
In talking to a fellow teacher, though, I learned that it might not be so simple. I went to our school’s IT guy for clarification.
Short answer: sure, I can use it, but no student can touch it.
It seems we have a contract with a particular computer manufacturer that stipulates two things:
- Each computer for student use must be purchased through through Distributor X. That rules out using my computer.
- Each computer for student use must be running Windows XP. That rules out the closet full of laptops I discovered we have, sitting unused because they have Windows 2000 on them.
Now, it seems to me that if Computer Manufacturer X was really interested in educating students that they wouldn’t really care whether or not we use other computers or use other operating systems. It seems that teachers wouldn’t be punished for taking some initiative to get more materials for students.
But underlying that would be a mistaken understanding of the nature of the capitolistic drive, wouldn’t it?
This is why our economic system resembles mercantilism more than they do Adam Smith’s free enterprise and open competition. Once the government has an “exclusive contract” with a provider, there’s no more competition. Get that first contract and all you have to do is minimally meet the contract standards and tax money gets funneled into your pocket.
This is one of the reasons I oppose government “outsourcing” to contractors. A lot of our federal agencies have outsourced core functions (like feeding and supporting troops in the field, which is handled by KBR or Haliburton or some such) for a higher price and lower quality than government workers could have provided. The excuse is “competition.” But there’s no competition with a contract and — if there’s no bid — no competition before it either.
It’s not just the lack of competition — there’s the question of unwarranted influence. I’m working on a series of posts about just that topic…