[ale] Linux in Atlanta's public schools

Jim Kinney jim.kinney at gmail.com
Tue Jul 2 15:45:57 EDT 2013


I am honored to have been of help. That time was the happiest I've been
using Linux and making a real difference. It was part of why I ran for
school board.


On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 2:44 PM, Edward Holcroft <eholcroft at mkainc.com>wrote:

> Ah Jim, this discussion brings up so many bitter-sweet memories for me.
>
> I remember when you were running the K12LTSP list, and I was deploying
> K12LTSP in disadvantaged schools in deep rural South Africa. Your list was
> my core survival tool and Jim you personally solved many problems for me
> and the non-profit I was running at the time. The heady days of Etherboot
> and rom-o-matic (when Ken Yap himself would help me resolve boot issues),
> hand-built UV eprom erasers, reclaiming old BIOS chips from dead
> motherboards to create etherboot NICs. My EPROM programmer was the single
> most expensive piece of equipment that we owned. We made thin clients out
> of refurbed PC's that were donated to us by government departments and some
> companies. By tapping into the corporate social responsibility project of
> UniForum (the .za domain administrators) we were able to deploy several
> thousand seats into the most grueling of environments. I believe they are
> still running to this day (although with the demise of K12LTSP, the project
> switched to Ubuntu shortly after I left South Africa).
>
> Finding you on ALE when I moved to Atlanta really brought home to me what
> a small world it is. One day I plan to attend a monthly meeting so that I
> can thank you in person and tell you the story, or perhaps one chapter of
> the story, of thousands of Linux-using schoolkids in Africa that you had no
> idea you actually helped! And drink beer.
>
> Your stories of corruption are distressing to me because they sound so
> much like what I encountered in South Africa at one level or another. It
> bothers the heck out of me to see the same issues cropping up in an
> officially developed nation: we have no excuse for this kind of behavior in
> the US (not that anyone does of course, but here we're quick to use terms
> like Third World corruption, banana republic and so on, when we seem to be
> living in a glass house). When it came time for a government sponsored
> rollout into all 2000-odd schools in one South African province, Microsoft
> and their OEM partners came out hitting hard, and even though we deployed a
> fully functional demo site that "just worked" while the Windows teams were
> still booting, there was NO chance that Linux was going to happen ... too
> many palms greased and too much incompetence. In another South African
> province a DoE official actually threatened me with "consequences" if I
> dared to install non-Windows systems: I turned that province into my
> show-piece.
>
> One tale of woe, and there certainly were a few: the DoE sent a Doze
> technician to one of our sites who was so confuzzled by not being able to
> find hard drives in the refurbs, that he went and installed hard drives,
> and Windows, on each machine! After that little experience we started to
> glue-gun the IDE ports on the MB's before deploying. lol. You can't win 'em
> all.
>
> Anyway, just want to say is it's awesome that there are still believers
> out there. I would be willing to join with someone, or better yet a team of
> people, in taking a shot at rekindling the idea in Atlanta schools.
>
> The concept-plan I used in South Africa was very community oriented - we
> would have the school take responsibility for basic infrastructure and even
> have the kids help pulling Ethernet cables, with teachers and senior
> students trained in system administration. Regrettably, I had to leave SA
> before implementing the full self-sustaining concept that I had in mind
> (that's another story). I still believe though, that the basic concept is
> universal and regardless of the fact that Windows and corruption won one
> battle in Atlanta, the war is far from over as many fervently Microsoft
> shops are more susceptible than ever to the viability of FOSS.
>
> cheers
> ed
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 10:58 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I had no more resources to throw at it. After it was all over, I ran the
>> numbers and thanks to the ridiculous number of meetings I had to go to on
>> the project I made just barely over $5 an hour. Can't feed a family on that
>> even working 60+ hours a week.
>>
>> We looked at expanding that process and there was just not enough
>> traction to justify staying in it. Marketing up against "everyone use
>> Windows" was outside of our financial ability. When I spoke at NECC
>> (National Educational Computing Conference) in San Antonio in 2008, the
>> room was quite surprised to hear the greatest single challenge was
>> "political engineering". My surprise was that the room was packed to
>> overflowing.
>>
>> Don't get me wrong: the process WORKS. We came up with the first
>> generation of LTSP that would scale to 10's of thousands of simultaneous
>> clients. What we did has not be replicated at even half that scale anywhere
>> in the western hemisphere to date. There are some projects in Europe and
>> Scandavian countries in particular that are close to that scale.
>>
>> Technology changes as well. What worked then for thin client processes is
>> not an ongoing solution now. Between 2006-2007 and now, KVM and SPICE have
>> progressed to provide a far better user experience than what we could do
>> then with LTSP. Server technology has vastly exceeded what we built with in
>> 2006. A dual proc, dual core with a total of 8GB RAM was sizable then and
>> laughable now. Schools we installed with 5 servers we could do now with 1
>> and still have expansion room.
>>
>> There was a serious emotional toll on the project as well. Watching the
>> leadership squander resources to pad their own pockets or just out of total
>> ignorance was bad enough. But watching them do it at the expense of 140,000
>> kids who already getting kicked in the social balls just by being there was
>> too much.
>>
>> On the very first school we worked at, we met the librarian who was
>> tickeled pink about the whole project. When I ran into her the following
>> year at DragonCon, she was spitting bile over the project in general and us
>> in particular. It seems the day after we were "officially done", some
>> windows idiot from ITD went to her school and messed with the servers and
>> they never worked again. Of course I was never informed of this or else I
>> would have certainly RUN and fixed things. In fact, that school was the one
>> where we verified the restore process that was fully documented
>> (step-by-step cookbook) and provided to APS. They broke it and didn't care.
>> And the people who were trying to make things work there had no power to
>> get anything done. As far as the librarian was concerned, we built an
>> unstable system that broke as soon as we left and no one could fix it so it
>> was bad from the beginning.
>>
>> People expect Windows to crash and loose data. But a Linux system is
>> touted as being so  uch better and more stable so that when ANYTHING goes
>> wrong, the PHBs and everyone want to throw it all out. APS really thought
>> LTSP would work like a VCR. Set it up and walk away and it magically works
>> with no intervention. Well, for the most part that was true for most of the
>> rest of the year. The next school year, all the thin clients were in
>> different rooms and didn't autoregister (by design - needed to KNOW which
>> room they were in for many reasons) and manually registering was about 20
>> file edits per system.
>>
>> <sigh> good and bad memories from all of that.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 10:09 PM, Dustin Strickland <
>> dustin.h.strickland at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Well, why not try a different area? You might be surprised at the
>>> results.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 10:02 PM, Jeff Hubbs <jhubbslist at att.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>>  Where to begin, indeed.  The crying shame is that we (Aaron, Jim, and
>>>> I) had done a lot of the scenario planning work to scale up what we had
>>>> done to the entire district - tens of thousands of seats - and create the
>>>> industrial processes we'd need to "go big" and still improve on what we'd
>>>> done.  We had even joined forces with an established and well-respected
>>>> 8(a) local contracting firm to make it easier to do business with us.  But
>>>> because of the circumstances Jim described, we couldn't get a fair hearing
>>>> even though we had demonstrated in no uncertain terms that our systems
>>>> worked extremely well in that environment (even though we had almost no
>>>> control over hardware selection).  Yet the outfit selected to do the work
>>>> couldn't come close to replicating what we had accomplished even though we
>>>> mostly just made use of very common tools and capabilities present in most
>>>> any Linux distribution.
>>>>
>>>> On 7/1/13 7:55 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
>>>>
>>>>   where do I begin....
>>>>
>>>>  As referenced in the ALE posting, two parents installed Linux in the
>>>> form of LTSP in their school. They fought the APS process and managed to
>>>> show that having working computers used more than 20 minutes a week made a
>>>> significant educational improvement in the school. Most importantly, they
>>>> found a tipping point ration of 3 students per _classroom_ computer was was
>>>> the minimum needed to achieve this impact. The choice of Linux was for
>>>> cost, security, reliability. Using thin clients allowed a lot of students
>>>> to use a single "server" in the classroom and minimized maintenance of the
>>>> overall process.
>>>>
>>>>  APS then was motivated by the performance statistics to do a
>>>> larger-scale pilot project. That's where I came in. Assisted by Aaron
>>>> Ruscetta and Jeff Hubbs, over the span of 6 months we deployed 33
>>>> enterprise-scale server, 2200 thin clients in 7 elementary and middle
>>>> schools for APS.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  At the end of that school year, schools that had been performing
>>>> poorly and had solidly embraced the new classroom technology showed
>>>> significant improvements. Some of these improvements were not manipulable
>>>> by faculty as the tests were done on line by the students.
>>>>
>>>>  Once again, APS had to continue the process as there was compelling
>>>> reason to expand what had started as a parent project.
>>>>
>>>>  What happened next was classic APS corruption. My team had already
>>>> been first-hand witness to blatant theft of servers, contractors being
>>>> arrested for attempting to pickup 12-year-old girls, and what smelled
>>>> suspiciously of refurbished servers provided as new servers (of the 33
>>>> deployed, 12 failed out of the box and required new motherboards). APS
>>>> handed the next phase of the process to a contractor with financial ties to
>>>> a person (who was not an APS employee but a contractor with no actual
>>>> contract) with the authority to decide who got the contract. The contractor
>>>> then managed to never get a single server running LTSP in any school
>>>> despite multiple millions spent in server purchases. They simply didn't
>>>> have the the Linux expertise to make it work.
>>>>
>>>>  As I understand it now, the new head of ITD threw out the entire pile
>>>> and put in windows systems. The old head of ITD is under indictment and
>>>> many of the APS ITD staff should be joining him. I would strongly recommend
>>>> avoiding APS on this topic.
>>>>
>>>>  I can't confirm the timeline of events, but my brief look when the
>>>> APS test cheating scandal hit the news loosely aligns with my concerns: APS
>>>> chose to not continue working with me and my team likely because of the
>>>> "trouble" we caused raising red flags on ethics. The followup group didn't
>>>> have the skills to maintain Linux systems and certainly not LTSP systems so
>>>> the existing servers died of neglect. The performance gains promised in the
>>>> grant process that funded the initial and following installations were not
>>>> going to materialize so the need to keep the funding going in the ITD group
>>>> was a key factor in APS pushing test cheating. The cheating took place in
>>>> the schools that were touched by the LTSP process that were not being
>>>> maintained. In particular, Parks Middle School was one of the schools that
>>>> showed remarkable improvements in 2 and 6 months and the teachers
>>>> attributed it to being able to split the classes in half (we installed at a
>>>> 2:1 ratio instead of the minimum 3:1) and the time spent on test drill in
>>>> advance of the actual tests due to an abundance of working systems. Once
>>>> those systems failed and APS was unable to return them to service, the
>>>> performance improvements began to fade and thus the push to regain them at
>>>> any cost.
>>>>
>>>>  All sour grapes aside, what we saw when those systems went live was
>>>> nothing short of total gratitude from the teachers and rampant enthusiasm
>>>> from the students. That was the highlight of my professional career so far.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 7:07 PM, Dustin Strickland <
>>>> dustin.h.strickland at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>  I have been thinking for the past few weeks about trying to get my
>>>>> local schools to migrate to Linux. It seems like a much-needed change.
>>>>> Technology is becoming more important with each day that passes-- and the
>>>>> coverage of it in the curriculum is disappointing, to say the least. I
>>>>> remember when I was in Yeager middle school, not too long ago, the only
>>>>> class I had pertaining to computers or technology was a class on how to use
>>>>> Microsoft Word.
>>>>>
>>>>>  Computers are far too important, and other subjects becoming far too
>>>>> deprecated(in my opinion), for coverage of technology in our schools to be
>>>>> limited to how to use MS Word. It's almost insulting. Sure, there are
>>>>> programs that the majority of people need to be familiar with, but kids
>>>>> need to at least know about the basic components of a computer and the role
>>>>> of the operating system. It seems to me a logical step - in order for the
>>>>> children to gain an interest and actually learn, they need to be introduced
>>>>> to Linux. Perhaps, then, we can see about adding some more technology into
>>>>> the curriculum.
>>>>>
>>>>>  As I was researching this topic to prepare a statement for the
>>>>> Douglas County Board of Education, I stumbled upon <a href="
>>>>> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.org.user-groups.ale/44438/">this</a>
>>>>> posting. If anyone has any more information on this case, please let me
>>>>> know. I haven't been able to contact the Board of Education yet, but I will
>>>>> keep you all posted.
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>>>>> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
>>>>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> --
>>>> James P. Kinney III
>>>> *
>>>> *Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you
>>>> gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own
>>>> tail. It won't fatten the dog.
>>>> - Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain
>>>> *
>>>> http://electjimkinney.org
>>>> http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
>>>> *
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> --
>> James P. Kinney III
>> *
>> *Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you
>> gain at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own
>> tail. It won't fatten the dog.
>> - Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain
>> *
>> http://electjimkinney.org
>> http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
>> *
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> Edward Holcroft | Madsen Kneppers & Associates Inc.
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
*
*Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain
at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail.
It won't fatten the dog.
- Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain
*
http://electjimkinney.org
http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
*
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