Comments - No Strategic Direction - TechHui2024-03-28T10:10:22Zhttp://www.techhui.com/profiles/comment/feed?attachedTo=1702911%3ABlogPost%3A60066&xn_auth=noWe will find out what Neil's…tag:www.techhui.com,2010-04-22:1702911:Comment:602172010-04-22T04:27:37.978ZDaniel Leuckhttp://www.techhui.com/profile/dleuck
We will find out what Neil's plan is for the public school system <a href="http://www.afg2010.com/2010/04/22/neil-abercrombie-to-unveil-his-education-plan/" target="_blank">tomorrow</a>.
We will find out what Neil's plan is for the public school system <a href="http://www.afg2010.com/2010/04/22/neil-abercrombie-to-unveil-his-education-plan/" target="_blank">tomorrow</a>. The HSA secure browser projec…tag:www.techhui.com,2010-04-21:1702911:Comment:601772010-04-21T04:34:14.401ZDaniel Leuckhttp://www.techhui.com/profile/dleuck
The HSA secure browser project you describe sounds utterly insane. I can't believe we are paying for development of a browser. Do they honestly believe they have engineers with better knowledge of browser security than the Mozilla project, Apple and Google?<br />
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We are clearly wasting millions on Meridian PBXs and antiquated on-premise email, scheduling and document storage systems. This is why we need a qualified state CIO who is ultimately responsible for all these decisions, and can be held…
The HSA secure browser project you describe sounds utterly insane. I can't believe we are paying for development of a browser. Do they honestly believe they have engineers with better knowledge of browser security than the Mozilla project, Apple and Google?<br />
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We are clearly wasting millions on Meridian PBXs and antiquated on-premise email, scheduling and document storage systems. This is why we need a qualified state CIO who is ultimately responsible for all these decisions, and can be held accountable to taxpayers. Scott,
I support your efforts…tag:www.techhui.com,2010-04-20:1702911:Comment:601342010-04-20T00:15:22.909ZBrian Walshhttp://www.techhui.com/profile/BrianWalsh
Scott,<br />
I support your efforts wrt our schools. I volunteer at a small DOE elementary school. Our classroom teachers just had their old leased Lenovo Desktops (eSIS/CTCI) replaced with Lenovo R400 laptops. They came pre-installed with not only MS Office (Word 2003, Outlook 2003, Excel 2003, Powerpoint 2003) and Lotus Notes, but also a suite of Adobe Apps (Acrobat Pro 8, Photoshop Elements 6.0, Premiere Elements 4.0, Contribute CS3) and Roxio Creator Business Edition. I shudder to think how much…
Scott,<br />
I support your efforts wrt our schools. I volunteer at a small DOE elementary school. Our classroom teachers just had their old leased Lenovo Desktops (eSIS/CTCI) replaced with Lenovo R400 laptops. They came pre-installed with not only MS Office (Word 2003, Outlook 2003, Excel 2003, Powerpoint 2003) and Lotus Notes, but also a suite of Adobe Apps (Acrobat Pro 8, Photoshop Elements 6.0, Premiere Elements 4.0, Contribute CS3) and Roxio Creator Business Edition. I shudder to think how much the DOE pays for all these apps, most of which very few teachers will ever use.<br />
Good luck with your FOSS/DOE efforts.<br />
Regards, Brian Walsh http://www.law.hawaii.edu/sit…tag:www.techhui.com,2010-04-19:1702911:Comment:600822010-04-19T08:15:34.768ZJim Thompsonhttp://www.techhui.com/profile/gonzopancho
<a href="http://www.law.hawaii.edu/sites/_files/rroth/Essay.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.law.hawaii.edu/sites/_files/rroth/Essay.pdf</a>
<a href="http://www.law.hawaii.edu/sites/_files/rroth/Essay.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.law.hawaii.edu/sites/_files/rroth/Essay.pdf</a> The solution is not more tech…tag:www.techhui.com,2010-04-19:1702911:Comment:600792010-04-19T07:32:42.712ZJim Thompsonhttp://www.techhui.com/profile/gonzopancho
The solution is not more tech co-ordinators, the solution is to eliminate the very need for a tech co-ordinator.<br />
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Windows is a plague, and linux isn't much better. While linux was originally someplace to learn and contribute, it is now ruled by greybeards and corporate interests.…
The solution is not more tech co-ordinators, the solution is to eliminate the very need for a tech co-ordinator.<br />
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Windows is a plague, and linux isn't much better. While linux was originally someplace to learn and contribute, it is now ruled by greybeards and corporate interests.<br />
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<a href="http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/open_source/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224400309" target="_blank">http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/open_source/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224400309</a><br />
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As the article points out, the path worth following here is the one being blazed by Apple.<br />
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Netbooks are a cruel joke. (I own two.)<br />
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You're not going to drive change "top down"... especially in Hawaii, where special interests are the king-makers, and the population behaves like overgrown children.<br />
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Change will instead happen "bottom up". Watch what happens when the combination of 'smart phones' get real, always-on VoIP, and someone produces an inexpensive, always-on VoIP 'router' that can use DUNDi to 'map' cell numbers to actual VoIP endpoints (in the same handset).<br />
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Once the general population starts to understand that voice is a *free* app on top of a data network, then they will ask the DOE why they're doing stupid things with *our* money.<br />
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In similar fashion, you don't want to 'bond' multiple paths together so much as you want a high speed fiber network to the premise.<br />
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Your post only touches on the rampant waste and fraud at the DoE. Hawai`i Free Press and others have, over the past few months, identified millions of dollars of waste, fraud, and corruption in the DoE budget.<br />
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$50M for software when equivalents are available free of charge (as you touch on.)<br />
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Up to $75M of federal funds lost to Hawaii schools because the HSTA, DoE, and BoE sabotaged Hawaii’s Race to the Top funding application.<br />
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Between $42M and $57M burned on wasteful personnel practices. A Hawaii State audit identified $21M in waste on one DoE contract alone, as well as $1.1m burned on crony contracting and $2.8M diverted from classroom salaries to fund more crony contracting.<br />
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Add it all up. The total is between $191.9M and $206.9M. And these are minimum figures.<br />
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The DoE procurement audit sampled only a small portion of total DoE procurement contracts in order to illustrate how business is done. Thus, the total could easily be ten times what the audit found—adding another $224.1M in annual DoE waste, fraud, and corruption.<br />
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This produces a grand total of $416M to $431M in annual DoE waste, fraud, and corruption out of a total budget of $2.1 Billion dollars. The DoE procurement budget is about $800M of this.<br />
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Instead of turning up the heat on the criminals responsible for destroying public education in Hawaii in order to line their own pockets, the legislature, the BoE/DoE/HSTA, and their enablers in Hawaii's so-called media have shifted public debate to a kind of hostage negotiation. Politicians and union bosses argue over over how much more money should be thrown at the DoE in order to ransom the children--and how many hostage-days must be released in exchange for the ransom payment.<br />
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The reality is that the DoE has every penny it needs to eliminate furlough Fridays. The DoE also has more than enough to make itself into a world class school system. Lack of money is not the problem. The problem is that the DoE is swimming in so much money that hordes of white collar thieves are getting a piece of the action.<br />
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The Legislature can begin to solve this problem by allowing the public to vote on a constitutional amendment to abolish the BoE and place the DoE superintendant under the direct supervision of the next Governor.<br />
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Failing that, Hawaii needs a Federal RICO investigation leading to the arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment the criminals among the upper echelons of the DoE, DoE contractors, the leadership of the HSTA, the BoE, lobbyists, and legislature.<br />
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It is up to the Legislature to determine which of these two solutions is preferable.<br />
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Hawaii school furloughs were created in Democrat-on-Democrat negotiations between the HSTA and the DoE/BoE. Now Hawaii’s Democrat-controlled Legislature has an opportunity to bring tens of millions of federal dollars to Hawaii schools by lifting the Charter School cap, forcing the DoE to adopt a curriculum, and offering HSTA members a student-performance driven raise funded by Race to the Top monies. Will they take the bull by the horns?<br />
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In a year of cutbacks and recession with no end in sight, free federal money brought in with zero outlay by the State should be hard to resist. The HGEA, UPW, UHPA, and other unions have demands of their own to make upon the shrinking State budget. Will they be willing to sacrifice the welfare of their own members to go along with this very expensive, wasteful, and destructive HSTA scheme? Will they continue to circumscribe the education of their own members’ children in order to support an increasingly inscrutable and untenable HSTA agenda which is at odds with the Democratic US President?