LXNY -- New York's Free Computing Organization


   Alert -- New York City Board of Education Computer Plan

Declared aims of the plan:
1. E-mail, through the Board of Education, for everyone in
the school system.
2. 24x7 operation by a single ISP, providing the e-mail plus
limited Internet access.
3. Each year every fourth grader will be issued a networked
laptop computer to keep throughout their school years.	This
plan will last nine years.

Members of LXNY were at the meeting of the Board of Education
(on April 12, 2000) where the plan was unveiled and approved.
The plan was created by the `Teaching and Learning in
Cyberspace Task Force.'	 This group had nineteen members, all
but two of whom are from the school system or very large cor-
porations or institutions.

Through the apparently deliberately indefinite wording of the
presentation, it is reasonable to conclude that the plan fea-
tures:
o Laptops running exclusively a proprietary source-code-
secret operating system for which there is only one vendor, a
company with a long history of bad products and bad practices
that a federal judge officially found to be `criminal.'
Recent news reports reveal continuing practices from this
vendor including covert access to systems (via back doors),
lack of security and forced advertising.
o Revenue generation for the Board of Education, including
business partnering with for-profit companies for the sale of
advertising and other business activities.  The Internet
activities are intended to be not only self-funded, but to
generate a profit for the Board monopoly (not for students or
schools).  The plan has not yet been implemented, but already
New York newspapers have printed stories alleging corruption
at the Board.
o Computerized homework, exams, and in-classroom activities,
with no word of adherence to open standards or interoperabil-
ity.  This may force choices of personal programs on stu-
dents, e.g., word processing program.

Free Unix-like operating systems are being adopted by school
systems all over the world (from Mexico to China) in addition
to their long established use in higher education and in
research.  IBM, the world's dominant computer company, pre-
dicts that the GNU/Linux system will be the leading choice
and the standard for interoperability within the time period
of the Board's plan.  It is imperative that our school system
not isolate itself with a parochial operating system.









					 -2-


	    With free software, schools, and particularly students, can
	    study, experiment, customize, and contribute to the programs
	    they use.  Authoring parts of a system that is in use world-
	    wide (and in extraterrestrial probes) fosters pride and a
	    spirit of adventure in a cooperative learning environment.
	    Free software grew up with the Internet, and most of the
	    Internet runs on free software.  Free software is a trans-
	    national solution, educationally, technically and morally
	    superior to other systems being considered, and is indis-
	    putably far less costly.

	    LXNY is working to persuade the Board to revise this plan.
	    Please help LXNY in this endeavor.




































	    -----------

	    Michael E. Smith <mesmith@panix.com>
	    Jay Sulzberger <secretary@lxny.org>
	    http://www.lxny.org