Re: [Fsfe-uk] Re: Schools etc. [was:RE: accu-general: Where to setup web site]

[ian]

On Sun, 2003-07-13 at 01:21, Paul wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I totally agree with you here Ian - on both points. Industry tends to be
> scared of the people they proport to be supplying. 

>From the supplier side of this fence, yes there is some fear because as
a supplier I am very dependent on my customers. If I upset them - even
on reasonable grounds - I lose business and have to start sacking people
which is not a pleasant thing to have to do.

> I think it has
> something to do with the guilt factor. M$ never see the people they
> fleece and extort money from. If they did, I'm sure they'd soon realise
> the damage they're causing. Hold on, that's the beer talking. M$
> probably still wouldn't give a shit!

M$ are in some ways no different from us. They depend on their customer
base just as we do except they have to this point had a control that has
bred a lot of complacency into them. This is very difficult to eradicate
in a large business culture. IBM had exactly the same trauma in the 80s
that M$ are quite likely to experience over the next decade.

> > > There are always companies (like yours) who will be in that position,
> > > hense why I stated that having a company like Sony (as an example)
> > > working with education would not be a bad thing as long as it was
> > > established how far their influence went.
> > 
> > Agreed.
> 
> Good ;-)
> 
> > >  I'm sure you would agree that
> > > the best people to run a school would be a school and that they should
> > > be the ones who buy in services at a competative rate.
> > 
> > Oh yest, I would get rid of LEAs as they are now tomorrow. Cluster small
> > families of schools so  local is local but there is sufficient economy
> > of scale. The main snage with GM was small schools do not have the
> > economy of scale. Get bigger than a couple of secondary and say 10
> > primaries and you get impersonal bureaucracy.
> 
> That may be so, but they still have the power to do as they need to do.

Schools largely have this now if they choose to. The Governors hold the
power but money and control of it is at the heart of decision making
power. If your fixed costs account for 95% of your budget you have very
little decision making power so while in theory you can have complete
autonomy in practice you have very little room for manoeuvre. 

> Sure the economy of scale for repairs, school meals, cleaning and the
> such are great, but they would still be able to get teachers in and
> provide adequate resources without waiting for the LEA to come down from
> their clouds and grant that the school may employ someone (but only
> after they have completed 3 marathons, jumped through 5 or 6 blazing
> hoops and created at least 4 trees worth of business cases, costings,
> reasons, objectives and all the rest of the BS they currently go
> through.

Schools don't have to consult the LEA over appointments as long as they
are within budget and can finance the appointments without going into
the red.

> I remember when I first moved into working in education (1989) - the
> school was being trialed as a GM. They decided they wanted someone,
> costed it out, see if it could be afforded and got someone in. It took
> about 3 days from start to advert going out.

They can still do that under LMS. They might have chosen to use the LEA
in the appointment scheme and for things like payroll etc but that
varies between schools and between LEAs.

> When I moved from a school to college (prior to them going over to
> Charitable status in 1992ish), it took about 3 weeks of paperwork and
> general grovelling to get the advert out. After that, it came down to 4
> days. Universities are the same. They take a bit longer, but it's still
> quite quick. Common thread - without the LEA, things move quickly.

In general I agree, but the difficulty is that some schools simply don't
feel up to self-management. The way to do it is to provide incentives.
The Government is already trialling federated schools and this could
well be a precursor to the groupings I mentioned earlier. If so the
LEA's days look numbered. Mind adding an extra layer of bureaucracy for
regional governments seems a bit strange in this context.

> MS are probably the worst marketing company I have every seen. But then,
> they don't need to advertise as their dodgy licence deals and
> intimidatory business practises with hardware companies means that just
> about all machines sold have Windoze on it in some form or another.

Depending on your perspective, that is effective marketing strategy ;-)

>  What
> better advert can you have than to say that most machines come with
> their product on it? They have no need of marketing - others do it for
> them :-(

That *is* marketing. Marketing is not just glossy ads in computer mags.
We do no conventional advertising, but we still have a marketing
strategy. 

> > > Yes, I could be. However, it helps when the sister is also a governor
> > > and so gets to see the budget details...
> > 
> > Well I doubt that is the entire story either. Education management is as
> > much about relationships between people as it is about budgets.
> 
> Yup. But as you're also aware, if you have a budget deficit and you have
> to make a cut, relationships between people count for squat when it's
> someones backside on the line or (say) a new roof for the hall.

I think that is exactly when relationships between people are at tehir
most important and solving these sorts of problems equitably is what
sorts out excellence in management from mediocrity. 

> > Schools still have most of their budgets delegated under LMS but some is
> > held back for central admin - though that varies from LEA to LEA.
> 
> We are quite lucky in St. Helens like this. The council give the schools
> all of the money and then it's up to the schools if they want to buy in
> the services of the council. It is advisable in some cases (such as
> security and cleaning), but others, like school meals, they are free to
> use who they like (in my son's school, they use the local housing
> association's meals on wheel service and get far better value for it as
> well!)

Quite so, so GM isn't going to make that much difference. The school can
effectively be GM by just not using the LEA.

> 
> Probably not all at once. I would give schools an optional 3 year phase
> out of LEA control. Basically, 33% per year reduction in support.

Thing is under LMS they can do this now. Its more a matter of what they
choose to do.

> > Like IT support, weaning the customer of dependency is not
> > in the interest of the supplier so its difficult to make it happen - but
> > not impossible. 
> 
> This is how M$ have places by the short and curlies. They don't want
> people to go, so they spread as much FUD about other OSes as they can -
> even when it backfires

Surely that is what would be expected? This is marketing strategy.

>  (such as the TCO comparisons which have been
> discredited almost as much as the dodgy docier!), they persist. M$ can
> never tell us anything other than the truth. We all know unix/linux is
> unfriendly don't we. It's all CLI. Must be, uncle Bill says it is.
> 
> Sad really. Folks believe this BS without checking out the facts.

Folks believe a lot of BS without checking facts but when it becomes
self-evident that its BS they won't hang around long. This is why as the
technical support for free software matures, marketing will be the most
important aspect of getting it on every desktop. This is why I spend
most of my time on marketing strategy. We have no income stream? - let's
do something to get one. Where are the barriers to entry lowest? Target
this first. Anything illegal preventing free software getting into the
market? Take legal action etc.  

-- 
ian <address@hidden>