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Comment by CodeWriter23 | Hacker News Reader

I think this is a little short-sighted on Amazon's part.

PTA/PTOs were onboarding loyal Amazon customers via Amazon Smile because of the fundraising. In the last PTO I was involved with, Smile accounted for about 2% of our donations ($3000/year = ~$150K in household spending from our school).

To put that in perspective, about 90% of our $150K annual fund raise was direct donations from parents and local businesses, AND Amazon's contribution was 3 of the 60 MacBook Airs in the One-to-one laptop program our magnet was funding annually. Maybe we judge "effectiveness" on a different scale than Amazon but we sure appreciated their 5% contribution to that program.

Now these organizations will switch all that customer loyalty to Target Red Card.

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Kinda off topic but why do grade school kids need a MacBook air?

Where's the reference to grade school coming from? It wasn't in the original post.

PTAs are primarily/only a thing in grade school.

My high school had a PTO back in the 80s and checking the local public high school, it too has a PTO.

Do high school kids need macbook airs?

I don't know if high school kids need macbook airs, but I also don't see how that answers the question of where "grade school" was in the original comment

It's asking if either grade or high school needs it? I'm not aware of PTOs for colleges.

At least the old design (have not seen tear down of new design) seemed purpose built for schools It was relatively rugged with key components easily swapped. It was powerful enough to do many tasks far easier than an under powered Chromebook. A pool of Macbook Airs is relatively common. Most schools in my (relatively poor) area that issue students laptops tend to offer inexpensive Chromebooks.

Chromebooks seem to be the standard nowadays. At least that is what are issued by the school around here (Midwest US).

My first thought is that if someone can't afford a computer, wouldn't they prefer to have a "lesser" computer and have the remaining difference in cash or necessities?

Maybe the donors are a little out of touch with what their recipients need. I'm sure they are appreciative of the computer, but there could be more impactful use of that money.

We took the novel approach of having the instructors choose the platform they thought would enable them to deliver the best program. Then we sought to see if we could meet their request, and we were able to. Donors had no influence over that decision.

The computers cost about 40% of the overall budget. We had enough money to fulfill other aspects of the PTO’s program, PE, Art, Music, Dance, (the ‘A’ in STEAM that LAUSD skipped over) Robotics.

This was a magnet school with widely varied socioeconomic family profiles. And the PTO is not authorized by contract with the school to engage in other social programs. But those in need were covered by a) the Federal hot lunch program, and b) LAUSD-funded anyone on campus child or adult could have a free breakfast (of dubious quality, all carb no protein and for example, a 10% juice sugar-laden drink qualified as ‘fruit’) just for being on campus. Going hungry was by choice only. And you would not believe how much food is thrown away from the breakfast program. My wife fought hard to connect with local homeless shelters to send the food but school administrators put the kibosh on that.

So why should we opt for austerity when we had everything covered? Actual parents will always choose the best option within their reach.

Good question. My elementary school/middle school had Macs. Even as a young child, I thought the appropriation of funds for that seemed wrong. I can’t think of a legitimate reason a school district needs luxury computers for children that are likely to spill stuff or otherwise ruin them.

We had 1-2 macs in a couple classroosm in my elementary school but this was early-mid 90s.

Some schools seem to be 100% Apple for all computers for decades.

I would think a Chromebook would be more fit for purpose here though.

You can get a nice, slim Chromebook with specs good enough for a high school student for a few hundred bucks. OTOH, a MacBook Air is $1000 and up.

Do the majority of MacBook Air users or customers need them?

Though it feels wasteful (making assumptions about the use-cases) I’m guessing grade school kids need them for the same reasons or non-reasons as mostly everyone else.

That these are coming from a PTO fundraiser and not a tax-funded budget makes it okay in my book (setting aside the reality that other kids might attend schools with much less productive PTOs —a problem I think for a public system).

OP didn’t say they were required. Maybe they are just beneficial. They are light, have a great battery life, connect without many issues to the sum of humanity’s explicit knowledge, etc.

“Why do people need xyz” deserves its own form of Betteridges headlines.

Are you asking why they need a Mac or why they need a laptop?

Magnet should give you a hint.

Looks like Target stopped supporting schools through Target Red Card in 2016?

https://www.ptotoday.com/pto-today-articles/article/6232-tar...

Coincidentally, same year we started homeschooling. Hence my ignorance on the topic.

Wait, you have a PTO for home schooled kids?

> In the last PTO I was involved with

It's shortsighted for other reasons as well. On Android, you had to have notifications enabled in order to buy through Amazon Smile. Being able to deliver ads via push notification is a useful way to increase sales. I guess they weren't making enough money from it to cover the costs to charity?

Does Target Red Card offer charity donations like Amazon Smile? Asking for our PTO.

You don't even need the Red Card. Go into your Target app, go to your account, click on "Target Circle" and then you scroll down to where it says "Vote for NonProfits".

I only learned about this a few months ago. I saw that I had accrued like 80 "votes" for non-profits. So you can go in there and distribute your votes to applicable non-profits in the area and presumably each vote is worth a fixed amount that is sent to them.

I know very little about the program other than using it as a consumer over the last few months. But hopefully that helps. I don't have the Target Red Card. But I use the app for savings, so I scan the app when I checkout at Target and i've been accruing these votes the whole time without realizing.

What's a PTA/PTO?

Parent Teacher Association/Organization, basically a parents group for a school.

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