My kids have been to 4 schools so far (we move around a fair bit). In each one they are expected to have a Google account which is linked to their school in some sort of G Suite arrangement.

I don't know if it's a coincidence or a department policy, but Google gets them early and if you think that's bad, teachers aren't to blame - maybe schools are or possibly the education dept.

Honestly I was a little surprised that there was no discussion about it. I talk to my kids about the way the web and privacy is going and I don't expect schools to do everything but they should be a little more aware of the issues imo.

My kids user office 365, but the iPad requirement is my but beef.

> the iPad requirement is my but beef.

I feel your pain. At an obligatory 500 bucks a pop I would have been much happier to buy them laptops.

I rent them, but unless you have other Apple products you can only setup adult accounts, so my kindergartner has to be "13".

We somehow dodged the iPads for kindergarteners bullet but that would have made my blood boil. I guess the FingerPaint app is less messy than actual fingers and actual paint.

In my less charitable moments I think teachers are getting lazier, but when I go to those parent conferences and see the teaching staff looking like rabbits in the spotlight as parents of 3rd graders grill them on the latest academic theories I realise that really they're caught in the middle of a whole set of weird expectations.

1. Nobody besides idealogoues actually cares about that. See their huge install base as a demonstration of this fact.

2. The professor tells you to create a new account and submit it via that. Sure it probably violates the ToS but nobody cares.