>"Paying out millions of dollars in legal settlements is something the district will care about, and might cost someone their job"

I'd bet this is something the voters will care about, but it's likely to be attributed to some 'innocent mistake', 'communication error', or 'server misconfiguration'. The school district won't lose any revenue, and I doubt anyone will get fired. Maybe a contractor will get scapegoated.

People on HN complain about how reckless private companies are with their data, but bureaucracies are even less accountable.

Parents/students do not have a private right of action under applicable federal law (FERPA). The US Dept of Education could theoretically hold the school district to account, but that would be extraordinary (speaking of the current context, but also historically).

It's against the law to pay the ransom. So damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

I supposed it may light the districts' ass to get good security, but if you don't know what good security looks like, how are you supposed to know?

USA has a good number of security frameworks. Collaborating with a more advanced education institute (for guidance) and setting a programme/project would be possible if they wanted (or now to prevent the shitshow from happening again).

Any uni that has undergone similar project will have the project charter, resources, skills, timelines, lessons learned (the whole project folder).

Where there is a will there is a way. And I believe thay many organisations DO know that they operate on low/bad security, they just prefer to roll the dice and use the budget for something else..

...millions of dollars of taxpayer money.