Did you read my post with this article?:
Could be a reason (at least) to keep kiosk and game mode available. 
It's basically about giving ownership and responsibility in place of taking away freedom through monitoring.
I do agree that with a school version extra stuff could be installed but that would depend on what kind of schools (and age groups) we're building for.
OTOH we could offer a basic, minimal version and a good tutorial/howto on what (newcomers are often overwhelmed) to install and which program/app choices we recommend, depending on the goal....thus allowing anyone to have what they want/need with the best, fast and stable software available.
I think the best way to attract (and keep) newcomers is to do a little "hand-holding" and give support without being condescending or throwing RTFM s. 
Searching the net for good (or the best) linux apps can be quite time consuming and certainly daunting if you aren't even 100% sure what it is you're looking for....this is where the strange naming schemes of some apps are partly to blame. 
Ergo:
The tutorial/howto has to be there first which (at the same time) allows us to define for ourselves what this (school)version should look like and contain.
Then we could offer up a ready made live-version as a showcase.
