I just can’t figure out how it makes sense for Los Angeles to spend $1 billion on iPads when it has so many other pressing needs. I can’t figure out how the district expects to buy another generation of iPads in 3-4 years. I can’t understand how the district justifies taking this money from a school construction bond fund approved by the voters for repairs and construction, not iPads. How is this sustainable? Set aside the fact that the district is paying more than retail and that the lease on the Pearson content expires in three years: Is this purchase responsible stewardship of district funds?
Happily, the bond oversight committee seems to be asking similar questions. In this post, we learn that the committee asked for answers to these questions:
“TO BE CLEAR: The oversight committee did not say “No way/No how.” We simply ask for more justification and detailed cost estimates and a delivery timeline.
● We also request a through program review and evaluation of Phase 1 and then Phase 2: What are the educational goals? Are we meeting them?
● We requested a review of all the Pearson software content no later than March 1. Show me the content.
● We want to see a plan for maintenance, replacement and continuation of the Common Core Technology Program when the Apple/Pearson contract expires in 2016.
● We want to see the legal questions definitively answered (They are still working on that Parent Responsibility Form…and what about taking them home?) …as well as the strategy for bond finance of short term assets.
● We want to see the impact of the iPads project on the facilities build and repair program: What won’t be doing if we buy all these iPads?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
None of this would have happened without determined and on going public pressure.
LAUSD parents should form their own school board like they did in Chicago
http://www.examiner.com/article/lausd-parents-should-form-their-own-school-board-like-they-did-chicago
quote: “I just can’t figure out how it makes sense for Los Angeles to spend $1 billion on iPads when it has so many other pressing needs. I can’t figure out how the district expects to buy another generation of iPads in 3-4 years. ”
My supervisor was president of Massachusetts Business Officials’ before he retired… he set up some licensing agreements with 50 school districts to purchase computer services…. they were within school district budgets. Please, folks, whenever anything is contracted WATCH those service/license agreements. We were operating in the 80s but after I retired a “con man” took over and he got his salary up to a CEO with the highest pension in the state…. through (a) renting classrooms; (b) selling space on computers for networking…. What was done for 20 years by this individual is immoral and unethical. There were all kinds of “loopholes”…. Be wary of anything that has a license attached; license runs out and you pay the whole fee all over again. I would like to send you the copy of a current contract that illustrates this licensing arrangement and what I think are exorbitant fees and obscene charges. Mayors are buying the stuff; there is a penchant for having the “newest” toy on the block no matter what the cost but I don’t think they know how to read these licensing agreements. if you want a copy of the RFP/award that I think is exorbitant ask at jeanhaverhill@aol.com (this is absolutely not what we did in the 90s and is creating giant “bubbles” that will explode like technolgoy bubble, housing bubble, etc.)
Jean et al..please keep in mind that these LAUSD contracts were put in place with no transparency by Deasy and his sidekick Aquino. Without the current questioning of new Board member Ratliff, the public would still be dancing in the dark.
Ellen Lubic
You’ve got that right. We have Monica Ratliff to thank for demanding attention be paid to the details no matter what.
When a BILLION dollars is chump change to the very people who think that five figure thousandaire teachers are paid too much, you know that we are being ruled by an oligarchy that is out of control and has no ethics.
And these folks are supposed to be our “betters”? More like our worsters. That’s what happens when business is the model for public education. We get corrupt political AND nefarious business practices guiding education –a double whammy.
I wish someone would simply ask what the trade off is? In other words, what are the consequences of spending this kind of money in this way? Here is an excellent article by KPCC’s Annie Gilbertson on the state of libraries in LAUSD. While the main funding for the iPads is coming from construction bonds, the general fund is already being raided to supplement required tech services and no one knows how much more will be required as the project develops. What other LAUSD programs and staff will be cut to keep the iPad project going? No one knows, and no one will dare to predict. That alone should shut the whole iPad project down immediately.
http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2013/12/02/15291/dozens-of-l-a-unified-schools-lack-staff-needed-to/
I thought of an example that might be relevant. I bet a lot of homeowners would gladly accept a large rebate on our property taxes. But, they might think twice about it if it turned out that garbage collection was reduced to bi-monthly forcing all residences to find ways to store twice as much rotting garbage between pick-ups. In other words, the iPads are NOT FREE. There are trade-offs.