Los Angeles Superintendent John Deasy and Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute wrote an article in which they seek to reassure teachers not to be afraid of technology. They patiently explain why the critics of Deasy’s decision to spend $1 billion for iPads and Pearson content are wrong, and why technology is good for students and teachers.

This is a classic example of what is known as “begging the question.”

No one is opposed to technology.

Teachers are not opposed to technology.

Parents are not opposed to technology.

Students are not opposed to technology.

What critics have asked is how Los Angeles can afford to spend $1 billion on iPads using money from a voter-approved school construction bond fund. When the money is used to buy iPads instead of repair buildings, where will the money be found to fix the buildings? Will voters be willing to support future bond issues if their wishes (to repair the schools) are blithely ignored? Deasy and Hess do not answer those questions.

What critics have asked is whether it is wise to spend $1 billion on iPads loaded with Pearson content when the iPads will be obsolete in 3-4 years and the lease on the Pearson content will expire in three years? Will the district spend $1 billion every 3-4 years to replace the obsolete tablets and to renew the lease on the Pearson content? Where will that money come from?

Why is Superintendent Deasy overriding the district’s Bond Oversight Committee, which is concerned about the cost and curricular content of the iPad purchase? Deasy and Hess don’t answer that question either.

In fact, none of the questions raised in Yasha Levine’s article about the iPad purchase (“The Unanswered Questions Behind L.A.’s iPad Fiasco”) were answered.

Here are some of those unanswered questions:

There were a lot of unanswered questions about the deal, but at least one thing was crystal clear: outfitting nearly a million people with top-of-the-line tablets was going to be insanely expensive. And that’s why just about everyone that wasn’t directly cashing in on LA’s “tablets was all” scheme was baffled and outraged by it. Parents and teachers couldn’t understand how LAUSD’s top brass could blow so much money on an expensive toy at a time when the district was laying off teachers and cutting physical education, art and music programs. Pointy headed academics scratched their chins at the news because there is no scientific evidence that shows tablets help kids learn or boost academic performance in any way. And others wondered why LAUSD planned to pay for iPads using bond money that was approved by voters solely for use in upgrading physical school infrastructure, especially when schools routinely lack the funds to make critical repairs.

Even the Los Angeles Times, which is normally very sympathetic to Deasy’s technocratic reform schemes, criticized the iPad deal. The paper noted with concern that Deasy not only owned Apple stock, but he had also appeared in an Apple promotional video boosting iPads as the best educational tools around.

Deasy and Hess should have answered at least a few of those questions, not just expressed praise for the joys of technology.