Ed Liebowitz is a parent of children on the Los Angeles public schools. He describes in this article what the district really needs: not an iPad for every student but basic and essential repairs to its schools and their infrastructure.
When he and other families complained about broken playground equipment, LAUSD didn’t have the money to make the repairs. When he and another family chipped in and bought the missing parts, no crews were available to install them.
Soon the iPads will be obsolete and the license on the Pearson curriculum will expire. What then?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
LAUSDeasy what have you done to our children and our tax money?
http://www.examiner.com/article/lausdeasy-what-have-you-done-to-our-children-and-our-tax-money
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Just ask and answer: cui bono?
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Ah, but who needs Bricks And Mortar And Playground Swings (BAMAPS) when all the kids will be schooling from home, or the street, or wherever, who cares, on their edumachine appliances connected by WiFi from their Bloom-In Ediot Infotainment Serfice Providers?
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This is a KA-CHING at the expense of our students and teachers.
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This is the same mindset that bought Smartboards with $300 projector bulbs and now tells us the money is not there to buy the bulbs, that only certain people are allowed to replace the bulbs and that it’s just too bad they covered up the whiteboard and the chalkboard with the Smartboard screen.
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Maybe we could share space with all those newly built schools that are being turned over to charters. Oh, that’s right, according to know legible maintenance people, the new schools are poorly constructed and probably have the life span of an iPad. When you have a district that operates with back room deals and no bid contracts, what do you expect. You talk about reconstituting neighborhood schools, I think we need to seriously reconstitute Lausd bureaucracy. A culture of graft, misconduct and cronyism pervades the district and believe me,it’s not teachers who are responsible for this situation.
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All this while Deasy has ignored the fact that there is NO plan to replenish the iPads as they become obsolete or no longer functional. So, with little to no chance that the voters will pass any more bonds for LAUSD, the only real source of money is the general fund. Even with a hoped for influx of funding from Proposition 30, the financial future of LAUSD is in jeopardy as more and more money is funneled into the iPad program.
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Let me give you a first hand example. I taught in an adult school, in LAUSD. It was a school that also housed a highschool program.. I taught ESL. After a heavy rain for several months water was leaking down the wall under the floor creating a floor like a sponge. You could wipe up the water but if you walked on it it would seep out more. I also taught in a school where the ceiling fell in on my head not once but 3 times. After I went directly to the VP and told him I am going to fall through the floor soon he took action. It only took 2 years of begging. The man who fixed it said that i was just about to go through the to the classroom below. They then attempted to fix the celing, destroying the AC in the process, and making it fall on my head with gushing water again. My darling students raced up to clean me up and put out a bucket, which was there for many months. It was finally fixed after years of sruffering through rain storms and wondering if the electric lights the water streamed through would short out and burn down the school. So, trust me these people are telling the truth.
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No doubt that many of the school sites are neglected. There is asbestos, vermin, tainted water pipes, unsound structures, bad plumbing, mold and leaky roofs. However, it is necessary to be fair as well as accurate. The district has negotiated a lower price on the iPads in the last few days by dumping CCSS, which I predict will be cut sooner than later. http://www.hemlockontherocks.com/2014/01/somebodys-feet-met-fire-was-it-walk-of.html
Apparently, there is a choice available.
When it became known that Riverside schools chose to let teachers adapt the standards into lessons, it was impossible to defend the $60 million usage fee ( 3 years) for the scripted program which is already exposed as a mess created by non educators. We actually Meade a difference but teachers haven’t recognized it as that yet. Of course, with Deasy nothing is ever certain,
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The disrepair of LAUSD schools is shameful, and the diverting of funds for this unproven program of buying I-pads is infuriating. I am somewhat dumfounded that the taxpayers of this city have not revolted.
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How are they allowed to get away with this? The taxpayers of the city are indeed, revolting and the construction oversight commmittee is investigating. Again, I ask, why isn’t Kamala Harris doing her job?????
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