Howard Blume of the Los Angeles Times reported today the leaked results of an investigation of the district’s plan to purchase $1 billion of iPads loaded with Pearson curriculum.
It begins:
“The groundbreaking effort to provide an iPad to every Los Angeles student, teacher and school administrator was beset by inadequate planning, a lack of transparency and a flawed bidding process, according to the draft of an internal school district report obtained by The Times.
“The bidding process — and events leading up to it — were singled out for particular criticism. The report concludes that the district needlessly limited its options on price and product, and raises questions about whether the process was fair.
“The much-anticipated analysis is drawn from public and closed meetings held over 10 months by a committee chaired by school board member Monica Ratliff. That panel, composed of parents, employee representatives and district officials, heard presentations, posed questions and gathered documents from experts and officials. Ratliff directed that the report remain confidential until committee members could provide input.
“The Times obtained it from sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to release it.
“The committee review stops short of accusing anyone of wrongdoing, but offers a carefully worded rebuke of the $1-billion-plus technology effort in the nation’s second-largest school system.
“While the report applauds the goals and potential benefits of the technology push, it details major problems in how the effort was carried out.
“Among the findings:
“•The initial rules for winning the contract appeared to be tailored to the products of the eventual winners — Apple and Pearson — rather than to demonstrated district needs.
“•Key changes to the bidding rules were made after most of the competition had been eliminated under the original specifications.
“•Past comments or associations with vendors, including by L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy, created an appearance of conflict even if no ethics rules were violated.
“Last year’s iPad rollout at 47 schools suffered a series of setbacks. In one, students at three campuses deleted security filters so they could browse the Internet — prompting officials to prohibit the iPads’ use outside of school.
“Still, many students and teachers expressed excitement about using the $768 devices and the opportunities they might offer.
“Both the devices and the curriculum on them have been paid for with voter-approved school construction bonds.
“While the report is wide-ranging, it focuses heavily on the bidding that resulted in a $30-million initial contract for Apple in June 2013. That work was expected to expand districtwide by the end of 2014, but officials changed the plan after the rollout, pushing the timetable back and testing to see if laptops might be better for older students.
“The report suggests that from the beginning district officials, including Deasy, made decisions that created an appearance of impropriety, clouding good intentions.”
“The superintendent recused himself from the bidding process because he owned Apple stock, which he has since sold. But he seemed to signal where his preferences lay in a promotional video filmed for Apple in December 2011, as a school pilot program using only iPads was set to start.”
The story points out that the instructional leader of the district, Jaime Aquino, previously worked for Pearson, and that Pearson’s foundation underwrote the cost of a conference for 50 district employees in Palm Desert, where each received a gift iPad for “district use.”
Fyi students got the iPads while very few teachers did. I’m an itinerant theatre teacher and we have been promised a computer for years with no results. Kids don’t need iPads, they need accountable parents. Where is the doom for THAT discussion?
Peace, beats and beauty sleep,
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Many of the IPads were sent to school sites for testing only, then returned to a warehouse somewhere. I expect them to reappear when they are too antiquated to cause any harm.
Old news, as with the mortgage crisis, none of the people responsible will be prosecuted or jailed, This BOE was complicit in this fiasco by blindly rubber stamping everything the superintendent and senior staff put before them. The recent screw up of the internal data system, Misis, will cost us millions of dollars and no one gets the blame, least of all the on-line educated superintendent and his senior staff. In LAUSD, the waste goes on.
That’s a little like saying the Vietnam War was poorly planned, deeply flawed.
Thanks to Howard Blume of the LA Times. and to his boss Karin Klein, for this expose of LAUSD’s mismanagement.
Adding to the $1Billion iPad fiasco wherein Supt. Deasy used earmarked Construction Bond funding to make purchases from favored sources, this week another hugely touted expense for the MiSiS data sources for all entering students,collapsed and thousands of students were left standing in hallways and on sidewalks unable to be assigned to classrooms on the first day of school. Now the inept superintendent, John Deasy of Broad Academy infamy, wants to add to the taxpayer losses and hire a consultant who would report to him exclusively, rather than to the Board of Education which employs him.
It is shocking to see the ongoing failures of this superintendent who received over 90% NO CONFIDENCE rating from his teachers before the BoE gave him another 3 year contract. The public was dismayed at how he played them with his “resignation” and then with hours his orchestrated street theater on Oct. 29 to get the BoE to renew his contract. The mendacity of this man is notorious.
How long will the voters of California and particularly in the LAUSD school district permit this kind of destructive and secretive leadership from this man whose very PhD claim seems to be none existent? With only a short period teaching in a military school years ago, Deasy has clawed his way up the executive ladder to his high paying LAUSD ;job…but watching his continued careless decision-making ability, it is clearly apparent that he should be removed from this position of leading the second largest school district in the nation.
Addendum…Deasy worked both for Bill Gates and for iPad before Eli Broad and former mayor Villaraigosa got him his LAUSD Supt. gig with no national search and no other competition. Some might call this a fix. And certainly they got their money’s worth with all the teachers he has fired and all the charter schools he has embedded in LAUSD. He testified for the plaintiffs in the Vergara case, and was delighted with the outcome, stating that he could now fire teachers more rapidly.
He got his PhD with only 9 units of credit in a few months from the administrator at U. of Lousivllle who is now in prison for defrauding the university. This same man was hired by Deasy at a rate of about
$380,000 to consult for him in California…some might call that quid pro quo.
Wow, Ellen.
I never knew Deasy was so SLEAZY.
Robert Rendo: there is a casual cynicism that pervades the leaders of the charterite/privatizer movement.
They have as much respect and admiration for those with PhDs as they do for teacher experience in the classroom. And just how much is that? Can we quantify it? Can we label, sort and rank it?
The numbers are just all over the place with “Dr.” Steve Perry and “Dr.” John Deasy and “Dr.” Terence Carter and other holders of sheepskins. But let’s figure, say, that the 9 credits of Deasy are humongous—after all, “Dr.” Terence Carter doesn’t even have a doctorate.
😱
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/07/20/jon-pelto-meet-the-latest-education-reformer-with-a-dubious-degree/
So leaving aside whether we’re comparing apples to oranges or orangoutangs, 9 is so so much bigger than 0. John Deasy is 9 times the ‘scholar’ that Terence Carter is!
But still, they’re all “Doctors”—just read the correct versions of their resumés and you’ll come to the realization that they take just as much stock in the quality of their doctorates and the work behind them as they do in the experience and expertise and competence and compassion of this country’s teachers, especially those in public schools.
¿? Yes, priceless. ¿? Of course, in rheephormish [thank you, Bob Shepherd!] that means “without price, without value, don’t count for no thing no how no way.”
Any questions before I go on to 100% charter graduation rates and $1 billion iPad purchases? That New Charterite/Privatizer Math is just, like, so déjà vu all over again…
😎
He, like SCami Anderson in Newark, NJ, and other Broad Supes get anointed/appointed. There is never competition. There is never a “fair search” to fill these positions. Dang, if these are the best and brightest they have to offer, we’re all in trouble. Best and brightest at trickery and thievery.
Krazy – A slight correction: 9 x 0 = 0.
Easy peasy, Sleazy Deasy.
Christine Langhoff: I am shocked, I tell you, shocked and amazed that you have unraveled the inner workings of charterite/privatizer math!
😳
Now I understand how 40% charter attrition = 100% charter graduation rates! “Easy peasy, Sleazy Deasy” indeed! And taking students from the 13th to the 90th percentile in one year—that’s Rheeally miraculous, in a Johnsonally kind of way. And the last shall be first: how charter accountability = over 150 exemptions for Ohio charters from those stifling innovation-killing laws and regulations for Ohio public schools! Less is more!
And I didn’t even need psychotropic drugs.
😜
Wow!
With all due apologies to Jimi Hendrix, “Purple Haze”—
Charter math, all in my brain
40% equals 100% now seems sane.
And 9 credits equal a PhD
‘Scuse me while I run LAUSD.
$tudent $ucce$$ all around
iPad sales up, then iPad report brings them down.
I don’t care if students are happy or in misery
‘Cause ed reform’s got a spell on me.
Genuine teaching and learning was in my gunsight
still don’t know if it’s day or night.
But I know I’m wasting money on lipstick for pigs
When it’s gone, I off to my next gig.
😏
It all seems so clear now. Makes perfect ₵ent¢.
😎
KTA,
Do you mean this “orangutan?
Very old news. Deasy tried to fire a sub a few years ago because she didn’t have an intellectually challenging lesson plan on the first day of school. But his latest tech crisis, the attendance system, deprived thousands of students of the first day of school. Will he fire himself?
typo…should read “within hours of his resignation, his orchestrated street theater….”
Hopefully someone will care enough to do a thorough investigation to find out if anyone got kickbacks from this questionable purchase. Or did that person just make a lot of money on his stock and then sell them after the deed was done?
It gives me great satisfaction knowing that a mere teacher is now Deasy’s boss. He’ll rue the day he insulted the men and women who dedicate their lives to the protection and instruction of Los Angeles children. Right about now the district is once again finding it difficult to hire enough qualified teachers. Is that the fault of “the unions?”
The people who put students first are in our homes and classrooms.
Hi Linda…you are one of my fav and most respected former teacher letter writers to the LA Times….hope you have written a hot one today about how you feel about Deasy and his cavalier and ill conceived spending of our taxpayer money.
Same goes for the Sony Vaio laptop I bought in the fall of 2001.
Seems like the edu-preneurs are always finding new and creative ways to waste people’s money on technologies that are inappropriate, unwanted, or poorly planned.
NEW STORY OUT OF INDIANA:
I found this article in the Indy Star at
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2014/08/20/ethics-waiver-question-m-education-contract/14346253/.
After a period of time, this article will be archived behind a “pay wall”
So, Deasy claims he has not seen the report!!!! Well, that might be the case. After all, does anyone believe that it would have seen the light of day if he was given the opportunity to squelch it?
Yes, many of the concerns listed in the article are not new. For example, it was made public that the scoring sheets for the devices/curriculum were lost. Hmmm, and who believes that was an accident?
Hummmm. The last time we had a “leak” to Howard Blume, it was a crafty bait-and-switch regarding Deasy’s resignation.
I have little faith this is Deep Throat material. I would love to be wrong on this, but I am skeptical that this “news” is anything but a well crafted diversion. From what? Guess us sitting ducks in LA will have to stay tuned to this dance macabre to find out.
Welcome to the Greatest Show on Earth—The Los Angeles Unified School District http://www.examiner.com/article/welcome-to-the-greatest-show-on-earth-the-los-angeles-unified-school-district
In Utah, the Speaker of the House sponsored a bill last session that would have done a 1:1 technology for every student in Utah. It would cost over $300 million. It failed because of the cost. NOW, this Speaker has applied to be Utah’s state superintendent. She has no teaching experience: she’s a nurse and a politician. AND, her husband works for Micron and has a lot of involvement in educational technology. The hits have just kept coming for Utah this month.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/58321565-90/sltrib-board-lockhart-state.html.csp
I’m not sure if this is the right place for this comment, but I am perplexed.
I have an old laptop in my classroom & it has XP as its operating system (which I know is outdated). The school district’s new math program by Pearson (Realize) only works with Windows 7 or 8 making my laptop useless to teach the new math program. This seems so suspicious to me.
If this is the same Jaime Aquino that Anthony Amato brought to Hartford in the late 90’s early 00’s then he believes cheating is something to keep quiet. When he was told about cheating on standardized testing at a K-8 school in the south end of Hartford he replied, “Don’t tell anyone it will hurt the students.” The principal had been promoted to a position at central office, the Hartford Courant wasn’t interested in the story. Another principal in a north end Hartford school who used the same cheating techniques saw his school awarded a blue ribbon. He also received a nice promotion to central office and is now a superintendent at a suburban school north of Hartford. Cheaters in Hartford have been rewarded with promotions for decades.
k Diddo in LAUSD. If you think there was no cheating in this district then you are certainly in LaLa land. We all know how data is manipulated and if your job or your future depended on certain data outcomes, the data could be manipulated to that effect. i believe data is good if it is used to inform, not punish.