Howard Blume of the Los Angeles Times wrote a scathing description of the failed implementation of the $1.3 billion iPad boondoggle, which shows poor planning, a thrown-together program that amounted to buying gadgets with no preparation for using them.
“In the first formal evaluation of the troubled iPads-for-all project in Los Angeles schools, only one teacher out of 245 classrooms visited was using the costly online curriculum. The reason, according to the report, was related to the program’s ambition, size and speed.
The analysis found that district staff was so focused on distributing devices that little attention was paid to using iPads effectively in the classroom.
The report, conducted by an outside firm at the request of the school system, was intended to provide an early assessment of the program, which began last year at 47 schools.
Among the issues cited at several schools: high school math curriculum wasn’t provided, efforts to log in and access curriculum were unsuccessful and at least one school said it preferred the district’s own reading program. Four out of five high schools reported that they rarely used the tablets.
“The overarching theme of comments … was that deployment of devices on this scale and pace had never been attempted before in the district, and that [teachers and others] had to learn and adapt as the project unfolded,” the report said.
This view was echoed by many of those the researchers interviewed. The early goal “was to just get the devices out, that was basically it, just get the devices out, use them as quick as possible … there were other goals …. they were talked about but they really didn’t get implemented,” one technical specialist told evaluators.
A district leader who was not identified said: “We didn’t have enough people so everyone was working on deployment … that really, really impacted our professional development [training] rollout, in fact we barely had one because of that.”
The review, conducted by a nine-member team from the Washington, D.C.-based American Institutes for Research, offers a sharp contrast to early pronouncements from the school district on the $1.3-billion effort. In particular, Los Angeles schools Supt. John Deasy labeled the project “an astonishing success” and officials faulted media reports for suggesting otherwise.
Now, if only the Los Angeles Times’ editorial board would read Howard Blume’s brilliant reporting, maybe they would stop blaming teachers and their union for Deasy’s failures.
But, in that very same paper, on that very same day, the editorial writers wrote an oversized editorial excoriating the naysayers on Deasy, trying to remind readers how bad things were “before Deasy” when teachers got their way on all sorts of non-teachery things like curriculum, job protections, and student testing. It’s like they don’t even read their own newspaper!
Melissa Walsh: I am sure many others were just as dumbfounded as I was when I read—
“It’s like they don’t even read their own newspaper!”
Members of an editorial board are supposed to read their own newspaper?
I am sure that I am not alone when I say that this assumption, as well as the idea that such folks are supposed to read anything at all, presumes a lot.
Next thing, you’ll claim propaganda and information are not synonyms.
If so, I am sure that Eva Moskowitz and John Deasy and Bill Gates, as well as a lot of other Very Important People, will be very disappointed in you.
Although I must admit I am inclining to your position…
😎
Just wait. The next wave will be a campaign to blame the teachers for a failed implementation of a great idea. Mark my words.
Get this: I just learned that the iPads and/or Apple laptops distributed to umpteen thousand teachers, do not support the multi-million dollar My Integrated Student Information System (MiSiS) that was supposed to track attendance (read: revenue), schedules, rosters and student grades. I guess nobody thought to ask if MiSiS like Apples.
Adding up all of Deasy’s mismanagement costs, all paid for by the taxpayers, we are somewhere in the vicinity of 1/2 billion dollars. How much waste is the BoE, and the public, willing to tolerate before shutting down these ill advised tech programs, e.g.iPads, MiSiS, and firing Deasy and his staff of mismanagers?
Add to this the plethora of lawsuits (just yesterday another one settled for over $3 Million) by vendors, parents, teachers, and others unknown to us, and we must be verging on bankruptcy…which seemed to be the goal of Deasy and Broad from the get-go. Many in LA have had the insight to suggest this for the last two years.
I’m so tired of the “botched implementation” meme (iPads, Common Core, standardized testing, you name it). As if there is a good way to implement a bad idea.
“Poor Execution”
Iraq and school reform
Are really a success
It’s simply execution
That makes them seem a mess
I hope you’re keeping track of all of these. Let me know when your book is published.
Also, let’s not forget that there is little evidence that 1:1 programs actually enhance student learning. http://education.missouristate.edu/assets/clse/Final_Report_of_One-to-One_Meta-Synthesis__April_2012_.pdf
You hear folks hollering that schools should be run more like a business, but what business spends gobs of money on an unproven technology and hopes for the best?
On top of all of this, today’s la times states that DZ will hire more out of classroom support to help the implementation of the iPads. Now we have no money for raises, we waste millions of dollars putting teachers in jail over false allegations, we have crumbling schools with no a/c, we have overcrowded classrooms, we have hundreds of veteran teachers displaced and subbing everyday but we have money to hire more out of classroom personnel. Amazing. It’s like DZ and the BOE is rubbing it in our faces. They don’t care how much we holler and scream, they will continue implementing a failed program. At this points I have to say again #DUMP DEASY AND THE BOE, NOW!
Looking at all this from a teachers point of view. First I don’t think there was Wi-Fi in a number of classes. Next, they can’t take them home. How can you assign reading or homework etc. if they can’t take them home. How can they study for a test. Finally, a lot of kids don’t have wi=fi at home nor computers. So, they Idea of showing an instruction video at home and doing the practicing of it the next day in the classroom, which has met with much success, is impossible here. It’s impractical, not well thought out, and not usable. The reason is Deasy isn’t a teacher. He didn’t teach long enough nor with enough experience to imagine the problems facing a classroom with these devices.His PHD like his teaching career is a big old illusive fake. He listens to Broad superintendent academy and not teachers. And that place is as anti teacher, anti educators as any place on earth. So it’s not a big surprise when the reality of the classroom clashed with the illusions of reform and technology put out there by non educators. I wonder really if a pilot would tell a mechanic how to fix the plane, or a hospital administrator would tell a surgeon how to operate. So why do these executive, administrator types with no educational background or experience think they can teach us how to teach and what materials to use.
It’s nonsensical.
Thank you, Ms. Ravitch for your continued commitment on this topic. Again, it didn’t take rocket science to know this. We, LAUSD teachers, smelled something rotten and fishy at the onset.
A TEACHER’S PERSPECTIVE ON
HOW THE I-PADS ACTUALLY
WORKED IN PRACTICE:
Apart from the corruption involved—
conflicts of interests; going thru the
motions of a sham bidding process
when the winner had already been
chosen, etc.—one thing people forget
is that the $1.3 Billion Ipad purchase
was a majorly dumb-ass idea on
so many OTHER levels it’s hard to believe.
First of all, the bond money Deasy
blew on the Ipad debacle was
meant for the construction and
repair of existing BUILDINGS and
related infrastructure. Deasy and his
allies made the looney argument
that the portable hand computers constituted
PART of the building infrastructure…
WTF???!!!
After a stretch like that, even most
pliant gymnast would be on muscle
relaxants for weeks.
Another consideration is that, in practice,
Deasy was warned by teachers (like
the one BELOW) about all the problems
that would crop up in the actual
implementation.
Mind you, these are problems that
played out, and still would have played
out…
1) even if spending a billion-plus dollars of construction
bond money on I-pads was legally allowable (it ain’t)
and
2) even if the entire process was conducted
on the up-and-up, with no corruption
or conflict of interests (it wasn’t).
The whole I-pad purchase was, again,
a majorly dumbass undertaking from
the get-go, and this, again, was pointed
out by UTLA, parents, and community members.
Right now, that same bond money that
was blown in the Ipad fiasco..
… that same money would have gone
to repair… for example…
desperately-needed air-conditioning in the older
LAUSD school buildings. Instead, it went to
I-pads, and this has meant that children are now
sitting in classes that are the equivalent
of ovens… drenched with sweat, unable
to even concentrate… in this brutal
heat wave that we’re enduring this week.
Thanks Dr. Deasy! (while Deasy sits in his
air-conditioned, luxury office on the 24th
floor of LAUSD Admin. building at
3rd and Beaudry downtown as this
plays out.)
Below is a link to an article on a blog
written by LAUSD teacher Martha
Infante—who teaches in South Central.
This is from her own individual blog.
In this blog post, she goes after OTHER aspects
of the Ipad debacle not covered in the
media — the fact that, apart from the
implementation of Pearson’s Common
Core testing, these I-pads were
completely useless.
Again, this is written from the
point-of-view of a the teacher on
the ground giving the actual skinny
on what actually went on with
how the Ipads performed:
Martha offers countless other criticisms:
—students getting robbed while
taking them home (as they have for
much less expensive items)
—With no policies and safeguards
in place, these devices would “disappear”
from schools and find themselves on the
black market. (they have);
—current and former administrators
refused to take responsibility for missing
computer devices”;
—students do not want to use
these devices with only Pearson
software installed on them;
—diversion of bond money that
should have gone for building repairs,
cleaning, resources, and overall
infrastructure, etc.;
—LAUSD greatly overpaid for them;
—each school’s wifi network could not
handle the usage by their entire student body.
Beyond that, there were practical uses
that were prevented by the Person/Common
Core programmed priority that went along
with, and were built in to these devices:
—No opportunity to Skype with schools
around the world,
—no ability to make “Prezis” ( (SaaS
use Ipads for class presentations
using presentation software and storytelling
tool for presenting ideas on a virtual canvas.)
— no general internet access to look stuff up.
—Once testing was over, these devices
were sent back to the district.
—teachers were totally left out of
the decision-making;
MARTHA INFANTE:
“No one asked us, the teachers, and every last prediction came true. When people started asking questions, they were silenced.”
(Regarding one of those being “silenced”, Martha hyperlinks to the times
article “LAUSD has enough yes-men; it needs Stuart Magruder,”
about a parent member of the Bond Oversight committee who voiced objections,
and was canned in Parliamentary maneuver by LAUSD Board Member
Tamar Galatzan… a corporate reformist whose campaign was
bankrolled by Eli Broad and Bill Gates, among others.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-magruder-20140617-story.html
Martha continues…
MARTHA INFANTE: “Now I start my school year with students sharing cell phones with each other to do research (contrary to popular belief, not all students from poverty have internet access). I research ways to write grants for a class set of kindles, because these are the most affordable and at least they can connect to the worldwide web.
“But worse, I suffer the insult of a Bostonian man telling me that he is more interested and invested in improving the lives of our students than I and thousands of others of educators are and have been.
“I am not content to let this ride out. My students don’t have a voice (yet) and I do. Stay tuned for more blogging this year, and thank you for reading.”
—————————————————-
Here’s the entirety of Martha’s blog article:
http://dontforgetsouthcentral.blogspot.com/2014/08/ipads-are-good-for-students-arent-they.html
Don’t Forget South Central: iPads Are Good For Students, Aren’t They?
————————————————–
————————————————–
“Don’t Forget South Central: iPads Are Good For Students. Aren’t they?
“If you believe technology can replace teachers, then yes. I do not believe it. Let me back up. Hi! My name is Martha Infante and I have been in education for 24 yea…
“As a career classroom teacher, it has been a surreal experience to live trough the transformation of my profession.
“If you believe technology can replace teachers, then yes. I do not believe it.
“Let me back up.
“Hi! My name is Martha Infante and I have been in education for 24 years. I love teaching. I would also love a class set of computers for my students to do research and projects, but our schools have been decimated in recent years with budget cuts and we are only now recovering. In fact, this is what got me started in blogging.
“Why is the iPad issue so controversial? It might be because our Superintendent John Deasy, who sees himself as a champion of civil rights, believes iPads will equalize educational opportunities for students from poverty. Not more teachers, counselors, clean buildings, resources, training…but iPads.
“The Los Angeles Unified School District, however, is paying $768 per device for its students, teachers and administrators, making it one of the nation’s most expensive technology programs.
“After we overpaid for these devices with bond money, they made their appearance in my school for one purpose only: to test children. No opportunity to Skype with schools around the world, no ability to make Prezis, no general internet access to look stuff up. Once testing was over, these devices were sent back to the district.
“What did we give up when choosing these expensive devices? Well, the money that could have gone to infrastructure went to iPads. As a result, schools have ant, roach, and rodent issues, broken classrooms and buildings, and few devices to use for instructional purposes.
“I have a real problem with not involving teachers in the conversation. My main concern was that students would get robbed (and possibly injured) while taking their iPads home. This happens regularly in the neighborhood where I teach, for much less valuable items.
“With no policies and safeguards in place, these devices would “disappear” from schools and find themselves on the black market.
“At Dymally Senior High, “current and former administrators refused to take responsibility for missing computer devices,” the report said.-LA Times
“Students will not want to use these devices with only Pearson software installed on them.
“Was each school’s wifi network enough to handle the usage by their entire student body?
“No one asked us, the teachers, and every last prediction came true. When people started asking questions, they were silenced.
“LAUSD has enough yes-men; it needs Stuart Magruder
“Now I start my school year with students sharing cell phones with each other to do research (contrary to popular belief, not all students from poverty have internet access). I research ways to write grants for a class set of kindles, because these are the most affordable and at least they can connect to the worldwide web.
“But worse, I suffer the insult of a Bostonian man telling me that he is more interested and invested in improving the lives of our students than I and thousands of others of educators are and have been.
“I am not content to let this ride out. My students don’t have a voice (yet) and I do. Stay tuned for more blogging this year, and thank you for reading.”