Here is a very interesting story in the HECHINGER Report about what went wrong in Los Angeles, after the district decided to send $1 billion on iPads.
Poor planning, poor implementation, a rush to get them in the hands of students without thinking about how to make it work or what might go wrong.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Story of our lives as teachers.. the next new thing is always the next best thing. They never think it through and it usually becomes more of a burden than an asset. Just think that they want to also provide us with AK47s or something like that in order to prevent shootings in schools. I can only imagine the fiasco and lack of training that would be….
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Gosh, in my district, they are so strict with computers, all tech, and access. We have so many things blocked kids can’t get on FB. Teachers can’t use FB. If you have a smartphone you can but that is the only way. I am sure kids can access stuff on their own phones, but not on school computers. But they get the computers ahead of the school year and have them set up and networked. It sounds like LA was just overwhelmed and in over their heads.
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I’m sorry but this isn’t merely an implementation and planning problem. Issuing an expensive tablet to every student in a district that large is a colossally stupid idea period.
Sensitivity to language is best developed in school through print media; kids are less likely to be distracted by bells and whistles that way. Good things can happen through a 1-1 (every kid with a computer) environment but, that environment need to be implemented at the local building level.
Computers and computer literacy are means, not ends.
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Kids can get targeted if they carry these home too.
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Any teacher with more than a few years experience could have predicted this scenario. In what is becoming SOP for schools (unfortunately) people who are inexperienced, young, idealistic, and full of themselves (and too ‘smart’ to seek input from the demonized teachers) makes a disastrous, expensive mistake with wide-reaching, long range consequences. Will they receive a bad VAM evaluation and threats of termination? Not bloody likely! Instead a peon (preferably a young teacher) will take the fall and the blame and disappear into oblivion while the reformers shout “Hey! Look over here! Technology! Improvement! Test Scores!” and many will be distracted and fooled. It’s just like the US government, isn’t it?
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This is Superintend Deasy’s response to the recent articles about the iPad fiasco. What he calls “glitches” you could drive a Mack truck through. But, then again, what else can he say???
Re “iPad plan doesn’t compute,” Editorial, Sept. 27
At LAUSD, we seek to provide our students with a quality education and the means to compete for well-paying jobs in the 21st century workplace. These two goals are contingent upon several factors, including providing all students, especially the economically disadvantaged, with the technology to do well in school and embark upon rewarding careers.
It’s disappointing that The Times believes that glitches in the largest rollout of its kind in the history of American public education should lead to a reassessment of the entire initiative. At LAUSD, we are not prepared on the basis of easily fixable problems to even consider halting a program that will enable deserving students across this district to achieve success in the classroom and life.
John Deasy
Los Angeles
The writer is superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District.
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Once again, even when the basic idea is dead wrong, Apple stomps Microsoft. (SNARK ALERT) Instead of jumping through their own hoops woven from their own false narratives about what will fix the problems with schools these days and spending big chump change to buttress the whole effort, Apple just lays back and lets the money come to them, money earned by the superiority of their I devices. Windows 8 is worse than Vista was, so it’s no surprise that Microsoft tablets were never in the running. The Gates Foundation invested all their time and money and Apple cleans up on the LA contract. Gates Foundation response: “So what, we’re still rolling in dough.” Bonus for Apple: as far as I know, it wasn’t their software that jumped the shark, courtesy of those tech deprived kids in LAUSD who were not awestruck after all by the shiny new toys.
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Good luck with all that “clicking”! How is letting kids click on the internet and search Wikipedia going to help them get jobs in the 21st century? I see plenty of idiots clicking on their I-Pods every day, not a thought in their heads. It’s absurd. It’s nuts! The best thing for teachers to do would be to take away all those “gizmos” and teach kids with books and paper. Many kids can’t spell even basic English words because they are functionally illiterate now. What company is going to pay kids to click around the internet, post pictures of themselves or play video games? It’s a joke! The good news for teachers is that all this technology distracts the students and eliminates discipline problems. That is the real reason for this tech push. Let’s entertain them and shut them up. Put a kid in front of a computer, and they get mesmerized and they start mindlessly clicking. They aren’t learning anything, but they are “distracted” and don’t generally cause the class any problems. Everybody is ignorant and happy. Five years from now I will be teaching, and the kids will be clicking, posting pictures, and lost in a digital world at their desks. I will talk to myself in front of the class, which I already do to a certain degree already. When classes have computers and I-Pads in all rooms, education (as it was formerly known) will be effectively “over.” But…the companies that sell all this electronic garbage will be richer and that is what is really important..
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“The best thing for teachers to do would be to take away all those “gizmos” and teach kids with books and paper.”
But, but, but, that’s soooooooo last century. Don’tcha know that computers will revolutionize education (not the teaching and learning process mind you) just like talkies, and radios, and intercoms, and television, and calculators and lasers and. . . . goddamned 21st century troglodytic Luddites.
By the way my policy is “All technological devices are put away BEFORE you walk into the classroom.” I’ll supply all the technology in class as I see fit-goddamn troglodytic Luddite bastard that I am.
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My school finally got two Vernier probeware class sets, for AP bio and environmental, but those teachers can’t get them to interface with the iPads, and there are no actual laptops for them to use for the labs. I’m nowhere near getting my hands on them.
Instead, I’m experimenting and trying to find uses for the iPads they were issued, but there are deep problems with the kids processing experience on a touch screen. They aren’t translating into any kind of learning., whether they play with them or not. To introduce Thomson’s electron discovery, they had to remember electrostatics, so I put a little activity up for them to do on their iPads with a PHET simulation. Their suggestions as to what a “simulation” is were way off the mark, so we talked about the difference between a simulation, which tries to reproduce or parallel real-world causes and effects, and video game reality, where cars can just jump across drawbridges, characters leap silly distances, etc.
We talked about learning to visualize electric charges on objects in the real world. Many just didn’t connect with the simulation, and couldn’t make cogent comments or interpretations. Then, here’s where it gets sad. I passed out real balloons, and string, and asked them to try to do the the things they did in the simulation with the real balloons. They didn’t know what to do. They needed to rub the balloons on each other’s sweaters, but they didn’t realize this. Their nervous systems seem to be adapted to dismiss input from the screen games, when dealing with the real world, which makes sense as a self-preservation reaction.
Junk and garbage and gibberish stream at them from all directions all the time. Turn the damned things off and let kids think and feel.
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Chemtchr:
You make a very intriguing point. On the other hand, for many of us visualizing electric charges is no easy matter under any circumstances.
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Hi chemtchr,
Have you tried the pasco probe ware for the ipad?
Have heard very good reports and got to play with it a bit at NSTA convention last year.
Seemed more user friendly than the vernier stuff (which, I confess, I always found more trouble than it was worth, but perhaps our stuff is just OLD!)
That said, I agree, wholeheartedly with “Junk and garbage and gibberish stream at them from all directions all the time. Turn the damned things off and let kids think and feel.”
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What $600 buys you. A kid writes a paragraph about a scientist on a piece of paper, big deal. A kid writes a paragraph on a scientist on an iPad and puts a border around it and he is a STEM genius. That’s an expensive border if you ask me.
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What’s worse, the incompetent decision making, or the gadget worship?
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…or the money wasted and to be wasted while teachers are losing jobs.
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Gadget worship. Clothes don’t make the man and gadgets are no indication of actual education taking place.
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Incompetent implementation of gadget worship in furtherance of misused standardized tests!
It’s pretty much a perfect storm of educational dopiness, isn’t it?
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Yep,
And I took acid when I was younger to help prepare myself to be able to understand the dopiness/insanity. (apologies to L. Black) And I still can’t!
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If we really wanted kids to be “college and career ready”, we’d start having them drop acid by at least junior high. Maybe that would make this bizarroworld seem somewhat normal.
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The incompetent decision making by a nose at the wire over gadget worship.
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Please excuse my naivete in neglecting to mention the possibility/likelihood of corruption, along with incompetence in this matter.
As for the gadget worship, that seems to be the default program.
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There seems to me to be a prima facie case for considering some kind of e-book reader to reduce the costs and weight of textbooks. It is unclear exactly how much money LAUSD spends each year on textbooks but it is substantial.
The upper bound is close to $600 million – though for some reason this number includes the cost of fuel.
Click to access A1%20&%20A2.pdf
A 2010 LA Times investigation suggests a number close to $250 million.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/25/local/la-me-lausd-books-20100726
These numbers suggest that there is plenty of room to save.
However, that is only the first step and a $100 unloaded Kindle or Nook is not an iPad.
Presumably there are some interesting LAUSD reports that detail the pros and cons of these options.
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I take it all the Ivy League schools and private schools textbooks are on tablets? If it is the obvious and preferred method.
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Calling on all investigative reporters, whistleblowers and attorneys to follow the money related to LA bidding. I’m curious if bid rigging was involved. Also, the software is bogus and there are no keyboards in the original contract for the overpriced iPad screens. What’s more, Deasy owns Apple stock and is a cheerleader for Apple-Pearson.
Very similar to the kickback e-rate scandal in Dallas and Houston –
http://www.myquitamlawsuit.com/index.aspx?id=news_texas_businessman_to_settle_false_claims_suit
“The DOJ investigation of E-rate violations included HISD and the Dallas Independent School District (DISD). The original whistleblowers, Dave Richardson and Dave Gillis, filed a qui tam lawsuit concerning the E-rate scam based on Richardson’s experiences in bidding on DISD and HISD projects. As a result of the whistleblowers’ action, the DOJ recovered $750,000 from DISD, $850,000 from HISD and $16.25 million from Hewlett-Packard, in addition to the $400,000 that Lehmann has consented to pay.”
Click to access 11.09.10%20HP%20Press%20Release.pdf
http://www.law360.com/articles/208565/hp-to-pay-16-3m-to-exit-e-rate-fraud-probe
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In California we are calling it fraud. Sweetheart deals between those who act with impunity, at least so far, thinking they are masters of the universe. I just posted a long winded history of exactly how it has come down in the past two years, and I list the perps and colluders on Mercedes blog site, Deutsch 29 if you wish to get facts, not hyperbole.
As a lifelong California taxpayer, and a higher ed specialist in public policy, I am going to keep beating the drums for accountability…and there are endless teachers and other community members who are awakening to the outrage of these hapless fools who made these terrible decisions and are not yet fired by the equally hapless School Board.
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Good for you, Ellen–keep beating those drums and making things happen! &–Mercedes–you, too. And all of us–ALL of us–need to DO and keep on DOING. Go to meetings–challenge, question. Write facts to answer fictions. Fight back!
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Where is the union as this massive fraud against our district unfolds? Now is the time to gather the troops and actively oppose this public giveaway to corporate Deasy interests. The LA taxpayers are angry. The teachers say I told you so and yet the board of education sits there and considers approving the second phase of this fiasco. This needs to stop right now. Call a special board meeting just for this purpose. Get input from all parties/the public. Then, based on this response,board of education, decide the fate of the iPad program. No stalling, no additional investigation, at this meeting, decide.
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Paula…according to the many LAUSD teachers and union members who contact me, they say the union UTLA has not protected teachers for years, and that they have colluded with the district. I am not a union member so can only report this second hand info.
There is a union election coming up and a new candidate emerged just this week, but though he offers to work for $10 an hour rather the $50 the Prez now gets, most feel his candidacy is not viable. Please union members in LAUSD, weigh in on this.
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UTLA does not support teachers, that’s for sure. There’s collusion, but also massive incompetence. Caputo-Pearl will probably win the election, but I’ve decided not to vote for him. His running mates are a couple of UTLA cronies, so it will be business as usual. UTLA area reps make upwards of $105,000. Every teacher who has been wrongfully terminated needs to sue.
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Below is the issue where my mind got stuck:
“Part of the reason that students found it so easy to turn off the security controls to surf the Web and access sites like Facebook, Youtube and Pandora might be that many teachers were unfamiliar with how the controls worked.”
Did the author really have to find a way to blame the teachers for any part of this fiasco?
In my affluent, suburban district, every high school student gets a laptop. It opens a lot of learning opportunities, as well as a lot of issues that challenge the learning opportunities. It sounds to me that the decision makers in LAUSD underestimated the technical savvy of the children. Lisa Delpit’s book, Multiplication is for White People: Raising Expectations for Other’s People’s Children, reminds me of this. Did no one really expect the kids to be able to get around the security controls? It may be difficult for teachers (if they tried) to access facebook and the like, but to the kids it is a cakewalk.
Shame on the decision makers in LAUSD for wasting tax payer money, distracting teachers and students from instruction & learning, and for underestimating the ability of the children.
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Lest we forget. LAUSD is a mind-bogglingly large and complex entity. It describes itself as “Second largest in the nation, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) enrolls more than 640,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade, at over 900 schools, and 187 public charter schools. The boundaries spread over 720 square miles and include the mega-city of Los Angeles as well as all or parts of 31 smaller municipalities plus several unincorporated sections of Southern California.” There are nearly 28,000 K-12 teachers and almost 60,000 employees in all. The budget for 2012-13 was $6,150,000,000. (Note, there are non trivial differences in many of these numbers on the LAUSD web-site, which I suppose tells its own tale.) Such complexity screams for an incremental approach.
This was clearly a disaster waiting to happen. There are so many issues involved in this that it hard to know where to begin. Leaving aside the huge money issue, there are specific issues with the choice of iPad, the details of the roll-out to the classroom and how to protect this massive investment. More intriguing for me, given the size of the organization and the likelihood that similar types of decisions need to be made, are the systemic issues of how such a huge decision got made in the first place; how it was discussed and by whom; the nature of the opposition to the idea and how it was dealt with; and, how emerging issues are surfaced, reviewed and addressed.
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LAUSD does operate on a very impressive scale. My state only has about 450,000 students spread across over 80,000 square miles.
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TE: With respect to this event, I am not sure I would use the word impressive. 😀
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Bernie…The mega size of LAUSD has been an issue for decades. Years ago, the San Fernando Valley tried to break away and become a separate district. Voters did not let this happen. In addition to the facts you posted, we have the largest ELL population, and the largest poverty population. This week the LA Times article on poverty, which most educators agree is the biggest set back to school success, said LA is has the highest poverty level, over 27%, in the State.
If 1 out of 3.3 students do not have subsistence level home care due to poverty, how can they be expected to function as learners in school? The middle to high income areas do not show the same problems that the inner city schools do.
This is not new info, but Supt. Deasy mouths the right words, while defrauding the taxpayers with his sweetheart deals. His PR is going at full blast the last few weeks, and photos abound of him with inner city kids. It is all smoke and mirrors.
Compounding all of this is the weak School Board. The teacher 5, Ratliff, Zimmer, Kayser, La Motte, and Vladovic, should stand strong here and demand more from a failed Superintendent, or fire him.
The is not a disaster waiting to happen, it is a disaster that has happened. The public’s faith is shattered and most folks in California say they will NEVER AGAIN vote for a school bond.
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Ellen:
LAUSD undoubtedly has a host of problems. The iPad may be symptomatic or it may be a special case. I do not know, but I suspect it is the former.
The issue now is how best to move forward. The billion has been spent. The networks and servers remain a valuable asset. The value of the iPads really depends on how LAUSD recovers from what appears to be a disaster and how it addresses the troubling issue of preserving the iPads.
How the School Board should act is a separate issue. Certainly a full accounting of the decisions to this point need to be pursued – though the board may be too close to the decision to be objective about it.
Poverty among LAUSD students is another issue.
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Bernie…they have only spent about $350 Million of the $1 Billion given to LAUSD by the State. Many Californians ask that not one more cent be spent until this is thoroughly analyzed by an independent group. And yes, this a symptom of a greater problem. In addition to being such a large district, according to the Supt., 109 languages are spoken in the schools, and the melting pot diversity is demanding.
But for the last 3 years, having a Broad Academy trained Supt. has presented endless new problems which are reported on daily by large numbers of LAUSD teachers and parents. You might review this blog site for the most telling of these.
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A related story in today’s LAT gives new meaning to the phrase, “I forgot my homework:”
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A rush to give Apple a billion dollar check is more like it. Everyone in LAUSD knows that the schools were designed for profiteers. Including those who run the school-to-prison pipeline.
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Teacher:
Occam would suggest incompetence rather than a complex multifaceted conspiracy.
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