Los Angeles superintendent John Deasy made a commercial for Apple long before his board voted support for a $1 billion purchase of iPads for every student.
His deputy Jaime Aquino worked for Pearson-owned America’s Choice. He was in charge of the iPad purchase, which became a major embarrassment for Deasy and the LAUSD board. Aquino resigned his $250,000 a year job, but won’t actually leave until the end of the year.
The iPads are loaded with…..surprise!…Pearson content.
Will voters ever approve another bond issue, now that they know whatever new funds they approve will be spent on whatever the superintendent of the moment wants to do?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/deasy-apple-pearson-and-gates-a-post-worth-hacking-into/
Thank you Diane and Mercedes, and a big kudo to Cynthia and K12NN, for continuing to remind everyone of the debacle that is LAUSD. I have been reporting on all this since early last Spring, and recently wrote a column tying together the loose ends of our city and state nepotism that is feeding all the political pigs at our public trough.
The old LA mayor and the new mayor are both accolytes of Eli Broad, and our State House is full of Eli’s Dems, plus Repubs, who favor privatizing public schools, and creating free market profit by doing this “rapidly”. And even our Governor seems to be dancing in the dark and not doing enough due diligence as to Common Core, iPads, and who is spending vast amounts of public money, and how.
As always, follow the money and it tells the tale. Far from educating children living in poverty, this national Common Core scheme divides America ever more deeply into classes of residents. The stipulated aim of creating a modern work force has produced a Charlie Chaplin, Modern Times, assembly line education system with the advent of Common Core, and the huge wealth makers surrounding it are keeping the assembly line well-oiled with their donations to legislators.
Although it is hard to stay on top of all the bad decisions, many of California’s teaching professionals, both working and retired, are seeing this erosion of our public schools for what it really is…a giant push by the king makers, big business, to create a widget work force, and let those at the bottom rot away in oblivion. The media rarely gives the bottom leftover students any faces or any attention. They seem to be slated to be the ones who will live under the freeway bridges in perpetuity.
You all ask us in LA to the correct questions, such as why are the teacher 5 on the Board not voting to throw out the Broad bunch who got us into this situation? Why are 2 liberal Board members not leading the charge to correct the course?
I personally think there is some backroom movement as witness, Deasy now “slowing down” the iPad process, and the silliness of excoriating Dr. Vladovic to re-direct public attention away from Deasy and all the missteps. All the ‘ spin upon spin’ discourages the public from even caring, and I hear people every day say there is nothing that can be done, that voters have no input.
It mirrors our totally dysfunctional national government. Without unanimity and consistent planned action we will surely all lose
Not surprised at all!! Look how Klein contracted with Murdoch and others who were pro charters. And now the inBloom contracts. Zuckerberg is also investing in an education online company that claims to help students and teachers, but we know they are gathering information for profit. This is why we need oversight either by a comptroller or some ethics committee to make sure these contracts are kosher.
http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/10/02/more-on-lausd-bond-money-aquino-broad-and-again-with-pearson/
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/06/student-tablet-hardware-melts-districts-suspends-30-million-amplify-program-on-safety-concerns/
“A North Carolina school district has suspended the use of 15,000 tablets after reports of multiple hardware issues, including the device’s charger melting at home. Guilford County Superintendent Maurice “Mo” Green has suspended the $30 million program on safety concerns.
The recall is a major sting for NewsCorp’s Amplify, which released details of its digital-first education initiative back at TechCrunch Disrupt 2012. Directed by former New York City education chancellor, Joel Klein, there are high hopes that Amplify can help bring K-12 education into the 21st century. But, melting tablet accessories aren’t a good sign.
“We recognize that suspending the program on short notice is going to be disruptive to students, staff and parents,” Green Explained. “My decision was made out of an abundance of caution, and I decided to err on the side of safety.”
I’d like to clarify that “disruptive” in that last sentence is not the ed reformer definition 🙂
I’m opposed to this until I can get some guarantees that it won’t be used to push over-priced commercial garbage on low income and middle class kids to save on teacher salaries BUT even I’m surprised Amplify rolled out an actually physically dangerous product.
Wow.
Absolutely love this story. NYC has a contract with them and I am sure Bloomberg will turn his back on the quality issue and continue to fund his pals.
The case of the missing Gorilla Glass:
“One immediate problem that must be fixed is the failure to put more durable glass in the tablets. The school district paid extra for a kind of glass called Gorilla Glass, but the tablets were given regular glass, Amplify spokesman Justin Hamilton said.
Amplify buys the tablets from Taiwan-based Asus.
Hamilton said Amplify does not yet have an explanation for what happened.
Board member Darlene Garrett, who cast the lone no vote against the Amplify deal, said less than two weeks after the vote the board should have had more information.
“We should have asked for it,” she said. “But I think we were in a rush to approve it.”
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/10/13/3278477/guilford-county-schools-tablet.html#storylink=cpy
“Guilford County Superintendent Maurice O. Green said in a statement that his district remains committed to its 1-to-1 initiative, financed with $30 million in federal Race to the Top district funds and $5 million in supplemental grants.”
I suppose we should be happy they didn’t use bonds to pay for devices that depreciate.
Everyone should also know that LAUSD board member Galatzan who is one of only two left(the other one being Monica Garcia) who will vote for anything Deasy wants recently crafted a resolution to censure the newly elected board president, Dr. Richard Vladovic. Ten years ago, allegations of inappropriate behavior were made by a district employee although they were considered unactionable. There was also a complaint that he “expressed anger” at another district employee. When Deasy failed to get his two favored board members elected last spring, he threatened to quit if Vladovic was elected board president. Vladovic WAS elected board president, but Deasy decided to stay. Now, we have this bogus resolution based on allegations, not confirmed facts, that resurfaced shortly after Vladovic became president and created several new committees, including one on the Common Core Technology. This committee, chaired by Monica Ratliff, has dug deep into the lack of information and outright misrepresentations of facts relating to the purchase of the iPads. It’s no wonder Galatzan, Garcia and Deasy want Vladovic gone.
Oh, by the way, the woman who made the charges against Vladovic over 10 years ago just happens to work directly under Deasy. What more does anyone need to know????
Thanks for making this clarified statement about Dr. Vladovic. I just posted a long one in this vein on LA School Report. Because that source is supportive of Deasy and rarely reports any negatives, it helps if we in LA post our thoughts there too. They do keep our comments posted I have found.
I do believe the saying, “what goes around come around”.
I like have access to lap tops in my room and have done some amazing things with kids (I should say the kids have done some amazing things). All this testing, commercial garbage in not working.
The goal of corporatists is to destroy the public sector on behalf of their corporate patrons. By taking ONE BILLION DOLLARS of LAUSD money and blowing it in an iPad joyride, Deasy and Aquino have helped to undermine confidence in the integrity of LAUSD bond issues and have have harkened to the sound of their master’s voice. Perhaps they made a buck or two themselves in the process. Heckuva job, Deasy!
Exactly…it undermines public confidence in the voting process, and certainly in any more give-aways of tax money. Demoralizing for democracy. Seems to be their long range plan in all areas of our shared world.
Love your nom d’ plume…glad it is not Brownie.
My understanding is the Pearson software is only 25% finished. So it is not on the iPads already bought on which the 3 year warranties start on the day of delivery. What are we paying for? What is the software going to be? Who knows?
Why don’t the students get keyboards? Apparently somebody needs to run for school board on the conflict of interest with a keyboard manufacturer platform.
Yes, it’s like that episode of Sesame Street where Chris has to leave Hooper’s store to take Big Bird to the doctor and he leaves the Count in charge. All the Count does is count the customers, so when Chris returns there is a line of over 100 frustrated people waiting for service.
I think they have the Count in charge!