So Los Angeles spent $1 billion on iPads, promising grand outcomes, closing the digital divide between rich and poor, the “civil rights issue of our time,” yada, yada, yada.

But as this blogger points out, this move was made without the most elementary planning or forethought.

Should anyone have been consulted before spending 25-year school construction bond money on iPads? Will voters ever again approve such a bond knowing that it may be diverted to an administrator’s pet project?

She asks questions that apparently never occurred to the administrators who bought the iPads:

“If the ipads stay in the classroom, how is their distribution to be managed in any way efficiently?

If in the classroom, is the physical integrity of the building sufficient to ensure everyone’s and everything’s safety?

If staying in the classroom, does that forfeit the device’s biggest potential, as substitutes for heavy, expensive, resource-intensive textbooks?

If not to stay in the classroom, how will internet access be managed among “not-wired”, very poor or chaotic homes?

How are electronics to be harnessed for education alone and not hijacked by its social, interactive component?

If not in the classroom, how to reconcile bond construction monies targeted to long-term infrastructure support, with transient instruction delivery tied to non-durable goods?

If not in the classroom, how to manage the high turnover (purportedly up to one-third) among students of some high-poverty communities? What is the implication for device-specific instruction? For physical disappearance of the devices?

When was the imperative of Common Core testing agreed upon, as it underlies the drive behind implementing the
ipad program precipitously?

When were teachers presented an honest cost:benefit analysis toward soliciting professional input regarding utility and efficacy in educating their students???

And:

“When were parents presented an honest cost:benefit analysis toward soliciting parental input regarding utility and efficacy in educating their child???

“The bottom line is: the people such massive programs with gargantuan implications affect, need to be asked first. A program of such eclipsing size and existential implications needs at the least to be tested, to be piloted and then: to be evaluated before approving or denying subsequent phases.”

“It is an incredibly uncomfortable position to feel patronized and exploited by in-house imperialists. How do these detached, possibly ulteriorly-motivated administrators know what is best in the classroom, without going into the classroom? Ask the denizens there what they need, and for some sense of the fallout.”

From California to New York, the same questions arise: why don’t the people making decisions about children and education listen to parents and educators?

In a democracy, consultation is necessary and wise. Great leaders know how to listen and are wiling to learn from their errors.