Two Los Angeles teachers critical of the decision by Los Angeles school leaders to use construction funds to buy iPads have created a Facebook page that has gone viral.
The teachers wanted the public to see that their schools are in dire need of repair.
“The photos are unmistakable: a rat dropping on a school desk, an ant-filled water fountain, overflowing trash cans and a cockroach in a classroom. All are images posted on a social-media site of what some claim are “overdue repairs.”
Launched by two Los Angeles teachers, the “Repairs, Not iPads” Facebook page lists unflattering photos intended to embarrass the Los Angeles Unified School District and raise questions about its $1 billion iPad program, the cornerstone of Superintendent John Deasy’s agenda…Included are shots of what is said to be unsafe electrical wiring at South L.A.’s Santee High School and a boarded-up urinal at Beverlywood’s Hamilton High School.
“The public doesn’t expect Third World standards for their schools,” said teacher Matthew Kogan, 52, who created the Facebook page. “They should know where their taxpayer money is going and see that these schools are neglected.”
Superintendent John Deasy has announced that he would spend up to $1 billion for iPads and bandwidth.
A significant proportion of the funding will be drawn from a bond issue approved by voters for construction and repair of school facilities.
Meanwhile, the iPad issue has become a perfect storm of incompetence, lack of planning, and administrative arrogance.
Pearson refuses to share with the members of the school board the curriculum that it has created for the iPads. Not even Monica Ratliff, an experienced teacher is allowed to review the curriculum. Other districts have purchased iPads or tablets that are not pre-loaded with a specific curriculum, but can be used to access a variety of applications.
In a related story, district officials admitted that they never compiled an inventory of existing iPads and computers when they made the bulk purchase from Apple for every student and staff member. Consequently, some schools will receive hundreds of excess iPads. Good for Apple, dumb for the district, especially for a district that is in dire need of funds to improve facilities.
Deasy claims that giving every student an iPad is a matter of civil rights.
Someone might tell him that when children go to a school that is marked by neglect, roaches, and physical deterioration, it sends them a message that society doesn’t care about them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Its disgusting to view these pictures of rundown schools in our own country. But, keep them coming. The public needs to know.
Vice magazine also reported on the LAUSD disrepair FB page:
http://www.vice.com/read/los-angeles-public-schools-are-falling-apart
Someone in the comments there wrote: “at first glance i thought i was looking at more photos in Sochi.”
“Not even Monica Ratliff, an experienced teacher is allowed to review the curriculum.”
What would be the fun of that?
Let’s make a deal, do you want what’s behind curtain number one, number two…
And “reformers” claim to put students first?
“Student-centered learning” is a misnomer; what it means is “let’s cut out the teacher, so we can control all aspects of what kids are exposed to, and make bigger profits too.” I am suspicious of flipped learning, student centered learning as these “theories” don’t work in classrooms that are overcrowded with 25-35 kids. If most kids were able to learn on their own ( without strong guidance from a teacher), they could all stay at home and log on to the internet each day and supplement learning with visits to the library and local arts/ cultural venues. Maybe we could just get rid of public schools and give everybody an iPAd and set them free? think of the tax savings and the savings in having to invest in “student capital”…..the entire reform movement is just so disheartening and pernicious.. the fact that Pearson and other corporations have been allowed to direct so much of this is beyond alarming….
“Maybe we could just get rid of public schools and give everybody an iPAd and set them free? think of the tax savings and the savings in having to invest in “student capital”.”
I know you wrote that sarcastically, but this is what a lot of school reformers actually want, and it seems to already be happening in some places!
Here’s a quote from a teacher testimony Diane linked to earlier today:
“And the kids who were really just too far gone that they had to be suspended, technically they were out of the school but they still counted [towards the official enrollment of my class] because they gave them laptops at home and they still counted them even though they weren’t in my class for three months until the end of the school year.”
http://www.eclectablog.com/2014/02/fired-without-cause-or-notification-a-former-eaa-teacher-speaks-out-what-they-are-doing-is-hurting-kids-in-detroit.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eclectablog%2FkInS+%28Eclectablog%29
We live in sick, dangerous times.
This is an urban district and we all know the schools are run down and look like third world countries because the fact is, they are. In fact, soon they will be viewed as lower than third world countries because our corporations are supplying third world countries with huge new resources and creating jobs for them to take the place of the old American workers’ jobs which will no longer exist here. We will have less and they will have more and you see what the consequences will be. I have an idea! Since Arne and his partners like competition, then the urban districts around the country should get Federal money for A Race To The Bottom program. The idea would be to see which district can become completely privatized first and when they do, the Federal Ed. department would give them $1,000,000,000,000. I am certain the Gates, Walton’s, and Broads would work even harder with local politicians and the Feds to make this happen and everyone would live happily ever after. Oh, I forgot to mention that besides getting one trillion dollars, their schools would no longer be tested. We do not want anyone to know the students outcomes have not changed. However, we would have to somehow equalize the starting point because Detroit and Chicago seem to have a huge head start on privatizing their systems and New York has a big disadvantage because they now have people in power who believe in public schools. I am certain Arne and friends could figure it out.
Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights had iPads last year in my small school. We have experience with iPads for all. No one is talking about the fact that the infrastructure doesn’t support large groups of students logging on simultaneously, that the computer labs and desktops have not been updated since 2004, or that any technology requires ongoing teacher training and follow-up, let alone maintenance.
Lisa, No kidding. The masters failed to think about insignificant details like infrastructure? Watch this Knoxville Librarian educate the school board about the number of people and time required to manage technology in one school.
The district used to have a technology training program for teachers. The emphasis was on teaching teachers how to integrate technology into the curriculum. Teachers could get salary points for taking the classes. It was a good program. I used to teach for it. Now it has been discontinued. Teachers who want technology classes now have to pay to take them elsewhere.
This was and continues to be the case for L.A. schools. The vermin problem has gotten worse since the (Walton Foundation) Breakfast in the Classroom program took off. Some plumbing problems take forever to get fixed. Teachers are required to flush the classroom sink and drinking fountain pipes to keep the students from lead poisoning, The teachers must keep and submit monthly logs to prove their flushing practice. I taught in a “temporary” bungalow where you couldn’t open the door after it rained. Across the street was a plating company that emitted over a hundred toxic chemicals and whose owners were repeatedly fined for dumping some of the chemicals contaminating the ground under some of the bungalows I taught kindergarten and first grade in. The bungalows were removed after I left the school for being contaminated. The plating company was closed after several years of community (not school district) protests. Yet IPADS are a civil right? How about life? Oh, I forgot. Not as much profit to be made. Silly me.
Having taught in LAUSD for many years I can testify that this is very true. The leaking ceiling fell on my head twice. One whole was fixed because it came through the electric light and would kill us all, the other was ignored and the rats came through it nightly and chewed on the furniture and the displays I had. Another rain leak came down the wall and under the floor. Thus when it rained the floor around my desk was a virtual sponge. You could wipe it up, but if you walked on it , it seeped back up. I requested help for 2 years. Finally I told the VP I am going to fall into the classroom below me and my students are slipping and sliding all over the place and falling. He had it fixed, God love Him, a decent older man, and the construction crew said it was really unstable and I was lucky to have it done when I did. The AC was so loud I couldn’t hear the students speak so it was sweat or listen for us all. It was an ESL classroom so that wasn’t a real good thing. The crew who did tie AC was in a hurry, and just threw it in and so it’s still a huge mess. These issues are everywhere you go in LA, and there is no excuse to use basic repair money for I pads except that it makes Deasy the supt. look good for his mentor Eli Broad.
Diane:
I enjoy your postings. The one about FB being used to show shoddy conditions in some L.A. schools reminded me of the Taj Mahal school complex being erected in L.A. not too long ago. I wrote a column about it (http://howarddenson.webs.com) for my “Kassandra’s Kitchen” homepage and included it in my collection, Shoot-Out with a Wild-Eyed Moderate (Amazon 2013). Feel free to quote anything you find useful:
The Obscenity of‘Taj Mahal Schools’ President DwightEisenhower warned Americans against a “military industrial complex” that couldbankrupt the nation and lead to danger and mischief if unchecked. It was hardto pooh-pooh what he said since he was a five-star general who led the Alliesto victory in Europe. On the other hand, time will wipe clean a nation’sconsciousness so that we can wind up with the turn-of-the-century Asian wars. Probablyin the 1940s, some wag created the term, “edifice complex,” which is a cousinto the later “military industrial” variety. It can be updated to “educational- constructionindustry complex.” This complex ensures that public (college and university)buildings will go up at the drop of a hat. Ifwe look far enough back into the past, we find that legislatures were approvingfunds for building construction, only to have some counties and cities spendingthe money on salaries, utilities, and other expenses. The legislatures thendivided appropriations into Operational funds and Capital funds. The latter HADto be used for buildings. That worked fine when a state was establishing asystem of state colleges back in the 1950s and 1960s or replacing wooden schoolstructures in the 1940s. Butit came to pass that, when the various systems had essentially been completed,the “educational-construction” complex wanted the funds to continue. Statesthen came up with funding mechanisms often called public education capitaloutlay (PECO) bonds. Even when critics said a system had enough new buildings,the PECO funds paid for even more structures. Bureaucrats would say, “What arewe going to do? We HAVE to use the funds, duh!” Thatsort of mentality led California to spend $578 million for one new high schoolin Los Angeles, and some educrats are just so gosh-darn proud they are about tobust their buttons. For example, Joe Agron, editor-in-chief of American School & University, aschool construction journal, said, “There’s no more of the old, windowlesscinderblock schools of the ’70s where kids felt, ‘Oh, back to jail.’ Districtswant a showpiece for the community, a really impressive environment forlearning.” TheAmerican School & University website contains a lot of useful informationabout school construction in general, but it’s a shame that the organizationfelt it had to ignore the excesses of the proposal and even to act as a defenseattorney for such a guilty client. L.A.also spent $377 million on the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center, which openedin 2008, and $232 million on the Visual and Performing Arts High School thatopened its doors in 2009. Allof this is occurring during the Great Recession. Los Angeles was firing 3,000teachers. California was facing a $640 million deficit. The Race to the Topgrants were being distributed in Washington, and Maryland was raking in a $250million, which L.A. would say is chicken feed. Wemay see some parallels to Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI),which would gobble up billions and be nicknamed “Star Wars Defense,” since theU.S. then did not have the technology to shoot down an enemy missile any morethan it could fire a bullet to shoot down another bullet. (We still don’t.) Byand by, the “military-industrial” complex faked some tests that cost taxpayers$27 billion (chicken feed to them). The project earns an additional nickname: “StarWars as It Might be Run by Boss Tweed and Al Capone.” Criticsof lavish school projects have called them “Taj Mahal schools,” but itsdefenders have tried to brazen their way through the argument. Sure, they say,our students are worth the very best. We need to show that we hold excellencein high regard. And so on. That’stotal baloney, of course. Some buildings and structures in the world are uniqueand impressive because of their rarity. These architectural jewels include theactual Taj Mahal, of course, but also the Great Pyramids of Giza and St. Peter’sCathedral and the Pantheon in Rome. They are not as mundane as public schools,courthouses, and Woopsy-Doodle Burger franchises. Let’suse an automobile analogy. We wouldn’t want our schools to be constructed likethe Zastava Koral, better known to us as the lowly Yugo. No one would want aschool that continually refused to start or that broke down repeatedly.Elsewhere in the world, we regularly read about school buildings and hotelscollapsing without the aid of an earthquake, largely due to shoddy constructionand non- existent code inspections. Bythe same token, we wouldn’t want our schools to be the equivalent of the LamborghiniJota, whose 2012 model was projected to cost $475,000 each. Not only would suchschools bankrupt a state or a school district, it is doubtful that they wouldgive an adequate bang for the buck. Consumer Reports is an excellent forumfor rating the efficiency and efficacy of everything from autos to PC’s. Theyhave a “best buy” designation for products that are affordable and superior inquality. Recent best-buy models include the Chevrolet Silverado and Traverse,Mazda5, Nissan Altima, Subaru Forester, and Volkswagen GTI, not a Taj Mahalvehicle among them. Anotherreason to object to Taj Mahal schools is the nature of young people. Bill Cosbypointed out that “all children are brain damaged,” and, dating back to Platonearly 2,400 years ago, you could find reams of zingers about the flaws ofteenagers: The children nowlove luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they showdisrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are nowtyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when eldersenter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobbleup dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. So,Socrates, let me ask you: Would you want to turn a teenager loose in aLamborghini or perhaps hope that the kid would do less damage in a used FordEscort, uncool though it might be? Sinceit is the nature of the brain-damaged beast to gripe and complain, it isfoolish to think that the youths might not consider their Taj Mahal High asanything except a jail. If they are required to attend, it’s a jail; if theycan’t leave a classroom, it’s a jail; and, if they can’t chew gum or have cellphones, it’s a jail. TajMahal advocates have a common thread in their argument: We must make theenvironment better so that the youths will learn better. To them, WE alwaysmust take actions; the students, passive and hopefully docile, will be forcedto learn. In reality, learning and excellence can occur in aone-room school house, in a building from the 1920s with wooden floors andwindow fans, and even in a cinderblock structure of recent vintage.
Howard Denson a.k.a. William Howard Denson III 1511 Pershing Rd., Jax, FL 32205 land phone: 904.384.4463 (voice mail available) cell phone: 904.525.8024 (no voice mail option) hd3nson@hotmail.com website: http://howarddenson.webs.com Mowbray and the Sharks (*) Shoot-Out with a Wild-Eyed Moderate (*) A Quandary of Fibbles (*): The Wrong Stuff: Findings of a Forensic Grammarian (*) * Available online at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble Editor, “The Write Stuff” (North Florida Writers); pres., NFW Writer/editor: “Kassandra’s Kitchen” http://howarddenson.webs.com/ Program chair, vice president, College Retirees Assn. Board Member, Stage Aurora Theatrical Co. “Theatre That Inspires”
It figures that the district “never compiled an inventory of existing ipads and computers…”
Oh, inventories were completed-I know for a fact they were, at LEAST 3 times at my school. In fact, it was an easy inventory to complete-20 working computers for 900 kids. But the incompetents in charge could never seem to capture the info-hence the multiple requests to complete the same inventory over and over. Nothing about this fiasco surprises me in the least.
Call 60 Minutes.
There’s another reason this stinks to heaven. Think of how many unemployed workers, many of them with kids in the LA schools, might appreciate getting paid to do repair and maintenance. Their kids might not have an iPad, but they’d have a decent school and a parent with a decent job. That would do far more to assist their education than an iPad. But of course it wouldn’t enrich Pearson and Apple.
BINGO.
Thank you. That is the underlying madness to this all. It’s a bad thing to give a job to all these out-of-work people, the copy clerks, the librarians, the painters and plumbers and HVACs and administrators and teachers and on and on and on…??? Eventually these RIF’d folks go on welfare, but that’s no good either, according to the right wing.
It’s just nutty. Short of culling the population because we are just too many, there has to be *something* for all these humans to do. Teaching, it would seem to me, would be an excellent industrial complex.
So correct!!
John Deasy needs to be held accountable for all his “mistakes.” This man needs to resign.
I’m sure there is a job at Apple waiting for him.
I’d rather have him at Apple than in Arne’s chair. That’s what Deasy’s aiming for, he’s angling to get a really, really big promo, like sect’y of ed. It’s important the extent of his incompetence, corruption and treachery be understood.
I was thinking he should do laundry at Pelican Bay.
But there are surprising [?] exceptions.
The “education reformers” mandate iPads and the like for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN in place of dealing with rats, roaches, overflowing trash cans, inadequate electrical and water equipment, rooms too cold in winter and too hot in summer, etc. However, when it comes to THEIR OWN CHILDREN, apparently promoting a “separate and unequal two-tiered education system” is the “new civil rights issue of our time.”
Harpeth Hall [think Michelle Rhee],“The Healthy Dining Hall”:
[start quote]
Harpeth Hall values the health and wellness of its students and faculty and is committed to cultivating a culture of health and wellness within the school community. Among the places you can see this commitment at work is in the Harpeth Hall Dining Hall where the school has been on the cutting-edge of offering a variety of healthy and delicious food choices for years.
[end quote]
And just how delightful is the “Dining Hall Environment”?:
[start quote]
At Harpeth Hall, a gracious dining hall staff creates a warm and welcoming environment for lunch. Most of the dining hall staff have been employed at Harpeth Hall for more than a decade. Robbin Cross, the dining hall manager for 13 years, brings experience to the dining hall and is committed to ensuring her team provides nutritious options every day.
[end quote]
Link: http://www.harpethhall.org/podium/default.aspx?t=156589
And when a student needs to study, #11 under “50 Reasons”:
[start quote]
11. Our state-of-the-art library houses 29,000 books, 1,000 ebooks, 20 electronic databases, 12 Kindles, six small group study rooms, two classrooms for library and technology instruction, and eight really comfortable chairs around a cozy fireplace.
[end quote]
Link: http://www.harpethhall.org/podium/default.aspx?t=151749
Rigor. Rigor mortis. Only for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN.
Welcome. Welcome mat. Only for THEIR OWN CHILDREN.
😒
We show by what we pay for what we care about. We spend trillions and trillions on foreign military adventurism, and we have schools that are falling down around our students’ heads, that look like government facilities in the poorest of third-world countries.
In 2013, our military expenditures were 682.0 billion, 39 percent of world total, though we have only 4.57 percent of the world’s population. The next biggest spender, with many, many times our population, was the People’s Republic of China, at 166 billion–516 billion LESS. Russia spent 90 billion–592 billion LESS.
Why? Because the children and parents of ordinary people do not write fat checks to PACs and do not host campaign donation dinners at $32,000 a plate.
We could have such amenities as are found at Harpeth Hall in EVERY school, for every child. The poorest students, ESPECIALLY, need to be able to go to places for learning that are worlds apart–to places that are beautiful and inspiring and comfortable and inviting and that provide good food and outstanding facilities for exercise of the body and mind and that are staffed by the best and brightest and most caring and committed from among us. No child is BETTER by BIRTH than any other. And yet we have created a situation in which children get the message from DAY 1 that some people are more equal than others, as Orwell’s pigs put it.
Instead of savage inequalities, we could have those outstanding facilities for every child. It’s all a matter of where we place our priorities.
What are we willing to commit to? to pay for? Same question: Who are we?
Deasy was no doubt counting on the parents of high poverty students to be delighted with the idea of a free iPad. The problem is, NOTHING IS FREE. The iPads, infrastructure and curriculum, etc. is paid for with money raised in the form of taxes. Therefore, whatever is spent on this fiasco is money that is now not available for other needs like repairs, smaller class sizes, librarians, arts, counselors, etc. Once parents realize this, they will start to doubt this plan.
Deasy’s people keep telling everyone that the bond money can’t be used for teachers, but they fail to detail all the extra costs involved with the iPad rollout that are being paid for with the general fund. And, as the devices wear out or are lost or damaged, the district has NO PLAN to replace them. So, exactly where does anyone think the money will come from?????
The upcoming testing is going to demonstrate that there was no clear workable plan in place. Principals will be put to the test with little to no guidance and assistance. As for teachers, we all know that classrooms become chaotic in a fraction of a second when the routine is disrupted. No matter what the district is telling everyone, the testing will be a disaster on many fronts. I guess we’ll have to wait and see and hope that the teachers and students will not lose the rest of the school year trying to recuperate from the experience.
Just to clarify, there’s some limited plan for replacing lost/worn/stolen ipads. there’s a reserve purchased and a storeroom housing them so they can be “turned around”, back into the hands of the unfortunate kid “within 24-48 hours”. The district flack I heard last night was very careful to harp on this point. And it’s written in much district material.
The trouble involves the numbers that may wind up missing/stolen, etc. The district’s estimate was quite small — don’t remember the details. If/when things wind up being more severely needy than that, then there’s only the general fund to fall back on.
BTW, it’s very possible that a true inventory of ipads was not desired because this is a hidden way the district intends to have adequate backups ready. This is a hidden way to “overpurchase”, by buying one for everyone, even in schools that need none. The extras will augment their storeroom quietly perhaps?
Good point. These extras may indeed be stashed away to deal with breakage and loss. At one of the meetings, the IT specialist stated that, countrywide, there is a 1-3% average loss. That sounds very low, but he did not explain that most, if not all, other districts require parents to take out insurance or put down a deposit. Also, many districts do not allow students to take the devices home or at least eliminate elementary kids. LAUSD has done none of these. All children, even Kindergartners, are supposed to take them home and there is NO contract holding parents responsible unless the school can find that the loss or damage was “willfull”.
So, to cover this massive rollout with the potential for all kinds of losses, having thousands upon thousands of extras makes sense. Of course, we still have to worry about thieves breaking in to schools and walking away with cart upon cart of computers. After all, there is no room in the schools to secure that many carts. So, the question will be whether the iPads are safer staying at school or going home each night. Since there was no pilot program, we won’t find out for a long, long time.
There are hundreds upon hundreds of computers at individual schools being wasted. There is no budget for upkeep. They are not updated, they are not repaired, the infrastructure is inadequate.
It seems to me the iPads are really just testing devices, but no one would have supported that investment, so we’re told they will revolutionize teaching and they’re a civil right. I hear intelligent people say “well, putting the textbooks or curriculum on them is just an app, so they’ll be a great thing! It’ll just take a while.” When the apps never come, those same cheerleaders for Deasy’s dumb devices will blame a “dysfunctional” school board or district for not properly implementing his visionary plan to bring the 2nd largest school district into the future. When the truth is that it was all by design: the half or full billion dollar expenditure is a testing expense. Period.
it’s a money grab, becuase that “app” will only run on iOS. The vendor lock-in is monstrous. What happened to all this MOOC, khan acdemy, OLPC, MIT courses on the ‘net stuff? I would expect any competent group of teachers could just make their own content…easier, cheaper and better.
LAUSDeasy, Watch out, It’s coming!
http://www.examiner.com/article/lausdeasy-watch-out-it-s-coming?cid=db_articles
Matthew and I thought that if parents and the community could see what we teachers see every day in many schools and classrooms, that they would have a strong reaction to Deasy’s upside down priorities.
Technology is important, of course; however iPads are a want, not a need. As the LAUSD Maintenance spokesperson says in one of the t.v. interviews, he only has 1/4 of the budget he needs to make the repairs that schools require. Why is this so? Because there seems to be political will for gadgets, but not for schools’ physical plant needs.
Matthew and I started the Repairs Not IPads Facebook page to highlight Deasy’s frivolous spending priorities. Methinks the iPads are not about the students; if it was about the students, there would be smaller class sizes, libraries re-opened, more counselors and health professionals, better facilities for students to learn in, early ed and adult ed restored.
Here’s one of the t.v. interviews on the issue:
http://www.myfoxla.com/story/24668816/dirty-schools-ipads-versus-clogged-toilets
JulieAnn — thank you *so much* for starting, the both of you, this FB page. I have been struggling for a year to articulate the filth and decrepitude I see all around. It is so tricky because as we all know, criticizing the schools plays into the dysfunctional-schools-let’s-close-them argument. And yet, there is so much that is so not OK. No way – no how would I want to spend all day mired in the filth that lays in my child’s classroom. And yet I send my most precious commodity to do so day after day? Absurd!
I’ve tried to write and speak about it and I can tell it just falls flat. Duh: a picture is worth a thousand words. You-both are brilliant and brave to put this out there. Thank you thank you thank you.
As a (“middle-ish” class) parent, I have struggled to comprehend why it is that so many “like me” refuse to send their child to my child’s school, though I insist it is wonderful (and it is). The hard, simple, bottom-line is: it is filthy. Disgustingly dreary and so many parents, struggling with their emotions while deciding where to send their child, end up just going with their “gut”. They see the filth and the drear, they contrast it with verdant and the shiny and … in the end it’s very hard to willfully send your child into the gloom rather than the glory. It feels neglectful to foist this grunge and deprivation on your child if you can afford otherwise.
And so the circle goes round. Those with “choice” cannot allow themselves to ignore the superficial and then, they are not present to complain. The rest are often stuck in a complicated mixture of reasons for silence. The result is, a sort of withdrawal from reality, an absence of bearing of witness.
So again, thank you thank you thank you.
TO ANY LAUSD TEACHERS HERE: please keep posting photos!!! Parents too. These should be catalogued. Please let’s not let this matter slip back into silence.
BTW, here is something I wrote several months ago trying to say the above about why “my tribe” (me included) often scorn public schools: they’re just “hammered”. What parent in good conscience could send their kid into that knowingly? http://redqueeninla.k12newsnetwork.com/2013/07/18/build-it-and-they-will-come I think many parents simply do not know the third world conditions their children are suffering in. You teachers have to broadcast this. It’s time…
This past Friday , I had an argument with my Principal .He is insisting on every student having an IPad. The schools has paid for them with RIIT money, but many studnets now can not afford the 25 dollars for insurance or the repairs . ,.Some students do not like them They are a complete distraction and have caused problems with stiudents and social media. fFights and arguments go viral all over the school.
I told the Principal I believe it is against students rights We can not make them use IPads. As a teacher , I have been taught and told repeatedly that I must differentiate my instruction for all learners. If they don,t want to use them and it hinders their learning, I believe they can use pencil and paper and continue to be successful in school.
I think I feel more crazy about Education everyday, but I am fighting the fight..
Ms Keeney – fwiw I so agree with you and think these more detailed nuances have really been overlooked! The allure of this “blue blue screen” is hard to resist and many have noted the mire that “addictive personalities” get pulled into. I actually believe in this concept of “internet addiction”. I have always tried to control the introduction and use of technology to my children. Quite obviously the horse is long gone from the stables, but that doesn’t mean there are no half-measures for keeping things in check. I do not want my children wasting their precious instructional time with “devices” and I consider the entire endeavor essentially ‘dangerous’. That’s a strong term, but the insidious revolution of the whole culture of a school probably deserves some strong language.
As parents we’re told not to allow internet use alone in bedrooms, away from the presence of real, live human beings. We can’t protect our children from everything, but there are real, psychological dangers to be had from the speed and intensity of the ether. Do we not remember the children sucked into suicide by the meanness of online avatars? Feet away from the embrace of their families?
“Devices” are not benign, not for the culture they provide a portal to or the new behaviours they are part and parcel of that we all of us are negotiating our new way through. Removing oversight of this tricky and dangerous world into the overworked world of a classroom frankly scares me. As you say, distraction, social media issues — these are huge, huge matters. Huge. And in all honesty, beyond your pay grade in terms of keeping my child safe! How could you possibly do it? And yet, you had better….
Anyway, I agree with you that the use of these things is a violation of kids’ rights. They have a civil right to good, equitable, accessible education. These devices are parcel of a 100% different sort of need, an adult need for earning money and staking out territory for doing so, now and in the future, data mining and social control. This is just nothing whatsoever to do with a child’s right to an education. To the extent that these devices hinder, siphon money from or in any way diminish the degree or likelihood of a child benefiting from education, they are a menace.
oof. preaching to the converted. But I want to thank you and every one else who states these things. I feel my rights as a parent are being infringed on with the introduction of these ipads. In so many ways it’s hard to enumerate. And that’s just *my* rights. Never mind the kids’… and these are just inherent, internal rights. What about privacy rights too? Honestly, the outrage is just so fundamental, it is hard to stay sane.
err, that’s the stupidest thing ever. you can’t take notes on an ipad. maybe you can type on keyboard, but that’s a laptop, not an ipad. even better, if you’re trying toake notes, they have “digital” pens. wrong tech.
Be careful! You can lose your job in a heartbeat now and we need you on the classroom with your students!
http://www.hemlockontherocks.com
While it might seem like repairs is a big issue, it’s a very small amount of money in comparison to the vendor lock-in Apple achieves. I’m sure Apple would spring for the repairs if that was the the minor cost of locking a city to iOS in perpetuity.