This is a shocker. FBI agents raided LAUSD offices and carted off 20 boxes of documents related to former Superintendent John Deasy’s controversial $1.3 billion iPad deal.

Categories Los Angeles, Technology, Computers

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Ellen Lubic says:

December 2, 2014 at 2:54 pm

The LAUSD BoE let Deasy off the hook, with good severance, and agreed not to investigate him. Guess the FBI has a different approach.

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- KrazyTA says:
  
  December 2, 2014 at 10:53 pm
  
  To all commenters on this thread: I refer y’all to a previous posting on this blog—
  
  ‘Los Angeles Board Votes to Shred Emails, Then Reconsiders” of 9-11-2014.
  
  Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/09/11/los-angeles-board-votes-to-shred-staff-emails-then-reconsiders/
  
  I excerpt two paragraphs from the posting, both by the owner of this blog:
  
  1), The Los Angeles Unified School Board voted 6-0 to adopt a policy to shred most internal emails after one year. The iPad scandal came to light only after reporters gained access to two-year-old internal emails.
  
  2), There was something like a public uproar over the decision, and a day later, the LAUSD board voted to reconsider its decision. No emails will be deleted pending a final decision by the Board.
  
  Are there dots to be connected re today’s posting and that of Sept. 11? If so, can anyone connect them for the viewers of this blog?
  
  Thank you in advance to anyone that can address my questions.
  
  😎
  
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  - Ellen Lubic says:
    
    December 3, 2014 at 1:33 am
    
    Thanks for the link to the Ravitch post of some months back, crazy one. Just made this same point on another of Diane’s posts this evening. Forgot how much I wrote on this link re eliminating the BoE emails after a year. The BoE had just purchased from MS a program designed to permanently destroy evidence, which they addressed as getting rid of clutter. This purchase was made only days after the investigative journalist turned up the 2 year old Deasy/Aquino emails that broke the iPad/Paulson contract shenanigans wide open, and led to Deasy leaving, but not before he hired Saferstein, the well known BH attorney who specializes in fraud cases.
    
    Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
    
    Of course the dots can be connected. Watch the news for the next few days for not only dots, but dashes to diminish the culpable partners in these misadventures. As we activist muckrakers in LA learn more, we will certainly keep you all posted.
    
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  - Ellen Lubic says:
    
    December 3, 2014 at 10:34 am
    
    typo…meant Pearson, above, not Paulson
    
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FLERP! says:

December 2, 2014 at 2:57 pm

Wow.

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Judith Malys says:

December 2, 2014 at 2:57 pm

There’s a surprise! Maybe they’ll get him.

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- Robert Rendo says:
  
  December 2, 2014 at 6:43 pm
  
  I hope they figuratively beat him to a pulp.
  
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patrickwalsh says:

December 2, 2014 at 3:10 pm

Not that I trust the FBI but let justice be done.

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concerned mom says:

December 2, 2014 at 3:12 pm

Our district also redirected bond money to technology (and they also received RttT dollar for a pilot I-pad program in two schools). Personally, rather than giving every student an I-pad, I would like to see computer technology concentrated in the high schools (Ie – powerful workstations for programming, analytic equipment in chemistry class, state of the art auto shops, etc). I had limited exposure to computers until college and I still managed to figure them out and graduate with a technical degree. Today, the interfaces are much more user friendly so while I am (mostly) not a Luddite, I don’t buy into the argument that elementary school children need to be on an I-pad daily – a weekly computer class is enough. The only reason why K-5 students would need to be totally comfortable using the latest and greatest computer and learn the clicking/pressing methods is for “the on-line tests” , but for actual learning, I don’t see them as necessary. I would much rather my small child have more interaction with a human teacher, but I guess that would cost more than $1.3 billion.

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- Chiara says:
  
  December 2, 2014 at 5:18 pm
  
  I think parents have to go to school board meetings and tell them to completely ignore national ed reformers, because they are ridiculously over-hyping the benefits of devices.
  
  Spending a billion dollars on Ipads is insane. What will be more insane is if every school district in the country follows ed reformers off this cliff.
  
  It’s irresponsible and reckless. They shouldn’t do it.
  
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Kim Kaufman says:

December 2, 2014 at 3:20 pm

My understanding is the BOE did not agree to stop the investigations already underway. This is from the website of the lawyer Deasy hired:

Harvey Saferstein

“Harvey has also represented persons and companies alleged to have been involved in criminal price fixing.”

under “Representative Matters”:

“Currently representing a company in a bid-rigging investigation in Los Angeles County”

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- Ellen Lubic says:
  
  December 2, 2014 at 8:11 pm
  
  Now we have a better idea of why Deasy hired this high priced BH lawyer…but who is paying for his services, Kim? I have written to BoE members asking, but have never gotten a reply. Hope it is not We, the People, yet again.
  
  We are paying for over $500,000,000, more than half a Billion Dollars wasted, of his bad decisions made as Supt. in such a short time at LAUSD…$169,000,000 for all the Miramonte law suits, MiSiS, iPads, and we just this week heard about his enormous travel expenses last year.
  
  People still think his goal was to bankrupt LAUSD.
  
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  - paula says:
    
    December 3, 2014 at 10:46 am
    
    At the rate we’re going, the district will be bankrupt by all these bad decisions DZ made during his tenure. That the elected BOE went along with all of it is telling. The biggest crime is that in for 7-8 years, the teachers have not had one raise. Any available monies have been spent up in legal fees, failed programs and administration. I really think LAUSD is in serious trouble if it doesn’t change courses immediately. If the plan was to break up the district, they are doing a pretty good job.
    
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- caligirl says:
  
  December 3, 2014 at 12:00 am
  
  Saferstein sounds like the perfect choice for Deasy.
  
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Mark Collins says:

December 2, 2014 at 3:27 pm

Even more shocking would be if they carted John off as well. Perhaps? Possible?

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Mark Collins says:

December 2, 2014 at 3:32 pm

He should be locked up for uttering this: (Deasy readily acknowledged that the project was an expensive draw from bond funds.) ” But he said there was no other way to pay for what he called a civil rights imperative — to provide low-income students equal access to technology in the nation’s second-largest school system.”

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- concerned mom says:
  
  December 2, 2014 at 3:39 pm
  
  Why did he conclude that low-income students needed equal access to technology above the many other things they do not have equal access to?
  
  I wonder how much technology Waldorf and Montessori students access on a daily basis.
  
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  - Chiara says:
    
    December 2, 2014 at 5:19 pm
    
    Why doesn’t he think low income students need clean, safe classrooms and buildings that are in repair?
    
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  - caligirl says:
    
    December 3, 2014 at 12:06 am
    
    Waldorf and Montessori believe in limited access to screens, as you implied. And instead celebrate discovery, exploration and creative self awareness.
    
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  - Mark Collins says:
    
    December 3, 2014 at 11:18 am
    
    Waldorf schools function in a technology free zone. Here’s a NY Time article from 2011. Great read.
    
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- Ellen Lubic says:
  
  December 2, 2014 at 3:41 pm
  
  And Mark, we all remember him testifying against teachers in the Vergara lawsuit, ostensibly on the same grounds, as a civil rights case, to get rid of teachers tenure and union representation for due process. Guess the FBI looks past all his claims of being a patriot.
  
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educator says:

December 2, 2014 at 3:53 pm

We all know now that the purchase of computers is all about standardized tests. Every superintendent should be standing up against the expenditure of funds for testing when funds should be expended for learning.

I shiver every time I hear that the Common Core will prepare students for “College and Career”. My question……exactly what college courses and what careers are students being prepared for?

I have two grown children. One went into architecture because he was able to pursue his interests in drawing starting in a Montesorri pre-school. As a high school student, he was allowed to take a community college course in drafting. My other son was exposed to instrumental music in the 6th grade and went on to pursue a music career.

So, how can a computer generated curriculum and related testing replace hands on learning in subjects that help all students discover their interests and abilities? The answer is clear………they can’t.

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- Laura H. Chapman says:
  
  December 2, 2014 at 4:10 pm
  
  The college and career pitch is all sales and no substance.
  
  It is wonderful that your children managed to escape this grand and unethical imposition of absurd standards that have been misrepresented as preparing kids for any college–Harvard to a post-secondary job training program.
  
  The CCSS classifies studies in the arts under “technical subjects.” Music and architecture are construed as a career, but hands on learning of the kind that launched your children is getting rarer every day.
  
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- Dienne says:
  
  December 2, 2014 at 4:41 pm
  
  Sadly, with the exception of a few (many of whom Diane has profiled), superintendents seem to be part of the problem. I’m about half-way through MORE THAN A SCORE which is largely about the various opt-out and other resistance movements that happened in 2012-2013, and in so many of the stories the biggest resistance that the parents/students/teachers encountered was at the local admin level – principals and/or superintendents. I’ve said it before, I know that superintendents have groceries to put on the table and kids to send to college just like the rest of us, but with so many brave teachers putting their jobs on the line, it sure would be nice to see a few more brave principals and superintendents doing likewise, especially since they’re in a better position to influence more people and policies.
  
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  - Ellen Lubic says:
    
    December 2, 2014 at 7:28 pm
    
    Yes, Dienne, the Sups are definitely key to problem making, not solving. And if you research them, you will find that almost every “rheeformer” Supt. is a product of the Broad Academy which teaches them how to ‘deform’ school districts in order to ‘rapidly’ get rid of older teachers and close pulbic schools in order to implement/impose charters,
    
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  - Duane Swacker says:
    
    December 3, 2014 at 12:00 pm
    
    Administrators of all levels are a SERIOUS part of our problems. They are GAGAers through and through and mainly care about their own little fiefdoms all the while spouting “it’s for the children”.
    
    May they rot in Dante’s Hell:
    
    Going Along to Get Along (GAGA) : Nefarious practice of most educators who implement the edudeformers agenda even though the educators know that those educational malpractices will cause harm to the students and defile the teaching and learning process. The members of the GAGA gang are destined to be greeted by the Karmic Gods of Retribution upon their passing from this realm.
    
    >b> Karmic Gods of Retribution : Those ethereal beings specifically evolved to construct the 21st level in Dante’s Hell. The 21st level signifies the combination of the 4th (greed), 8th (fraud) and 9th (treachery) levels into one mega level reserved especially for the edudeformers and those, who, knowing the negative consequences of the edudeformers agenda, willing implemented it so as to go along to get along (see GAGA). The Karmic Gods of Retribution also personally escort these poor souls, upon their physical death, to the 21st level unless they enlighten themselves, a la one D. Ravitch, to the evil and harm they have caused so many innocent children, and repent and fight against their former fellow deformers. There the edudeformers and GAGAers will lie down on a floor of smashed and broken ipads and ebooks curled in a fetal position alternately sucking their thumbs to the bones while listening to two words-Educational Excellence-repeated without pause for eternity.
    
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Old Teacher says:

December 2, 2014 at 3:55 pm

Actually, they may let him make his claim in front of a judge!

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Karen Wolfe says:

December 2, 2014 at 4:42 pm

And now this: the new superintendent Cortines is cancelling the current iPad contract. http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/12/02/48409/lausd-ipads-federal-agents-confiscate-documents-re/

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paula says:

December 2, 2014 at 5:35 pm

Cortines is merely a DZ program enabler. He can not discontinue anything. According to the district’s head attorney, the process has to go back through the BOE that approved it. So far, I don’t think the board has voted to discontinue anything. The la times had a story about the benefits of collaboration and I commented that teachers have always collaborated and it is a key part of our CBA. When DZ and the other deformers came in collaboration was discontinued and top down, administrative action became the norm. Of course it failed miserably. Without the input of teachers about classroom strategies and environment, not much will work, LAUSD learned that the hard way by all the failed policies DZ instituted. Unfortunately, Cortines seems to be implementing the same policies that will not result in the changes the district needs. Its great the feds decided to get involved but why and what are they looking for is a curiosity to me.

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- Ellen Lubic says:
  
  December 2, 2014 at 7:33 pm
  
  Agree Paula…as usual. Cortines has now colluded it seems with Ben Austin to shut down the weakest 95 schools in the district and impose Parent Rev charters in their place. Anyone wanting to fight this, please contact me at
  
  Joining Forces for Education
  joiningforces4ed@aol.com
  
  We are gearing up for an active Spring of fight back. We need retired teachers and others who want to be trained for speaker’s bureau, letter and article writing, activist presence at BoE meetings, etc.
  
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Chiara says:

December 2, 2014 at 5:53 pm

The problem with this is people there won’t want to allocate money to public schools.

They’ll think it will be spent stupidly and recklessly and they’ll be right. The damage will continue beyond this one individual act and person.

Ultimately the big loser here won’t be Mr. Deasy. It will be the public schools. He’ll be long gone and they’ll still be paying.

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- KrazyTA says:
  
  December 2, 2014 at 7:19 pm
  
  Chiara: this can’t be emphasized enough.
  
  The very people who want to eliminate public schools are often running them, but it’s not the charterite/privatizer folks that take the long-term political and moral hit over such matters as the iPad and MISIS fiascos in LA but those trying to save and improve public education.
  
  Dishonesty runs very deep in the $tudent $ucce$$ crowd.
  
  For example, midyear dump, anybody?
  
  😡
  
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Linda Johnson says:

December 2, 2014 at 5:59 pm

I hope Deasy goes to jail for what he did to Los Angeles students and teachers.

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Chiara says:

December 2, 2014 at 6:57 pm

There’s a small upside. I think people can use LA as a good, bad example for local decision makers. If they look like they’re getting ready to fad-follow and blow a bunch of public school money we can say “you don’t want to end up like LA”.

I don’t think it will work. There were huge disasters with device investments in Texas prior to this one in California and that was completely ignored, but it MIGHT work 🙂

Worth a try anyway.

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Lloyd Lofthouse says:

December 2, 2014 at 7:12 pm

I keep reading about the FBI making raids and investigating educatoin fraud.

Is this evidence that the FBI doesn’t belong to Bill Gates and the other billionaire oligarchs waging wars against the public schools and buying politicians?

Is it possible that the FBI is the only agency the oligarchs can’t buy? We can only hope.

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- Robert Rendo says:
  
  December 2, 2014 at 9:02 pm
  
  Or is the FBI a mere PR tool used by the federal government just to show the public “Look! We did our part by investigating this, so don’t accuse us of being corrupt or indifferent!”
  
  Bottom line: What becomes of these criminals after the fact finding and declarations of “law”? How often and how intensely do and will people like Deasy et al get punished?
  
  Deasy should get his head smacked and fined 10 million dollars along with 35 years in jail with no probation. It would be great to see some very hardened inmates make a “project” out of him.
  
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  - Lloyd Lofthouse says:
    
    December 2, 2014 at 9:07 pm
    
    “Deasy should get his head smacked and fined 10 million dollars along with 35 years in jail with no probation.”
    
    I like your thinking but what about sending him to Mexico to serve that 35 years in prison?
    
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  - Christine Langhoff says:
    
    December 2, 2014 at 11:28 pm
    
    Mexicans have enough problems of their own. ¡No, gracias!
    
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  - paula says:
    
    December 3, 2014 at 10:39 am
    
    Everyone is railing against DZ and he did do harm but the greater harm was done by the still active BOE. They were elected by us to oversee our monies and the district and they failed completely. The la times goes into the difference between ethical violations v criminal violations. Well, if the feds made their enquiry more comprehensive, criminal behavior will definitely be found. The criminal behavior in the iPad fiasco was the violation of the public’s trust. We trusted you, LAUSD with our monies to fix up schools and you diverted the monies to technology. The BOE rubber stamped this deal and was all in. As a colleague of mine puts it, its time for the BOE to do the ‘karma squirm’.
    
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Nimbus says:

December 2, 2014 at 8:35 pm

What you said, Lloyd. That is my thought exactly. If only the FBI would investigate New York: Cuomo, NYSED, Tisch, and King.

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Art Educator 2000 says:

December 2, 2014 at 10:46 pm

I predict the FBI will find Deasy guilty of nothing. This man has his eye on DC and needs to be cleared of all the nasty rumors left behind in LA. I would love to be proven wrong.

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Old Teacher says:

December 2, 2014 at 10:56 pm

Among my duties in the service was visiting Americans in foreign prisons, I recommend prison in Turkey for him, they were far and away the worst.

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- Lloyd Lofthouse says:
  
  December 2, 2014 at 11:14 pm
  
  What about a prison in North Korea?
  
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  - Christine Langhoff says:
    
    December 2, 2014 at 11:30 pm
    
    Better than our neighbor to the south and further away! Also, the ruler of that nation is known to be somewhat capricious in meting out punishments.
    
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Cassandra Roy says:

December 3, 2014 at 1:11 pm

I have little or nothing good to say about LAUSD. Their underhanded dealings did not start with Deasy. This type of managing or lack there of has been going on for years. And who ends up suffering the children and the people who come each day to try and provide a quality education for them. One day they are going to self destruct from the weight of the BS (under the guise of conducting business) that has been loading up for years.

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