John Deasy’s ill-fated commitment to buy an iPad for every student and staff member (he called the program a civil rights issue) loaded with Pearson software for $1.3 billion is finished.
The district is canceling the program and demanding a multi-million dollar refund.
“Los Angeles Unified told Apple Inc. this week that it will not spend another dollar on the Pearson software installed on its iPads and is seeking a multimillion-dollar refund from the technology giant.
“If an agreement cannot be reached, the nation’s second-largest school district could take Apple to court.
“While Apple and Pearson promised a state-of-the-art technological solution for ITI implementation, they have yet to deliver it,” David Holmquist, the school district’s attorney, wrote in a letter to Apple’s general counsel. The ITI, or Instructional Technology Initiative, is the district’s name for its iPad program.
“Holmquist said the district is “extremely dissatisfied” with the work of Pearson on its technology initiative to get computers into the hands of each of the district’s 650,000 students.
“As we approach the end of the school year, the vast majority of students are still unable to access the Pearson curriculum on iPads,” he wrote.
“L.A. Unified’s $1.3 billion iPad program has been fraught with problems, from issues getting the technology to work in the classrooms to questions about how the tablets were procured.”
The procurement is being investigated by the FBI.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
YES!!!! And so it begins!!! Hail to Diane Ravitch!!!!
About bloody time. I spent a great deal of time reviewing Pearson textbooks when I was still teaching high school, and advised my continuation students not to use them because they were far less culturally relevant and accessible that those by McDougalLittell or Holt. I also had to work with them during two years out of the classroom in LAUSD, and found their trainings to be of little value to teachers, despite the millions most likely spent on those trainings.
Their forte is marketing….and political manipulation. Horrible company.
Such a shame. They’re going to have a lot of trouble when they go back to voters and ask for funding next time.
This was just a reckless and irresponsible use of public funds and the adults who made the decisions won’t suffer for it- every kid in that school system will.
Why wouldn’t they prioritize facilities? That investment lasts and it will benefit everyone who uses those buildings, for years.
Tech companies themselves spend a ton on elaborate campuses- physical spaces. They obviously know that’s important to their people. Why would students be any different?
Another BROAD spawn wrecking public education as per his ten weekend BROAD ACADEMY “training”.
Papa Eli must be so proud of what his money has purchased.
Very late in coming. And the people who OK’d it have sailed on to other lucrative positions. Deasy is running Eli Broad’s unaccredited superintendents academy. Another just got hired to run Burbank Unified. Slightly different results when you compare the white guys who misspent millions and squandered the public’s trust to the black teachers who are doing jail time for allegedly changing answers on a test. Civil Rights issue indeed.
There’s an alarming lack of accountability in ed reform, especially for people who pound the table and say “accountability!” so much 🙂
Some educators are just more equal than others. I doubt we will see the people spending LAUSD millions doing a prep walk.
You can’t fool all the people all the time.
Yes, hopefully this is just the beginning of an awakening.
AND
yes:
THANK YOU Dr. Ravtich
“Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett is the subject of federal criminal probe into possible contract irregularities, sources close to CPS and City Hall are reporting.
CPS so far is declining to comment on the involvement of Ms. Byrd-Bennett, who would supervise contract awarding in her capacity as the system’s chief executive. But earlier in the day Board of Education President David Vitale released a statement saying CPS was “cooperating” with federal agents in their investigation of possible “misconduct” within the system…
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20150415/BLOGS02/150419890/feds-probe-cps-chief-barbara-byrd-bennett-sources
I give up, I really do. Just hire thousands of prosecutors and investigate everyone in government. We may have to contract it out because prosecutors ARE government and they’ll be irregularities in THAT contract…
Chiara, What an idea! As districts have 1 to 1 laptop programs, states could have 1 to 1 investigator programs. Based on recent news, my own state could be the pilot.
If the teachers in Atlanta deserve 7 years in jail then these people deserve life without parole.
I hope this starts a serious look at the whole tech-marketing farce. An affluent district near Cincinnati will be buying Chrome books for every student. I think they may be innocents about the real costs.
I read a New Republic article (July 14, 2014) that business pays about $9.00 in costs to “make technology work” for every $1.00 invested in hardware. By the time returns on the investment can be realized on the $9.00– software, training, structural changes in the organization, glitch removal and such–everything is obsolete, including the hardware.
That factoid came up in the context of a larger debate among economists who are “surprised” that they are not seeing the great upturn in economic productivity and growth that was “supposed” to come from the tech revolution.
They are trying to figure out how to measure the digital economy and all of the free “unmeasured assets” of say, the labor of Diane Ravitch and Mercedes Schneider and countless others who post commentary, photos, music, videos, on the internet, exchanges that do not function like conventional market transactions.
Happily, the economists are also discovering some “generic” problems with economic data, like gains in productivity that do not show up in short term changes. Wow. Think about the absurdity of measuring teacher and student productivity by annual test scores– and the inferential leaps through thin air marketed as VAM and by the pushers of SLOs as measures of teacher productivity.
The FBI’s engagement in the sordid affair in Los Angeles ought to open up some room for examining mindless technophilia and the myth of increased productivity as the inevitable outcome of tech investments.
Laura…we in LA have learned not to hold our collective breath while awaiting the FBI report on Deasy, Apple, and Pearson. Nor did we have the outcome we expected when the FBI investigated two LA Magnolia Charter Schools which the BoE of LAUSD wanted to shut down last Fall due to financial shenanigans bordering on ostensible fraud/theft of public funding.
Instead these Gulen schools were reinstated with a former LAUSD, one term, BoE member who is a prime charter school investor as the new headmistress. Things do go awry even with the FBI on the case.
“Game, Set and Match”
Reform has met it’s match
In Dr. Diane Ravitch
Dishonest schemes they hatch
Are outed and then ravaged
““As we approach the end of the school year, the vast majority of students are still unable to access the Pearson curriculum on iPads,” he wrote.”
He says that like it’s a bad thing.
It is a bad thing when students are mandated to take the tests based on the Pearson curriculum. Our LAUSD BoE member Monica Ratliff seems to be singular in originally demanding to see the Pearson curriculum for this district. Now, she is in the forefront of demanding return of our taxpayer money paid to Pearson under the Deasy contract, for a non-product that remains undelivered almost three years later.
What a business model the Broad Academy must teach slugs like Deasy and Byrd-Bennett!
Wonderful news! Let’s keep the tide turning against the hucksters, parasites, and privatizers. The Broadie Supt. hired by my local district 2yrs ago also represented her big chrome book purchase for the PARCC as “equity innovation,” hijacking civil rights language as cover for the huge tech buy. She resigned under pressure 6 wks ago and is not missed, refused to let anyone know where she’s going next.
In today’s world, she will not be able to hide where she goes next for long.
She’ll probably be hired by Deasy…or Pear$on!
Ira…”equity innovation” and “civil rights” are the terms settled on by the Broad public relations and law firms to sell not only the Apple iPad and Pearson worthless products, but as the sell for the Vergara lawsuits they are now in gear to sweep through every state in the nation. The other word that they are taught to use is “rapidly”….so beware this treacherous and phony epistomology.
Broad has hired Deasy and Ben Austin, two real charlatans, to be point guys in leading this charge. And they have the formerly well respected attorney David Bois, riding flank, and doing more of this dirty work.
“The procurement is being investigated by the FBI”
Does this mean that there is some hope that Sleazy Deasy will actually do some time behind bars?
if Dz is jailed, then all the board members and others who participated in this fraud would have to go. Dz was the front guy but many others were involved. I thin teachers should sue LAUD under the RICO law. If it was good enough for the Atlanta teachers, we want to use it also. Systematic and organized. Termination of highly qualified teachers, senior teachers and denial of their due process. I like it and sadly, it’s true.
Did the LA school board back Dz 100%. If not, fire only those who supported Dz and voted for all of his reformster crap.
Lloyd…this is a sad tale.
All but one BoE member voted for Deasy’s extended contract…and the brave and principled NO voter, Marguerite La Motte, has since died. One other member, Monica Ratliff, abstained. She was head of the finance committee thereafter and asked the tough questions that opened up this whole can of worms.
The possibly fraudulent purchases by Deasy and his asst. Aquino, with Apple and Pearson seems to point to having had insider bidding info from Deasy, which is now under investigation by the FBI. It seems to have been allowed by an earlier mix of BoE members which did include at least two who are still there, Monica Garcia who will be termed out, and Tamar Galatzan who as lawyer who should have known better, and who is up for re-election and must be defeated by Scott Schmerelson…a longime educator.
Keep in mind that NOTHING is done here with any transparency despite that the BoE is a public elected oversight agency of the public LAUSD.
That Board okayed the specifically designated Construction Bond money to be used (probably illegally) at Deasy’s instruction, for the $1.3 Billion purchase (as he seemingly made sweetheart deals shown by emails, with Apple for obselete iPads, and with Pearson for unwritten software) …which put the district in the red, on paper…but not in reality. Cortines, our interim Supt. is working with Ratliff it would seem, to get some of these possibly fraudulent contracts abbrogated and some cash returned.
It is a mess. And yes, it might well be that it could be prosecuted under RICO. We have to see what the FBI reports back.
Why would honorable men like David Bois and Ted Olson want to be involved with the Broad boys such as Deasy and Austin now, in pressing further Vergara lawsuits? How does Eli Broad stay above this suspect fray in his role as the Godfather?
How does Eli Broad stay above this suspect fray in his role as the Godfather?
A: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
How many billionaire crooks end up going to prison in the U.S.?
Well, SOMEONE needs to get blamed and sued.
Good luck in winning a suit against Apple, which is bigger then Exxon, Walmart, McDonalds, and Target combined. Apple has a net worth slightly larger than the GDP of Saudi Arabia.
All true.
Still, I hope someone or some people get sued and legally get kicked in their fiscal gut until they spit up blood. Deasy should go to jail for this.
If educators in Atlanta can get 7 years in prison, lose 5 years of pay, pay a fine, and be stripped of their license and pensions, then Deasy should get at least as much time in jail because HE was in charge of the LAUSD when this fiasco occurred . . . .
Imagine the rage over these hypocrisies and injustices, and people want to know WHY violence is up and on the rise in the USA . . . . Why we don’t trust the government, elected officials, and the police.
Connect the dots that create a hideous image of shifts in wealth, power, and equality. It’s all connected and it’s all cut from the same overall gestalt. It leans in the direction of a kingdom with a despot, subjects, and royal courts, all roles filled by the federal government and National Governor’s Association, the citizenry, the corporations and ALEC, respectively.
How sad.
But fast food workers are striking, and frankly, $15 an hour is not enough.
It seems the brew is beginning to simmer, and awareness of the fascism that is creeping into our lives is growing: Misused test scores, collective bargaining rights, young unarmed black men being shot and killed by the authorities, unions shrinking, a lack of a robust national mass transit system, education unions getting corrupt, Democrats de-identified by their neo-liberalism, the TPP, Medicare costing middle class seniors a lot more, a scandalous national child poverty rate of 24%, the ACA as a gift to insurance companies, a lack of universal single payer healthcare, a demonization of civil servants and government, gun laws that are anarchic, adulterated crops and livestock that feed the cancer industrial complex, deregulation of banks, college students that host parasitic loans that render them indentured to a future of few decent jobs and no home ownership . . . .
The list goes on and on, but the fiasco in LA is indeed connected closely to all of this and is part and parcel of a much bigger cultural shift. And this is going on globally as well.
I take comfort in the solidarity of this blog . . . . .
As do I, Robert…as do we all. A million thanks to Diane, Mercedes, Bob, Peter, Anthony & all of you who post and inform and comment and discuss to solve this mess!
Four letters…one dirty deal…42 years ago= ALEC.
BUT–thanks to this “site to discuss a better education for all”–the tide will turn–
yes, WE have, yes, WE can and yes, yes WE WILL!!
(Have to go–this retired teacher’s passing out opt-out literature at CPS later today, catching parents coming out of p.t. conferences, & before the next grueling CCRAP cycle starts!)
rbmtk, Your activism as a retiree is so essential. Thank you.
LOVE your attitude. And, yes, ALEC is the illuminati of the United States, and it must be stopped.
This fiasco is one of the Hydra faces of corporate education reform.
Yes!
Lloyd,
I just wanted to say that per our conversation off-blog, my theory is that sit-coms – and I know this is not fair to people in the performing arts – are a way to distract the American people from the realities of harsh life, if not brainwash them into thinking that what they are watching is normal to to be celebrated.
I make an exception with “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons”, which were like going to the theatre once a week. Norman and Frances Lear were visionaries, I think.
Hah, I thought about mentioning All in the Family as an exception. I never saw the Jeffersons.
I humbly thank all the commenters above.
Y’all nailed it.
Let’s keep the heat on by insisting on transparency and the free flow of information. And beware the rheephorm twofer:
The iPad catastrophe and MISIS mess were sold to the general public as initiatives by the public school sector—many comments on LATIMES threads attest to this, even while it is public knowledge that it was the charterite and privatizer zealots running LAUSD that played fast and loose with the reputation, resources and future of the second largest public school district in the nation.
The rheephormsters own world-class debacles—and if they won’t own up to their very own words and deeds—
Then this blog and many others and all those for a “better education for all” will remind people again and again where the responsibility for failure lies.
Side note: I wonder what all the John Deasy supporters at the LATIMES are doing now? Perhaps burning all the hard copies and erasing all the digital copies—or trying to—of the LATIMES for the three and a half years they looked the other way while the rheephorm bull ran amok in the public school china shop.
😎
Please see my article from last year published by City Watch Today on the LA Times Love Affair with John Deasy. I have been writing about all this, ad nauseum, for over two years. My article got close to 700,000 hits in the first hours of publication…and I was called a liar by the lead education editor, Karin Klein.
None of this is new news.
KrazyTA–I love, love, love all your comments (always writing down your Grouchoisms–I’m a Marxist, too!) However, let’s make the dodo bird extinct–I believe that’s the well-deserved fate of Ms. Rhee. She’s disappeared, it would seem–no longer the face of reform (because, obviously, she’s an embarrassment rather than an asset to the movement thanks–in large part–to this blog). From now on–if you or anyone else must refer to her, call her “s.w.s.n.b.n.”–as in, “she-who-shall-not-be- named.”
The only time I’d like to see her in the press would be if she were prosecuted ala the Atlanta educators (but MUCH more jail time)–cuff & enough!!
As a result of this exemplary work, Deasy got a job and an endorsement from a former Obama USDOE official:
“Los Angeles Unified School District’s former superintendent, John Deasy, has landed a job working at a leadership academy for school administrators that’s funded by his longtime supporter Eli Broad.
Deasy, 54, resigned in October under pressure for technology issues including the district’s disastrous new record-keeping system, MiSiS, and efforts to buy iPads for students.
“Los Angeles has lost its most effective superintendent on the thing that matters most: improving student opportunity and achievement,” said Bruce Reed, president of the Los Angeles-based Eli and Edyth Broad Foundation, in an Oct. 16 statement responding to Deasy’s resignation. ”
The same 150 “movement” leaders just change seats and titles, leaving the mess they made for someone else to clean up.
“Reformer Things”
When Cat-in-the-Hat
Messed up with Things
He brought in DIRT-majigger
When school reformers
Spread their wings
They leave a mess much bigger
As I wrote earlier in another post, EDUCATION by SOFTWARE is NOT a GOOD IDEA.
Notice how all these Deasy supporters see the IPad debacle as a two option game: IPad or disadvantage child? Inexpensive tablets and free, high quality software are bothe available.
So now every 11th grader in the district will lose 4 full days of instructional time to be guinea pigs on a test that doesn’t count this year, on an IPAD that won’t ever be used, loaded with Pearson software that doesn’t work. Last year students spent 6 hours just trying to log on. Very troublesome when common core testing that is supposedly designed to get students “college prepared and career ready” is actually taking away crucial time needed to prepare for AP Exams that are important for college!
The definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Smarter Balance Testing will be yet another disaster for LAUSD.