This article asks: “LAUSD iPad Deal: iPaid Too Much?”
Is it legal to use voter-approved construction bonds with a 25-year or 30-year paydown period to buy devices that will be obsolete in 3-4 years?
Isn’t this a misdirection and misuse of what was approved by the voters?
Were voters misled?
Would they have approved a $1 billion tax to pay for iPads?
Surely there must be a city or state official with the power to investigate this mess.
This teacher blogger, Rene Dietrich, addresses an open letter to Apple about the iPads for all students in the district.
Such questions as whether they are configured to block inappropriate content; whether Apple will offer training and tech support to teachers; whether they can be used without access to the Internet; whether there is any way to disable them if stolen; and many more. These are the kinds of questions that school districts should get answers to before spending hundreds of millions of dollars on new technology.
In the article in Sunday’s New York Times magazine about the introduction of Joel Klein/Rupert Murdoch’s Amplify tablet, Klein asserts that those who oppose his views on technology are ideological, not evidence-based.
Klein asserts that we can’t hope to compete with Korea and other nations with high test scores unless we put kids on his tablets.
But here is a contrary view, forwarded to me by Will Fitzhugh of The Concord Review.
It is an excerpt from Amanda Ripley’s new book, The Smartest Kids in the World:
...But the anecdotal evidence suggests that Americans waste an extraordinary amount of tax money on high-tech toys for teachers and students, most of which have no proven learning value whatsoever....“In most of the highest-performing systems, technology is remarkably absent from classrooms.” ignore shiny objects Old-school can be good school. Eric’s high school in Busan, South Korea, had austere classrooms with bare-bones computer labs. Out front, kids played soccer on a dirt field. From certain angles, the place looked like an American school from the 1950s. Most of Kim’s classrooms in Finland looked the same way: rows of desks in front of a simple chalkboard or an old-fashioned white board, the kind that was not connected to anything but the wall. Tom’s school in Poland didn’t even have a cafeteria, let alone a state-of-the-art theater, like his public school back home in Pennsylvania. In his American school, every classroom had an interactive white board, the kind that had become ubiquitous in so many American schools. (In fact, when I visited Tom’s American high school in 2012, these boards were already being swapped for next-generation replacements.) None of the classrooms in his Polish school had interactive white boards. Little data exists to compare investments in technology across countries, unfortunately. But the anecdotal evidence suggests that Americans waste an extraordinary amount of tax money on high-tech toys for teachers and students, most of which have no proven learning value whatsoever. As in all other industries, computers are most helpful when they save time or money, by helping to sort out what kids know and who needs help. Conversely, giving kids expensive, individual wireless clickers so that they can vote in class would be unthinkable in most countries worldwide. (In most of the world, kids just raise their hands and that works out fine.) “In most of the highest-performing systems, technology is remarkably absent from classrooms,” Andreas Schleicher, the OECD international education guru, told me. “I have no explanation why that is the case, but it does seem that those systems place their efforts primarily on pedagogical practice rather than digital gadgets.” In the survey conducted for this book, seven out of ten international and American exchange students agreed that U.S. schools had more technology. Not one American student surveyed said there was significantly less technology in U.S. schools. The smartest countries prioritize teacher pay and equity (channeling more resources to the neediest students). When looking for a world-class education, remember that people always matter more than props. Ripley, Amanda (2013-08-13). The Smartest Kids in the World: And How They Got That Way (pp. 214-215). Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition.
The New York Times magazine has a long article by Carlo Rotella about the first trial of the Amplify tablet in the schools of Guilford County, North Carolina. Amplify is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and run by Joel Klein, the former chancellor of the NewYork City public schools.
Klein is certain that public education in America is a disaster and the only things that can save it are disruptive technology and the Common Core. Those are the same recommendations made by the task force Klein co-chaired for the Council on Foreign Relations last year.
Happily for Murdoch, Klein, and other apostles of saving the schools by selling technology to them, they have a friend in Arne Duncan. He is quoted as follows:
“To keep doing the same thing we’ve been doing for the past hundred years — everybody working on the same thing at the same time, not based on competency. . . .” He sighed and let the thought trail off, then added his standard reminder that we must equip our students to compete with counterparts in India and China. He did acknowledge, though, that the fear of falling behind puts added pressure on school systems to do something, anything, which then makes them more vulnerable to rushed decisions and to peddlers of magic bullets. “There are a lot of hucksters out there,” he said.
“Duncan, whose longtime allies include Joel Klein, Bill Gates and other apostles of disruption, has a record of supporting reforms that increase the role of market forces — choice, competition, the profit motive — in education. He wants private enterprises vying to make money by providing innovative educational products and services, and sees his role as “taking to scale the best practices” that emerge from this contest.”
One of the trainers of teachers uses a phrase that we have now heard about a million times , meaning that we are experimenting on you and don’t know how things will turn out: “Another PLEF, Wenalyn Bell, told her group, “It’s like building a plane while it’s flying.”
Rotella retains a healthy skepticism. He knows that Los Angeles laid off teachers while it spent big bucks to buy iPads.
He ends with these observations from his last interview with Klein.
“Take Finland,” Klein continued, citing everyone’s favorite example of a country that puts its money on excellent teachers, not technology, and routinely finishes at the top in international assessments. “There’s a high barrier for entry into the teaching profession,” the kind that lets in the Robin Britts and keeps out weaker aspirants. Teachers there are also well paid, held in high esteem and trusted to get results without being forced to teach to the test. But America’s educational system is a lot bigger, messier, less centralized and more focused on market-based solutions than Finland’s. Also, our greater income inequality and thinner social safety net make for much wider variation in student performance, and a toxic political climate has encouraged our traditional low regard for teachers to flower into outright contempt.
“Still, if everyone agrees that good teachers make all the difference, wouldn’t it make more sense to devote our resources to strengthening the teaching profession with better recruitment, training, support and pay? It seems misguided to try to improve the process of learning by putting an expensive tool in the hands of teachers we otherwise treat like the poor relations of the high-tech whiz kids who design the tool.
“Are our overwhelmed, besieged, haphazardly recruited, variably trained, underpaid, not-so-elite teachers, in fact, the potential weak link in Amplify’s bid to disrupt American schooling? Klein said that we have 3.5 million elementary- and middle-school teachers. “We have to put the work of the most brilliant people in their hands,” he said. “If we don’t empower them, it won’t work.” Behind the talking points and buzz words, what I heard him saying was Yes.”
Red Queen in LA writes a snappy and irreverent blog.
This post is her best ever, or at least the best I have read.
In it, she decimates the decision by Los Angeles school officials to spend $500 million on iPads–using money from bonds that will be paid off in 25 years–and another $500 million to upgrade the schools for Internet connectivity, plus $38 million for keyboards, plus untold millions for professional development and other unforeseen needs, at a time when teachers are laid off, class sizes are huge, facilities are crumbling, and programs are cut.
This was not a wise decision for many reasons, she argues. For one thing, “tablets” are no substitute for computers:
We all know this about tablet “computers”: they are not real “working” machines. When I proposed buying a tablet for my student the dude behind the counter told me: “Don’t do it. You’ll have to buy a keyboard, it has way less memory and no ports, a smaller screen and slower speed: it’s just not what a serious student needs. By the time you’re done adding on, you’ll have a machine almost as expensive as a real computer with far less functionality”.
Any parent will have received that advice from just about any computer salesman. And while there are a few serious students out there who no doubt feel otherwise, I think it’s a fairly safe bet that the word on the street is: tablets are no substitute for a computer; students need computers.
But she is even more outraged that the district leaders pulled a bait and switch, first asking voters for permission to sell 25-year bonds to repair the schools, then using that money to buy tablets with a short lifespan. She writes:
“A fool and his money are soon parted”; common sense dictates a little skepticism be employed in warding off financial chicanery. There are so many get-rich – excuse me, get-“smart”-quick schemes floating about EdReform/Common Core Land that their sheer volume belies legitimacy.
No one purchases a car with a 30-year loan. Long-term financial “instruments” are intended for a more “durable” purchase like, say, a house. Or a school building. If you purchased your Honda Civic with a house mortgage, you would find yourself paying for that auto to the tune of several times its original worth, a dozen years or longer beyond when it was melted into candlesticks. How does it make sense that LAUSD stakeholders should be purchasing ephemeral electronic equipment with long-term constructionbonds? Where’s the common sense in hoodwinking tax-payers with such a scheme that doesn’t even seem legal? When will the average voter ever agree again to finance any child’s public educational needs when there are only foxes in charge of the hen house?
And more:
Maybe this is all more complicated than it seems. But since it was we taxpayers who invoked the common sense solution of approving bond money to maintain school facilities sufficiently, we deserve transparency regardingdecisions that reverse course on how this money is spent. And we deserve legal redress should the caretakers of our money not spend it according to our wishes.
Our children need teachers — more teachers — who can conduct school within classrooms of a manageable, teachable size. Our children need a village-worth of support staff to enable and assist those teachers to engage their learners. Our children need to attend school in facilities that are clean, commodious, safe and stimulating. Diverting funds from rank-bottom pedagogical necessities in favor of frivolous electronics in service of opaque commercial ends, just makes no Common Sense.
What do you think about Los Angeles spending $1 billion on
iPads, money taken from school construction bonds approved by
voters for……school construction. The iPads will be obsolete in
3-4 years. The bonds won’t be paid off for 25 years. Really
disturbing, but here is a hopeful comment, suggesting that there is
some oversight: “●●smf responds: I am a member of that selfsame
bond oversight committee and I voted to approve this iPad for
Everyone deal as a pilot at some 30 plus schools. Only that and
nothing more. “Notwithstanding grandstanding from he
superintendent’s office nothing further has been approved by
anyone. The Apple contract purchases iPads for every student ONLY
IF AND WHEN the Bond Oversight Committee and Board of Education
approves Phases Two and Three. There is is no autopilot. “Your
concerns for your students at your school are our concerns. We on
the bond committee cannot by law buy your school new library books
or arts or choral music programs. Deputy Superintendent Aquino may
wax poetic about how the iPads will give your school art and music
programs; like all good salespeople he believes it what he’s
selling. But I don’t buy that balderdash than any more than you do.
“Our kids don’t need arts applications, they need Arts Teachers.
“We don’t need music apps or dance apps or drama apps – we need
Dance Teachers and Music Teachers and Drama Teachers. We need
Teacher Librarians in secondary and Elementary Librarians in in the
early grades. “And Health Teachers and Nurses and
Counselors.”
A letter from a teacher in Los Angeles about the decision to spend $1 billion to buy iPads.
“How could the bond oversight committee actually approve this deal when we (a specific school in LAUSD) still have classrooms with chalkboards, desks from the 1950s, an internet infrastructure that constantly lets us down – we can NEVER play video because there is never enough bandwidth, a library with a book collection that has an average copyright date of 1989, only 4 library books per pupil, 10 computers in the library with an average age of 2006, 48 students in a 10th grade English class, 45 students in a biology class, no art classes, no vocal music classes. What we could use instead of ipads is every classroom is a smart classroom, new desks that kids can actually fit into, multiple computer labs, a new, larger, tech friendly library with at least 14 books per pupil, art classes, wood shop, computer labs, the list goes on. What is going to happen is before the entire roll out of ipads, LAUSD is going to realize either by their own admission or a lawsuit that this experiment is not going to work. Also, voters within the boundaries of LAUSD are never going to vote for another bond measure. Therefore, this specific school will not be getting ipads nor new construction, new books, new desktop computers anytime soon.”
A reader wants to know the answer:
“The LA Unified School District is going to spend $1 billion on iPads at a cost of $678 per device, more than the tablets cost in stores. They come with “partially developed” educational software and are being paid for by school construction bonds.
“There are currently over 16,000 repair requests across the District that have yet to receive a response. The Venice High visitor bleachers at its football field have been collapsing for years and are dangerous. Many schools need their air conditioning systems fixed. Ever try to teach literature to 40 kids in a non-air conditioned classroom? I guess it doesn’t matter now because LAUSD and the educational reform movement don’t care much about literature anyway.
“School construction bonds? Exactly which part of a school’s construction is an iPad? This deal reeks of collusion and kickbacks. Three LAUSD Board members own Apple stock. How on earth does the Board accept a deal for these devices that doesn’t include a discount? I mean they’re buying 660,000 units.
“Apple’s Mac Rumors site recommends NOT BUYING this current iPad edition because “updates are coming soon.” The bureaucrats at LAUSD responsible for this deal should go to work at the Pentagon. Maybe when this boondoggle is finished, they can sign a deal with Kohler or American Standard to replace all the toilets in LAUSD schools.
“Why hasn’t anyone on the LA School Board investigated this? Why hasn’t United Teachers of Los Angeles investigated this? Why hasn’t the LA Times or the LA Daily News investigated it?
“If I were still teaching, I’d feel as if I were working in an asylum.”
A reader submits the following comment. He or she might
also have noted the computer failures of testing companies this
past spring, for example, in Indiana and Oklahoma. The reader says:
Pearson has a pattern of poor performance nationwide, stretching
back for more than a decade. For example, A. In 2002, a computer
glitch caused malfunctions in some online math tests and Pearson
incorrectly failed nearly 8,000 Minnesota students on a test that
was required for high school graduation. Pearson agreed to pay up
to $7 million in damages for that problem. B. In 2007, a Minnesota
online statewide math test was shut down after the program
malfunctioned for 25% of the districts that were using it. C. In
2010, the results from online science tests taken by 180,000
students in grades 5 to 8 were delayed due to scoring errors. D. In
2005, in Virginia computerized tests were misgraded. E. In
2009-2010, Wyoming’s new computer testing program failed and the
state demanded that Pearson repay $9.5 million for “complete
default of the contract.” F. In 2011, according to the Tampa Bay
Times, students taking Florida’s new computerized algebra final
exam could not submit finished tests because Pearson’s servers were
down. For more details see
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/enough-is-enough-pearson-_b_3146434.html
These online testing problems are not confined to Pearson. There
has been a concerning pattern across states over a number of years
with several testing companies in addition to Pearson. See
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/05/04/severe-technical-problems-raise-concerns-over-online-tests/
Paul Karrer teaches elementary school in Southern California, where many of his students are English language learners. Karrer worries that the demand for more expensive tools will not be a panacea. Instead, he fears, it will widen achievement gaps and reduce the schools’ budget for art, music, and other essential studies.
Two years ago, Karrer wrote an open letter to President Obama that presciently warned of the damage that Race to the Top would inflict on children and schools. This letter was astonishing. Here is a snippet:
“Your Race to the Top is killing the wrong guys. You’re hitting the good guys with friendly fire. I’m teaching in a barrio in California. I had 32 kids in my class last year. I love them to tears. They’re 5th graders. That means they’re 10 years old, mostly. Six of them were 11 because they were retained. Five more were in special education, and two more should have been. I stopped using the word “parents” with my kids because so many of them don’t have them. Amanda’s mom died in October. She lives with her 30-year-old brother. (A thousand blessings on him.) Seven kids live with their “Grams,” six with their dads. A few rotate between parents. So “parents” is out as a descriptor.
Here’s the kicker: Fifty percent of my students have set foot in a jail or prison to visit a family member.
“Do you and your secretary of education, Arne Duncan, understand the significance of that? I’m afraid not. It’s not bad teaching that got things to the current state of affairs. It’s pure, raw poverty. We don’t teach in failing schools. We teach in failing communities. It’s called the ZIP Code Quandary. If the kids live in a wealthy ZIP code, they have high scores; if they live in a ZIP code that’s entombed with poverty, guess how they do?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 