LA School District Ditches iPad Curriculum, Seeks Refund from Apple

[tomm2thumbs]

Source: LA Times

...the Board of Education on Tuesday authorized its attorneys in a closed-door meeting to explore possible litigation against Apple and Pearson, the company that developed the curriculum as a subcontractor to Apple. L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines “made the decision that he wanted to put them on notice, Pearson in particular, that he’s dissatisfied with their product,” said David Holmquist, general counsel for the nation’s second-largest school system. He said millions of dollars could be at stake. <snip>

Nearly a year ago, L.A. Unified sent Apple a letter demanding that it address problems with the Pearson curriculum. “Only two schools of 69 in the Instructional Technology Initiative ... use Pearson regularly,” according to an internal March report from project director Bernadette Lucas. “Any given class typically experiences one problem or more daily. <snip>

...the school board took a step to replace some of the online materials: It authorized the purchase of new math textbooks.

Read more: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCAQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.latimes.com%2Flocal%2Flanow%2Fla-me-ln-ipad-curriculum-refund-20150415-story.html&ei=yDcvVfO_GajksATY4YLYAw&usg=AFQjCNFBbIKc8AkpVOfponv

---

The $1.3-billion effort to provide the devices and curriculum to all LAUSD students faltered almost immediately after its launch, and the FBI is investigating the bidding process.

[nikto]

1. John Deasy should be in JAIL

But alas,
the Big Boyz always get off.

The whole affair was a corporate scam from day 1.

Public School "reform" is the bigger, nationwide scam that provided the whole basis and context
for the IPAD fiasco.
Am I the only one who sees that?
It can't be just me, right?

Public Education is under attack from corporate scumbags in America, and hardly anybody does anything to stop it.
Maybe things are different in this case, because what Deasy did was so over-the-line.
Mis-appropriating school construction funds to make an insider-deal crony purchase from corporate buddies, no less!

This move by LAUSD is a shot back at those phony-ass corporate "reformers" (deformers).

Sup't Cortines isn't perfect, but he seems to be on the right track here.
Good for him, and the leadership that is behind this move.

The corporatists, who are numerous in & around LAUSD, are surely most unhappy with this.

Let 'em cry.

And for God's sake,
let's give them a whole lot more to cry about.



Stop test-crazy phony Public School "reform" in America, NOW.

[Tom Ripley]

26. +1000 (You are not the only one who sees through their scam)

[nikto]

37. Thanks 4 the reassurance

[yurbud]

34. If this were a two-bit corruption case, he would be. But this is the tip of a

national and international iceberg trying to destroy public education and/or make it a crony cash cow like the Pentagon.

[nikto]

36. Exactly fucking right

[ND-Dem]

39. +100

eat the rich

[whereisjustice]

2. idiot technocrats (and parents?) think gving kids ipads makes them smarter, but its just more

overhead and profit to be skimmed by middlemen. Our education system is getting to be as fucked up as our health care system.

[rpannier]

20. gving kids ipads makes them smarter

is akin to giving a kid a football makes him/her Aaron Rodgers

[whereisjustice]

23. agree - parents see all the "rich kids" have the official NFL $50 football signed by Aaron Rodgers

it's just another weapon in class warfare - keep uping the stakes until the non-rich can't afford to play the game.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

29. But it does make plagiarizing that much easier writing term papers.

[nikto]

3. From around the country...

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

4. I can't comprehend how this became such a fiasco

The private school my brother works at (he is a full-time golf, basketball and volleyball coach, not a teacher) loads PDF versions of their textbooks and some apps on Samsung and Dell android tablets and it has been completely problem free.

Assuming 20% of the tablets will be lost/stolen/damaged a year, they still come out thousands ahead of traditional textbooks.

[abelenkpe]

6. They can't be lost or stolen

They don't leave the classroom.

[tomm2thumbs]

7. terrible when they get stolen

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/11/03/thieves-swipe-school-ipads/3418205/

[Xithras]

31. There's little profit in that model.

Putting a PDF on a tablet works, but it doesn't make financial sense. The cost of the tablet vs. the cost of a traditional textbook, when factored over the projected lifespan of each, makes tablets a poor choice. Schools end up spending more on tablets than they do on books.

To combat this, many vendors (like Pearson) developed more comprehensive electronic curriculum tools, claiming that they allow the teacher to do things that simply aren't possible with a traditional textbook or PDF file. These include everything from interactive and video content to quizzes and tests. This is used to justify the extra expense. Conveniently, it also generates more revenue for the vendors because they get to license the software on a per-student/per-semester basis.

Unfortunately, it doesn't actually work. Pearson software is notoriously bad.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

33. They claim they're saving money with the tablet and PDF combination

But I have no idea how their textbook refresh schedule compares to a public school. I think the only thing the sprung for the specialized e-learning material was the science curriculum with "virtual labs" or something.

It excites my brother, very little does so I appreciate the endeavor it if only on that level.

[bvf]

5. A few years ago, Pearson acquired a supplier

of an internationally well-established student information system, then quickly shut it down, effectively getting a big foothold in the acquiree's markets, many of them state-wide.

That may be SOP in the software business, but the Pearson product that replaced it was complete crap, something I know from personal experience in attempting to support it.

[AllyCat]

11. And this is the majority reason we are opting our kids out of the testing

The testing is INSANE, but the fact that Pearson gets a hold of all my kids' data is worse. No way. There is enough data shared about my kid as it is. I don't need some testing company to send all they know to potential employers and schools. And the military. And who knows what else? Banks...easier to find their next victims.

Pearson is evil.

[bvf]

13. See #10 for more.

AFAIK a few years ago, state law required giving parents the chance to opt out of releasing student information to the military (or media).

I don't know if that's still the case, but the way this crap has been playing out, I wouldn't be surprised if that has changed.

[kag]

19. Me too, AllyCat...

My kids are older now, but when they were in grade school the local newspaper did a story on us (my family) because we weren't letting our kids take the standardized tests mandated by the state. We made a few enemies, but now more and more parents are seeing what is really happening with all of this insane testing.

When our kids got older we let them decide if they wanted to take them. My son (in college now) took a few. My daughter (now a junior in HS) never has.

[abelenkpe]

8. There's nothing wrong with the iPads

The software is crap. The schools don't have good connections and the teachers aren't transitioning to using the iPads in their curriculum very fast. They have do many other pressures to deal with. Other parents I know living in San Diego or attending private school here in LA say their kids are using iPads or similar devices for their homework and in class so getting rid of the devices is not a good idea. The price the district paid for the devices was ludicrous though. And Pearson sucks. Their textbooks are also insanely overpriced and full of errors so it's not surprising their software is a shameful bug fest. Why does the district continue to purchase their products?

[bvf]

10. Story.

I worked for a consortium of public schools a few years back. When Pearson acquired the software vendor of the student information system that had reliably been in use for several years, the districts were given the opportunity to review a number (I don't recall how many exactly--about seven or eight, I think) of Requests for Proposal from other vendors, including Pearson.

The top three vendors were then invited to give presentations to school administrators (Pearson did not even make it into the top three, missing the cut).

(Aside from the expense involving these administrators' time to attend days-long presentations per vendor, the consortium dropped roughly $70,000 on a consultant to organize the whole effort.)

The member school districts eventually settled on a winner to replace the old system.

At the eleventh hour, superintendents eventually overruled their administrators and went with--you guessed it--Pearson.

[ND-Dem]

40. amazing. why do you think it panned out that way?

[bvf]

43. No idea, but the whole thing was really fishy

Last edited Sat Apr 18, 2015, 10:45 PM - Edit history (1)

and smelled of back-room dealing that probably cost state taxpayers close to a million dollars, when you take into account the time wasted on the exercise. I no longer work for the consortium's information technology center, but do know it's been hemorrhaging member school districts since the Pearson implementation.

By the time I left, the software was so buggy as to be unmanageable. Pearson's support was trash as well. Rather than correct bugs, it would provide "tools" in the software that had to be run periodically in order to undo the damage that the unaddressed bugs would cause.

If I were the parent of a student in a school using a Pearson system, I wouldn't trust a thing (report cards, transcripts, attendance reports, etc.) it told me about my child's progress.

It pains me to say that, since it all seems to feed a process (inadvertent or otherwise) of fucking up public education while lining the pockets of a company uninterested in providing anything more than a highly substandard product.

To echo another poster here, Pearson is evil.

[AllyCat]

12. I have educational games and software on our iPad

The kids love it and it has never failed on a two year old pad. I agree. It's the software. Blame Pearson, not Apple.

[Kablooie]

14. Using iPads as a primary educational item is ridiculous.

Supplemental materials can be useful and offering ebooks as an alternative to paper is handy but there is no reason to supply every student with an iPad.

It's an overpriced scam if it's sold this way.

[Fearless]

9. Books don't fail

[bvf]

15. Plus you can put them on a bookshelf

and pick them back up years from now without needing to recharge them.

I'm no Luddite, but I'm used to the accusation of being a tree-killer, to which I always respond, "renewable resources, y'know?"

[Fearless]

17. Agreed. 100%.

[bvf]

21. When I hear people

proudly asserting that they can carry around 50, 100, or however many books with them on an e-reader, my first thought tends to be, "What sort of ADD is that? How many damned books do you need to have constantly at your side?"

[Telcontar]

22. I like having my library in my pocket

The amount of travel I do, especially in foreign lands, means I can't bring many books with me. I read an average of two books a week. Kindle was a godsend.

[Fearless]

27. And that's fine

But as I said, books don't fail. In a school setting, the material should pose a challenge not the format of it.

[whatthehey]

30. books don't fail?

Pages don't tear? Bindings don't loosen? Spines don't crack? Sunlight doesn't yellow pages? Paper doesn't get creased and folded and tattered? Water doesn't warp and stick pages together, fire doesn't burn them?

Sure things can happen to e-readers too (although fewer than to paper) but for me that's not the loss of an irreplaceable library like it would be with dead trees. It's about $80 for a new reader and 20 minutes copying my backup files and I have the 2200 books back in that neat little 6x4 lightweight font-adjustable backlit package. Try doing that with a roomful of ashes or wet mush. Same with stolen or vandalized books. There is no backup copy for dead tree books without shelling out all over again, if it's even still in print.

[bvf]

35. Kindles are fire- and waterproof?

Books don't break if you drop them, and don't need to be recharged.

Kindles can't be stolen or vandalized?

I have next to me right now a treasured novel that I just retrieved from the bookshelf it's been sitting on--untouched--for a decade. I didn't have to plug it in to read it. BTW, it's a first edition, and autographed by the author.

That means something to me.

E-readers are impermanent toys.

And you can plant trees.

[tomm2thumbs]

16. 'a federal grand jury is examining the matter'

Link to article on FBI investigation

from that article link:

Critics also raised concerns about a close relationship that Deasy and a top assistant had with executives from Apple and Pearson. <snip>

Records showed that Deasy had meetings with top Apple and Pearson executives before the bidding process. The draft of a five-year district technology plan mentioned only those companies and no other vendors.

_________

sounds like there may have been a sweetheart deal and that any formal bidding process to include other hardware/software vendors could have been merely a sham

$1.3 Billion dollars would inspire a lot of people to do things that may or may not be ethical

[bvf]

18. Thanks for the additional link. Really interesting.

Too much to expect anything more than fines coming out of this (if that), but some of these players need to spend some time behind bars.

[nikto]

38. Incredible to think those Atlanta Teachers are getting jail time...

...While Deasy and his scummy cohorts
get off essentially, scot-free.

[ND-Dem]

41. he joined the Broad team this January. Surprise!

http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2015/01/12/17794/former-lausd-superintendent-joins-broad-leadership/

[nikto]

44. The lost little doggy returns home

[bemildred]

24. The outrage of the wised-up chump. nt

[Yavin4]

25. Did the NASA engineers who put men on the moon in the 1960s grow up with computers?

Hell, they didn't even have calculators when they were children.

[alcina]

28. I stumbled upon this article about Pearson recently

It's long, but worth the read:

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/pearson-education-115026.html

Among other things, I was surprised to learn they're a British company.

[ND-Dem]

42. interesting. started as an engineering/construction firm, and owned half of lazard brothers

up to about 2000.

didn't even get into education and publishing until circa 60s, and not in a big way til after that.

got into testing in a big way circa the bush years.

the former pearson ceo was an American:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Scardino

Dame Marjorie became a trustee of Oxfam during her tenure at Pearson [1]. She has been criticized by Private Eye magazine because, while Oxfam campaigns against corporate tax avoidance as part of the IF Coalition [2], Pearson was "a prolific tax haven user...routing hundreds of millions of pounds through an elaborate series of Luxembourg companies (and a Luxembourg branch of a UK company) to avoid tax".[2] She became the first female Chief Executive of a FTSE 100 company when she was appointed CEO of Pearson[3] in 1997. She is also a non-executive director of Nokia[4] and former CEO of the Economist Group.[5] During her time at Pearson, she had tripled profits to a record £942m.[6]

and why "diversity" is kind of useless unless it includes economics:

In December 2013, she joined the board of Twitter [7] as its first female director, after a controversy involving a lack of diversity on the Twitter board.[8]


I'm so happy be under the thumb of a female rather than a male one-percenter; so much more pleasant to die under "equal opportunity for the rich" laws.

[Xithras]

32. This is a common story

My wife is an elementary school teacher, and her school was equipped with iPads and this kind of software a couple of years ago. It NEVER gets used, and the iPads are locked in cabinets. Each teacher was spending 30+ minutes a day just troubleshooting the system, or losing entire days waiting for their IT guys to drive out to the schools from the main office to fix whatever the problem is. The vendors "solution" was that the district hire more IT people so that there would be technicians available on each campus. Hiring 20+ technicians while teachers were facing pay cuts and librarians were losing their jobs was NOT going to happen. After less than a year the iPads were relegated to entertainment devices used during recess on rainy days. Millions of dollars spent for what are essentially toys.