LA Schools Seeking Refund Over Botched iPad Plan 325
A reader sends news that Los Angeles Unified School District is asking Apple for a refund of the district's effort to equip students with iPads. The project was budgeted at around $1.3 billion to equip its 650,000 students, though only about 120,000 iPads have been purchased so far. After the program went bad, the FBI launched an investigation into their procurement practices. The iPads weren't standalone education devices — they were supposed to work in conjunction with another device carrying curriculum from a company named Pearson. But the district now says the combined tech didn't meet their needs, and they want their money back. Lawyers for the local Board of Education are looking into litigation options. They've also notified Apple and Pearson they won't pay for any new products or services.
Deflection (Score:5, Insightful)
They wasted the money fruitlessly and want a mulligan. No. Give someone in procurement a pink slip and eat some humble pie. Own your mistakes.
Sign off. (Score:5, Insightful)
The exec who signed off on it should get the pink slip. Not the person in procurement.
If you don't understand the plan, don't sign off on it.
Re:Sign off. (Score:5, Insightful)
Pearson is a company that brings a sort of defense contractor vibe to the educational sector. They are huge, superb at landing contracts, excellent at writing contracts that promise somewhat less than they appear to; but not so hot on delivering, much less on time or on budget.
Anyone buying a zillion ipads for school children without realizing that they'll be using them mostly to screw around on the internet within about five minutes is certainly an idiot; and Pearson certainly can't take the blame for that; but their failure to deliver some curriculum slurry and a terrible textbook app or two within the agreed upon time? That's the sort of thing they do.
Re:Sign off. (Score:5, Informative)
Which is why when a vendor asks us to enable integration for their stuff - and Pearson is one of 'em with their myFooLab emporium, I always tell 'em three things.
1) I don't work for $vendor - so no, I don't "have to" or "need to" do anything for them
2) We only accept requests from faculty or departments who have decided to adopt the resource, not from the sales person or vendor tech support folks. Again, see #1
3) The product must not be in beta or "brand new last week", and I must see it work on their system, our course management vendor's system (used for demos), or get good reports from other LMS Admins at other schools
Have had several unhappy vendors/sales folks, but have had minimal issues about promised features not working, existing, etc.
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bool
procurement.proccessIsCorrupt(void)
{
return (vendor == "Pearson" || vendor == "Oracle") ? CERTAINLY : PROBABLY;
}
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Pearson does a lot of things; I'd find them fairly neutral in the process - what they do will work with basically anything.
That's not to say what they do is good? I find Pearson to be shit when it comes to education tools - they are filled with bloatware, drm, and things that don't provide any benefit to thing using them, but I wouldn't really blame them for anything here.
I would blame the superintendent and apple for sticking their nose into more sales under the guise of supporting education.
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That's not true. I can put a pretty tight monitoring application on an iPad that doesn't allow it to use any TCP/IP except via. the VPN which only whitelists certain parts of the internet. I'd rather use it on a Samsung where I can kill the device entirely if they try and hack the firmware, but it is still doable for the mos
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Procurement in many organizations is supposed to verify that management understands what they are buying. Not sure if that's true in LAUSD or not.
Re:Sign off. (Score:4, Funny)
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Procurement in many organizations is supposed to verify that management understands what they are buying.
They're supposed to verify that the order placed is what the manager wants rather than just what they asked for, but that's not the same thing as ensuring they understand the purchase, not at all. Management is in charge of strategy, they get the credit and the blame.
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I was just commenting on what procurement does. Having read several articles it appears management changed and the priorities changed. This was change of strategy more than anyone not understanding the strategy.
Re: Sign off. (Score:3)
Re:Sign off. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, until the details of how the contract was awarded and how the vendor failed have been thoroughly investigated, it's premature to fire anyone.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for accountability and decisiveness, but picking someone plausible and throwing them under the bus isn't accountability. In fact that may actually shield whoever was responsible.
Re:Deflection (Score:5, Insightful)
Usually in these school procurement cases there is some third-party company behind the mess when you dig into it. And you find that either they sold some gullible school officials on a bunch of bullshit promises or they bribed them, or both. Either way, the company walks away with the money, the gullible officials are never reprimanded, and the only ones who pay the price are the taxpayers who have to foot the bill and the students who have to use old books because they were supposed to be using the SuperPad-Gonna-Solve-All-Your-Problems-Learning-WonderDevice instead of new ones.
Re:Deflection (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait I have a solution to this problem.
1. Run a test.. You could call it a pilot program in one school.
2. The company that wants the contract pays for the pilot or at least half of it.
When it fails you do not have a missive program fail and it costs a lot less.
This is brilliant. I wonder why no one thought of this before.
Re: Deflection (Score:2, Insightful)
No can do. You can't wait on this, the students need it now.
So just fork over the big government check and trust us, the representatives of commerce and industry.
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In 2013 the superintendent was of the "deploy as quickly as possible" and just keep fixing till it works. Sort of an agile mentality of minimal viable product and build. He considered speed essential and was cool with the fact other infrastructure wouldn't be in place in time, this was his top priority. When he left the iPad project had the same schedule but not the institutional juice of being the first priority.
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Just a hunch but maybe there are terms in the contract that the vendors did not meet and the board thinks they have a valid case. What would they have to gain by doing this if they didn't?
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Desperation, methinks. There's been one high-level, err, 'resignation' from this already (because Pearson basically screwed the pooch and yet no one can peg them for blame thanks to the contract), and lots of other executives are nervously eying the newspapers and school board minutes of late...
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I get it. I don't want to, but I get it. :(
Wow. Just wow. (Score:5, Informative)
The iPads weren't standalone education devices â" they were supposed to work in conjunction with another device carrying curriculum from a company named Pearson. But the district now says the combined tech didn't meet their needs, and they want their money back.
So... They didn't test the iPad / content combo to establish usability / feasibility / usefulness prior to dropping all this cash?
Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:5, Funny)
Testing is what those square old mainframe daddies - the ones who witter on about aida and cowbell and 4tran - do.
It's not agile.
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4tran
+1 Funny :D
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sad but true. testing is often left to the users (hw and sw, alike). only the basic smoke tests go thru in today's 'agile' world.
a funny but also slightly sad example of NO qa at all:
https://farm9.staticflickr.com... [staticflickr.com]
see the spelling of that word at the bottom? COLORAST?
what the hell is that? well, my guess is that its the COLOR adjustment but no one bothered to clear the buffer before it said CONTRAST (as you step thru the menu options).
not a show-stopper but indicative of what we see in the sw/hw world
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It's not agile.
Agile is sooo last decade. It's all about reverse-Waterfall-on-Mars development now.
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Yes, but I think in this case it was just plain stupidity. Possibly criminally stupid stupidity. The board is also to blame for abdicating their responsibility to get information from independent sources not just from the "board packet".
That's correct. (Score:4, Informative)
So... They didn't test the iPad / content combo to establish usability / feasibility / usefulness prior to dropping all this cash?
Correct. As it says in the LA Times article, "The district selected Pearson based only on samples of curriculum — nothing more was available."
Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
Based on what's been posted, Pearson (and, presumably Apple) promised a product/curriculum combination with essentially a custom use case in mind, the district purchased based on the sales literature, and then Pearson couldn't deliver what they promised. It's called false advertising and Pearson may be left holding the bag if the allegations are true and hold up in court.
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It's called false advertising and Pearson may be left holding the bag if the allegations are true and hold up in court.
That might well be. But it's also very poor project management of the school district not to do a pilot test before running off buying a billion iPads. The pilot test would identify the current problem and leave them with say 1200 iPads and not 120000.
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Development costs stay roughly the same, independent on the number of devices.
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But the school system wasn't the one doing the development - Pearson was. OK, perhaps the school system did spend money rolling out wireless, etc. on their school campuses, but that can be used for lots of other purposes so it isn't a wasted spend. From the summary, and having not read the article in slashdot tradition, it seems that indeed Pearson made promises of rainbows and unicorns and delivered a sick donkey with a MLP tattoo on it.
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But the school system wasn't the one doing the development - Pearson was.
Again, if it was some normal product development, aiming at a product that can be sold to multiple school districts, yes. But projects of this size more often are complete custom build software
From the summary, and having not read the article in slashdot tradition, it seems that indeed Pearson made promises of rainbows and unicorns and delivered a sick donkey with a MLP tattoo on it.
Which is why dragging them to court is the right thing to do.
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Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is common in education. You rarely see any kind of pilot project or scientifically valid feasibility work. Education as a field is mostly a philosophy-based practice and is only now starting to dabble in evidence-based decision making.
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Common Core seems to have some evidence-based philosophy behind it, but from what I can tell Everyday Math is a steaming pile of "theory" with a few smallish case-studies. From what I can tell, educators mostly hate Common Core because of the testing aspect - in other words, they don't like being objectively measured.
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Education as a field is mostly a philosophy-based practice and is only now starting to dabble in evidence-based decision making.
We don't have time for rational solutions! Why won't you think of the children?
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I only started thinking about children once I had them :)
I'm just now looking into education matters, and I'm absolutely horrified at how unscientific it all is. "Best practices" in education are often just the fad philosophy of the day and educators rebel furiously against any attempt to objectively measure their performance. I don't know what the answer is, but I'm trying to do as much as I can locally.
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Just wait until you take your kids to the pediatrician.
Much beyond physics and straight engineering, this is what you get.
And I'm not so sure of physics.
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Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
The iPads weren't standalone education devices â" they were supposed to work in conjunction with another device carrying curriculum from a company named Pearson. But the district now says the combined tech didn't meet their needs, and they want their money back.
So... They didn't test the iPad / content combo to establish usability / feasibility / usefulness prior to dropping all this cash?
Anyone with half a brain could see that this whole thing had FIASCO written all over it in bright red letters. The whole thing reeks of one giant scam.
-- The school district signed an initial $30 million deal with Apple in a program that was supposed to eventually cost up to $1.3 billion. As part of the program, the LA School District would buy iPads from Apple at $768 each
You can go into any store an buy the most expensive iPad for $699. The school system is spending a billion dollars and didn't negotiate a discount on the price? They're actually paying $79 over retail !!?? What the fucking fuck.
-- and then Pearson, a subcontractor with Apple, would provide math and science curriculum for the tablets at an additional $200 per unit.
$200 per unit for some shitty software? You've now jacked up the price to nearly a thousand dollars per iPad. Again, they're spending a billion dollars and don't negotiate a discount?
-- Less than 2 months after the program started, the school district reported that one-third of the 2,100 iPads distributed during the initial rollout of the program, had gone missing.
Seriously? You didn't see this coming from a mile away?
-- And best of all, the schools district's Assistant Superintendent, essentially the number 2 person in charge of the entire school system, is a former executive with Pearson, the company providing the software, and he was heavily involved in helping Pearson land the contract..
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The iPads weren't standalone education devices â" they were supposed to work in conjunction with another device carrying curriculum from a company named Pearson. But the district now says the combined tech didn't meet their needs, and they want their money back.
So... They didn't test the iPad / content combo to establish usability / feasibility / usefulness prior to dropping all this cash?
Anyone with half a brain could see that this whole thing had FIASCO written all over it in bright red letters. The whole thing reeks of one giant scam.
-- The school district signed an initial $30 million deal with Apple in a program that was supposed to eventually cost up to $1.3 billion. As part of the program, the LA School District would buy iPads from Apple at $768 each
You can go into any store an buy the most expensive iPad for $699. The school system is spending a billion dollars and didn't negotiate a discount on the price? They're actually paying $79 over retail !!?? What the fucking fuck.
-- and then Pearson, a subcontractor with Apple, would provide math and science curriculum for the tablets at an additional $200 per unit.
$200 per unit for some shitty software? You've now jacked up the price to nearly a thousand dollars per iPad. Again, they're spending a billion dollars and don't negotiate a discount?
-- Less than 2 months after the program started, the school district reported that one-third of the 2,100 iPads distributed during the initial rollout of the program, had gone missing.
Seriously? You didn't see this coming from a mile away?
-- And best of all, the schools district's Assistant Superintendent, essentially the number 2 person in charge of the entire school system, is a former executive with Pearson, the company providing the software, and he was heavily involved in helping Pearson land the contract..
Yeah... the least that they could have done is subscribed each iPad to the "Find My iPad" app.... obviously, not being able to find the missing iPads was the last straw... (grin)
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So... They didn't test the iPad / content combo to establish usability / feasibility / usefulness prior to dropping all this cash?
If you replace "iPad" with "Apple device", you will have a sentence that describes most Apple Fanboys when Apple releases a new product.
Exactly! (Score:2)
I don't think Apple owes anyone any refunds in this situation. They provided the products that were ordered, and apparently, in good working condition.
Pearson *may* have misrepresented what they were actually selling on the software side of things, but that would be an issue for the courts to decide, should they get challenged on it.
The ridiculous thing is that the school district spent all this money, approving a plan that they clearly didn't test well enough in advance. Personally, I do think iPads could
Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in Uruguay, they got the OLPC. There is no market, and it works great.
All kids in public school have their own, you see them using them on the streets, public squares. It has its application in classes, and most importantly, it was instrumental in connecting all schools with quality internet service, allowing for remote classes, that kind of thing. It was a success in many regards.
Private schools, on the other hand, are subject to market forces and stuff, but are usually pretty poor in their decision making. For example, my kids goes to a private kinder, and their usage of computers is pretty dumb, they still have a computer lab kind of thing, mainly because they weren't wise enough to get a complete solution. Public spending was a lot better around here.
Re:Wow. Just wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all relative. Private schools are bad at decision making because people in general are bad at decision making. The only thing worse than a human making a decision, is when the human making the decision is not bound by the costs and benefits of his/her decision. Humans that only suffer the costs of a decision will fail to make good decisions that have reasonable costs. Humans that only receive the benefits of their decisions will not filter decisions with unreasonable costs.
Yes it's true that when people's own profit is on the line, they sometimes cheap out and end up worse off.
What is far more prevalent is people spending other people's money and not giving 2 shits about whether the money is being well spent, because it doesn't effect them.
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This is just plain wrong, I am Brazilian and my mother is a teacher in São Paulo state public schools and the situation is horrible, what you see overseas are the high school grads that went to private schools in Brazil, the average citizen can not afford to go to school overseas even if they qualify (and they don't because they do not speak any foreign language) because some costs are not covered (visas for example).
What you are seeing is just the upper middle class latin americans leaving their crapp
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That does sound bad and you have my sympathies.
But on the other hand I do teach a remedial basic arithmetic class here in New York City and today I had a roomful of college students, none of whom could even give an estimate for the value of 6 3/4 x 2 1/3. The U.S. culture is very jungle-y, poor folks are kind of thrown to the wolves, and we're perennially at the bottom of international rankings in math and science (and also low pay and preparation and support for teachers).
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The best way to make sure the person taking care of something does their job is to allow them to own it and force them to compete in an actual market.
You mean the kind of competition that had U.S. banks handing out mortgages to anyone with a pulse a few years ago? Yeah, capitalism in action! Just watch the free market benefit us all!
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Really? They paid? I though we the taxpayers paid when they were handed bailouts.
Your last two sentences contradict your first four, make up your mind. yo.
Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
We realized spending 1.3 billion on toys for kids was a bad idea. We're going to makeup excuses why we should get our money back.
It's the school's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
These people had no idea what they were getting into and obviously just wanted to have their students carrying tablets around so they'd look like Starfleet Academy. In addition to the corruption that went on, this project was doomed from the start. I doubt they were able to express any clear requirements to the vendors they were working with and probably didn't have any actual plan for how the technology would be leveraged in the classroom. I've seen it a dozen times in schools with inept management. Those who can, do. Those who can't....
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These people had no idea what they were getting into and obviously just wanted to have their students carrying tablets around so they'd look like Starfleet Academy.
That is the heart of it. I imagine they publicly boasted quite often about how wonderful it would be to have the Ipads, without ever stating exactly how they would be used, but held it up as a sign of forward thinking progress.
OTOH, Apple knew better, and had the choice to bring their expectations down to reality rather than inflate them.
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They didn't want to look like Starfleet Academy. They wanted to look like a rich suburb:
the technology effort was a civil rights imperative designed to provide low-income students with devices available to their wealthier peers
Civil rights have come a long way if having iPads is now one. Do people even know what civil rights are anymore?
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However, that assumption is under-supported(even if they were free, it's not news that electronic gizmos are good for slacking off with, so they might have a negative effect unless the school actually has a good plan in mind; and since they aren't free, they are
shocker (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether the guy in charge was a criminal-level Apple fanboy bordering on mental illness or getting some sort of crooked kickback is still being determined in court but if they want a refund, look to the guy who fucked up the whole project in the first place. The vendors certainly won't give you anything. They'll just blame him.
Re:shocker (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: shocker (Score:2)
I wouldn't be surprised if it's because they thought the iPad is the "best tablet" due to its branding. I used to carry a Nexus 7 to work and half the people there thought it was a phone.
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I have no idea whether the negotiated a lower price from Apple or not, but I will point out that $1.3 billion divided by 650,000 students is almost $2500 per student... the cost of the device is almost in the noise here.
Weird math (Score:2)
I guess you are a journalist, or is there another reason you would inflate $2000 per student to "almost $2500 per student"
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I made a typo? Sorry. Your number is accurate and mine was not.
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A comment above points out that the negotiated price was $79 above retail, and they paid an additional $200 for the educational software.
http://apple.slashdot.org/comm... [slashdot.org]
So, not only did they buy the most expensive product on the market, they also overpaid for it.
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The original proposal were for fully interactive textbooks. Those sorts of things (Grey's elements, interactive Rome, history of Jazz) software exist mostly in the iPad. Also there was some software that could only work on Chromebooks or iPads.
But certainly this could have been done cheaper and not $758 / device if something other than the iPad were picked.
Buyer's remorse (Score:5, Insightful)
So wait, you fucked up, and now you want us to pay for it [cad-comic.com]?
No, see, here's what happened: School decides they want product X which works with product Y. Product X sucks; product Y is not defective. School has legitimate claim about product X not delivering; product Y is your fault, and you don't go back to the supplier and make them eat the cost.
The school may have a claim against Pearson, since they delivered shoddy, half-ass work. The school has no claims against Apple, since Apple supplied a device not designed to do what the school wanted, and the school intended to extend it with Pearson's product.
There's a real lesson about bad project management and buyer's remorse here; and, looking back, they're ignoring old and proven lessons about not trying to fix education with unrelated technology. The only technology that belongs in education is education: education methods are a technology, and they are the technology for education.
Until you have an education methodology that shows good, scientific basis and utilizes your fancy toys, you're just throwing toys into education. For example: Japan uses a mathematics curriculum teaching students to use complementary number computation techniques, driven by the exemplary platform of a machine called a Soroban; a Soroban would be a ridiculous toy to bring into the classroom if you were not teaching using these computation techniques and trying to leverage the visual and mechanical aspect of learning by soroban (I've done some self-teaching without the soroban, and learned the same techniques; there are, however, scientific reasons to bring a soroban to the table). If they're just doing workbook activities BUT ON AN IPADZ!!!! and not doing anything known to improve education when an iPad is involved, the iPad is a fucking toy not appropriate in education.
It's worth noting there's a school of educational research suggesting that introducing young children to high technology is actively bad, and that high technology should be taught outright after age 10-12 rather than used as a platform to deliver old teaching methods. Small children need most to learn socialization; they need to interact with other children, and not isolate themselves to curriculum. I have my own educational theory which extends this: small children need most to learn techniques of utilizing the brain effectively, set in an environment of free socialization, so as to develop their social behaviors while also giving them tools to rapidly and effectively learn curriculum. In all of these advanced schools of thought, and in mine, you see that pattern: humans need to learn human behavior first, then learn high technology as a tool; wrapping books in fancy electronics won't suddenly make education better.
This is like the 90s when everyone's answer to everything related to computer security was "ENCRYPTION!" Now everyone's answer to every education problem is "COMPUTERS!"
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That's gotta be hogwash. Too much is probably bad, yes, but it's good to expose young kids to a wide variety of tools and techniques. I've seen studies that showed the wider the variety of toys young kids are exposed to, the better they later do in school.
And remember, bad software teaches patience.
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It's because of the isolation effect of introducing cell phones and computers to children.
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My daughter's school uses tablets. Very simple..
1) Teachers distribute materials via. a Google share system tied to a school based Google docs account
2) Kids submit homework via. this system
3) Some classes the materials are useful in class, when it is they kids can use their own tablets or one of the school's Chromebooks.
3') There are iPads when interface is best used in a casual touch, shared way in place of the Chromebooks.
Works well. Gets used just like it is used in life.
Re:Buyer's remorse (Score:5, Informative)
Given that Apple is reputed to be a brutal and efficient taskmaster of its suppliers, I'd imagine that either the school district will fail, or Apple will gouge it out of Pearson; but to the best of my understanding there is logic behind complaining to Apple, given the terms under which the devices were purchased.
But the reports say... (Score:4, Informative)
Pearson was Apple's subcontractor. Apple was supposed to get $780 out of every ipad (yep, you heard right, retail+ price) and Pearson $200. I haven't seen the contract, but if the various news sources is correct, it is Apple who is basically making the offer by bundling software of their choice...
Was there a small scale pilot test? (Score:2)
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No they didn't even examine the curriculum in depth. They didn't understand what they were buying.
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No they didn't even examine the curriculum in depth. They didn't understand what they were buying.
Yup. Because what the curriculum/book vendors do is show the shiny, promise that starting a new semester is as simple as deciding who is going to be in the class, the shiny stuff is kept up to date, is (supposed to be) ADA compliant, and the content is mapped to the standards/outcomes that the various overseeing groups (accreditation, local school board, state ed dept, fed ed dept, whatever) have decided are important.
The average faculty look at this and say "yes please" without care of cost to student, bei
They were actually unhappy with Pearson. (Score:5, Insightful)
They were actually unhappy with Pearson.
The article makes this very clear. It wouldn't matter if the Pearson Curriculum were on an iPad or an Android device, they'd still be unhappy with it. The attachment of Apple to the story is a means of click-baiting it. Pretty clear in the quotes from their attorney:
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.
In a letter sent Monday to Apple, Holmquist wrote that it “will not accept or compensate Apple for new deliveries of [Pearson] curriculum.” Nor does the district want to pay for further services related to the Pearson product.
Pretty ringing condemnation of Pearson's products by the school district; note that the Pearson products might not eve be at fault, given that the complaint was that it didn't help with the standardized testing scores.
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This is true, but I think Apple was mentioned specifically because people following this story from the beginning are probably most familiar with it from the technology and Apple-centric web sites, who initially praised it as evidence the iPad was going to become a big player in education.
There were always a lot of questions about whether or not the high cost of buying that many iPads was really sensible (and apparently with good reason, as the contract apparently guaranteed they'd pay $768 per iPad -- a pr
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They were actually unhappy with Pearson.
The article makes this very clear. It wouldn't matter if the Pearson Curriculum were on an iPad or an Android device, they'd still be unhappy with it.
The contract was with Apple, with Pearson as a subcontractor, so even if the fault is all with Pearson, it's Apple that's responsible to the school district; beyond that it's between Apple and Pearson. And as primary, Apple should have been on top of Pearson to deliver their vaunted total user experience.
As an aside, all three of the final bidders used Pearson, so yes, it was doomed regardless of the underlying hardware.
Something is surely wrong with us... (Score:5, Insightful)
I am saddened and feel I want to kick something. From the summary: -
"...But the district now says the combined tech didn't meet their needs , and they want their money back..."
Emphasis mine.
Is it just me who sees something wrong here? So, no feasibility study was done? Who approves these things? It was very evident that this whole thing wouldn't work. Look, we hire lots of foreigners in this country, who do so well not because they were using these educational gimmicks wherever they came from, but because most of them put pen to paper and wrote something.
Heck, our students can't even write [English] well despite it being their first language! Then there is the damage done by the so called Common Core. What is wrong with these United States? You know what? When it comes to the way we teach, I am not surprised the products of our educational system go on to make such shortsighted decisions. God save us.
And that's why we have pilot programs, kids (Score:5, Insightful)
Pearson (Score:4, Informative)
Summary didn't mention this but Pearson is a huge global education player. Just a few of their brands: Addison–Wesley, BBC Active, Bug Club, eCollege, Fronter, Longman, MyEnglishLab, Penguin Readers, Prentice Hall, Poptropica and Financial Times Press. So I don't see how LA Unified is going to avoid them.
As for this not meeting their needs... Reading the article LA Unified seems completely clueless. The contract was $768 / iPAD (I assume this includes warranty) + $200 / content & software license for 3 years. They according to the article are demanding that Apple fix the application, Apple didn't create the application nor does it own the content. They bought 43,261 iPads with the Pearson curriculum and 77,175 without. AFAICT Apple delivered their part. Their problem is the Pearson curriculum.
I can get that they don't like the app, but at this cost they can just write an app. The whole thing sounds like they don't know how to buy or deploy technology when it comes to a custom solution. Which is potentially understandable for a small district but inexcusable for a $1.3b contract.
How is Apple even to blame? (Score:2)
The article very clearly states that their issues involve poorly written software by Pearson, and the school itself apparently didn't have any idea how to configure the iPads with a secure configuration.
I'm also willing to bet that Pearson did a bad job because they were mismanaged by the school, with requirements being written on cocktail napkins and whatnot.
Was never going to work (Score:5, Interesting)
This school district was sold swamp land in Nevada... Anyone who works in the education IT industry (I do: And part of that is supporting iPad deployments in education every day) knew there was no way in hell this was going to work. Apple has done a terrible, awful, horrible job of enabling iPads to work in an education environment. They are a complete nightmare to configure, deploy and maintain. If you are going to put these things in a school, just use them for internet browsing and use real computers for everything else. It isn't that they are bad devices for individual users, it's just that the integrate horribly with existing networks. One of the most difficult things is simply accessing data on the network / computer accounts. For example, Apple *still* doesn't support users logging in to their network directories (other than using the incredibly-confusing-for-the-ipad-users and also incredibly buggy WEBDAV functions) and simply opening and saving files to those locations. Upshot? Pages doesn't get used, Keynote doesn't get used... Blah blah blah. It's just a nightmare. Great, wonderful, single-user devices. Horrible, awful devices in terms of multiple-users and network integration.
Oregon trail wouldn't work (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
For this number of devices they could have paid for a deployment, training and device management service. Though obviously that sort of thing costs.
The previous Slashdot story? (Score:3, Informative)
My school district issues iPads (Score:2)
It's times like this that I miss Steve Jobs (Score:2)
Dear LAUSD,
No.
-Steve
Sent from my iPad
Same silliness at my son's school (Score:2)
Mt. Diablo School District decided to buy a bunch of Chromebooks.
It seems most school districts are generally technologically-illiterate and do not have personnel that even have a clue regarding computer hardware and software.
They do know how to spend money though.
Re: (Score:2)
I've been hearing a lot on NPR about students boycotting the test (with support of their families, and in some cases, teachers)...any of that happening where you are?
Re: (Score:2)
FWIW my daughter (central NJ) is in a district. Low boycott rate though parents got worked up about it. Essentially the curriculum being tested doesn't match the curriculum currently being taught. So the test is going to accurately show before and after but for individual students is kind of worthless.