They paid nearly $1000 each for 44,000 iPads loaded with an incomplete educational curriculum they hadn't even seen.
The $1.3-billion iPad effort was a signature program under then-Supt. John Deasy. But it faltered almost immediately during the fall 2013 rollout of the devices. Questions later arose about whether Apple and Pearson enjoyed an advantage in the bidding process; an FBI criminal investigation is ongoing. … Under the contract, Pearson was to provide English and math curriculum. The district selected Pearson based only on samples of curriculum — nothing more was available.
Pearson was the vendor; WaPo reports on its excuses:
Pearson spokesman Stacy Skelly said in an e-mail that the company "is proud of our long history working with LAUSD and our significant investment in this groundbreaking initiative to transform instructional practices and raise expectations for all students." She also said "This was a large-scale implementation of new technologies and there have been challenges with the initial adoption, but we stand by the quality of our performance."
Not only did they spend $1.3 billion on iPads preloaded with imaginary software, but "it was discovered early on that nobody had allocated money to buy keyboards for the iPads — a multimillion dollar mistake."
If they needed keyboards for their $1000 iPads, why didn't they just buy laptops?
SCPR has quotes from school board members:
"I hate to say I told you so," said board member Bennett Kayser, who voted against the Apple and Pearson deal, but later approved the purchase of iPads without the software. "But that's what happens when you try to do something in a hurry and not plan for it."
No-one ever hates to say "I told you so."
