– UPDATE 08-28-2014 – Just in time for the start of School reports surface LAUSD is “re-opening” bids for its controversial billion-dollar contract with Apple and Pearson to give all students, teachers, and administrators iPads.
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The second-largest school district in the US is spending at least $1 Billion to complete a 1:1 tablet initiative. The Las Angles Unified School District (LAUSD) plans to deploy 650,000 Apple (AAPL) iPads, one for each student in LA county. The project slated to be completed by December 2014, has had problems that may prevent if from reaching that goal.
The project includes 500 million dollars for iPads and 500 million dollars for Wi-Fi and related infrastructure. The initiative is funded mostly by voter-approved school construction bonds, which taxpayers typically pay off over 25 years which the LA Times says “has sparked some concerns and legal and logistical hurdles.” (rb- I first noted the project here)
The project has run into a series of issues. The first issue focused on the 25 year payback period on a $500.00 device. A second issue emerged in September 2013 when the district recognized that it may need to buy Bluetooth keyboards for the iPads. The LA Times estimated a bill of $38 million for the oversight. The LA Times reports that the included software keyboard on the iPad might not satisfy the needs of older students writing term papers.
Also, LAUSD has planned to use the iPads for testing based on new Common Core English and math learning standards. The article contends that the iPad’s touch screen could frustrate students and even obscure portions of a test item that would be visible in its entirety on a full screen. (rb- I talked to many school districts about the SBAC keyboard testing issue, who is going to configure Bluetooth on and off? What about power? Does Bluetooth decrease the battery time on the iPad? Do you have enough electrical outlets to plug in 30 iPads? How is your Wi-Fi?)
In late September 2013, the LAUSD iPad project ran into a bigger problem as they deployed the iPads to high school students. According to the LA Times, it took exactly one week for nearly 300 students at Theodore Roosevelt High School to defeat the LAUSD installed device security. Following the news that students were using the hacked tablets for personal use, district officials halted home use of the Apple tablets until further notice.
Students told the LA Times once they had the iPad home they could not do anything with the $678 device. Apparently, the students began to tinker with the security lock on the tablets and soon discovered all they had to do was delete their personal profile information. With the profile deleted, a student was free to surf, tweet like, and stream music.
The new found freedom prompted L.A. Unified School District Police Chief Steven Zipperman to suggest that the district might want to delay the distribution of the devices. The chief said in a memo obtained by the LA Times, “I want to prevent a ‘runaway train‘ scenario when we may have the ability to put a hold on the roll-out.”
According to a March 2013 blog post from Roosevelt HS, LAUSD chose AirWatch as the provider for the mobile device management system. And that when students first get their iPads they will have AirWatch already installed. The district posted an update on their website that indicated they have turned to AirWatch and Apple for better solutions to their iPad problem.
rb-
This really is a story of mismanagement from the top down. A billion-dollar project for consumer devices financed over 25 years – Really? Are the students of LA’s class of 2038 going to have to use the iPad’s from 2013? Where is the refresh program? How are they getting the money to buy 650,000 iPad 9’s in 5 or 6 years?
If the iPads are to be used at home? how is LAUSD addressing the digital divide in LA?
Did the big-wigs consider the equity of using iPads for high-stakes nationwide common core testing? Not only will LA students be compared against each other and the rest of California but also students in 44 other states. It is my understanding that the current SBAC test is not optimized to display well on small screens. Will the tablet form factor handicap LA students or others across the US using tablets when competing against others using large screens and real keyboards in ergonomically proper positions? Will LAUSD show the test takers how to see the entire question, or how to easily switch between back and forth between screens to review a passage and then write a response.
Call me cynical after working in K-12 and living in the Detroit area, but a public $1 Billion dollar government project seems like a magnet for mismanagement, fraud, waste, and pay-to-play scams. It already seems to be at least $20 million over budget to buy keyboards even at K-12 discounts. Hopefully, the iOS and AirWatch updates are already included in the existing contracts.
While the headline-grabbing hacking story may be resolved in Apple’s iOS7. AFAIK Apple does not let anybody into its BIOS or whatever chip it is on an iPad. That is why students can easily delete the AirWatch agent. LAUSD still has a task on its hands to get all the deployed devices up to iOS 7.
In more signs of mismanagement, The LA Times reports that LAUSD is missing 71 iPads. They deployed 69 of the missing iPads last year at the Valley Academy of Arts and Science. PadGadget reports that after the fact, the District ramped up its tracking efforts by adding stronger safeguards. Global positioning can now be activated for every tablet. Plus, an electronic inventory system registers who is now responsible for a particular device, and District officials can remotely shut down iPads reported stolen. Lt. Jose Santome of the school district’s Police Department stated, “We know what’s going out and deployed on every campus.”
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Readers of Bach Seat should remember the botched $1.3 Billion iPad deal the USA’s second-largest school district made with Apple (AAPL). rb- I covered the massive failure here and here. Well, it seems that buyer remorse has finally set in.
While Apple and Pearson promised a state-of-the-art technological solution for ITI implementation, they have yet to deliver it … the vast majority of students are still unable to access the Pearson curriculum on iPads … will not accept or compensate Apple for new deliveries of [Pearson] curriculum.
The LA Times also reports that a top lieutenant of former LAUSD Supt. John Deasy and architect of the district’s flawed and now-abandoned $1.3 billion iPads-for-all and new online student records system is now taking the helm of the Burbank school district at $241,000 a year. Why?—because Burbank BoE believes they need someone with business savvy to sort out their technology.
