The Los Angeles Unified School District is exploring the possibility of litigation against Apple over the failed project intended to provide every student with an iPad, reports the LA Times.
The Los Angeles Unified School District is seeking to recoup millions of dollars from technology giant Apple over a problem-plagued curriculum that was provided with iPads intended to be given to every student, teacher and administrator.
The project ran into early problems when students figured out how to bypass the restrictions designed to ensure the devices could be used only for school work, shortly before the district was accused of having miscalculated the cost of the program. The program was suspended last year, and later abandoned after deciding iPads were the wrong device. This was far from the end of the story, however …
The FBI was called in to investigate the possibility of corruption, and a federal review declared that the whole project had been doomed from the start.
The deal signed with Apple included bundled Pearson software for use in English and math lessons. A three-year license for the software added $200 to the cost of each iPad. The school district later complained that the interactive content was subject to constant interruptions and did not meet the needs of many students.
The school district’s general counsel David Holmquist has written to Apple telling the company that it “will not accept or compensate Apple for new deliveries of [Pearson] curriculum.” Holmquist said he wanted to put both Apple and Pearson on notice that it was dissatisfied with the product, and that “millions of dollars” could be at stake.
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Apples efforts in education have been very, as we say down under half arsed.
I agree but this wasn’t always the case. In the late 1980’s and 1990’s I worked with Apple Education worldwide and I think we did a huge amount of good. It wasn’t perfect, but then, public education is far from perfect either.
Expectations for what technology can do in a classroom have changed dramatically since those days and frankly, I think many schools still don’t understand what technology actually does for individuals. This Pearson deal is an example of that: computer-aided instruction has never been great and it would seem to me that it might be better handled in other ways rather than dedicating an iPad to a curriculum.
And what did we expect? Education was Steve Jobs thing, not Cook’s.
I didn’t realise apple had integration services, so I’ve learned something.
The iPad certainly isn’t the wrong device, it’s just a matter of managing it appropriately, and that includes more than just sticking ipads in everyone’s hands. It’s important to structure the school’s network around that kind of deployment to make sure devices which weren’t compliant and locked down, were not allowed on the network.
They should have put restrictions on it so that nobody can alter the iOS to jailbreaking seriously what kind of people are working there even a 6 year old knows about restrictions.
I bet the LAUSD are making noise assuming Apple will refund them even if they don’t have to just to avoid the bad press. This sounds more like the GTAdvance guys that signed a contract and when they could’t keep up with the terms started media crying.
Blaming apple for the school system’s lack of due diligence is seriously messed up. One would think they’d test this solution thoroughly before a huge order. I’m a supporter of public education but this is an instance where they didn’t do their jobs correctly and now they’re blaming others.
It appears the bulk of their complaint falls not around the iPad per se, but the school district’s management thereof and the sub-standard software provided by a 3rd party, independent software company (Pearson) who specialises in school related software. Unless this was managed by Apple I don’t understand how they’re responsible. Look for more explanation on this really.
The iPads were bundled with the software when purchased from Apple
I don’t know the background, but choosing which software to buy “bundled” should be on the shoulders of the school district. They should have tested it out before committing to such a huge contract.
Apple made promises, then they didn’t deliver. Simple as that.
What a great lesson to teach our children. When things don’t go your way, sue everybody. That school board should be ashamed of itself and its failings to understand technology.
District accused of miscalculating the cost (poorly appointed board for such a project)
Not vetting software before committing (see above)
Non-Apple software issues (Pearson’s problem)
I fail to see how this is Apple’s fault.
Sounds like LSUSD was trying to be the first one on the block to give iPads to all without fully understanding what they were getting or how it worked. (i.e. let’s get it done before another district does, and get all the press) I deal with companies all the time that want to save money and do some of the work or provide hardware themselves. LAUSD probably tried to save money and have their own district network engineers deploy them and they failed to lock them down properly.
It could be where the corruption charge comes from. Bill it as Apple deployment then pocket the extra cost and have your own people, that you are already paying, do it.
this is classic California. the funny thing is that this is exactly how the state is run. I don’t think Apple did anything wrong and probably did more to accommodate LAUSD. But when only one head rolled (John Deasy) people went looking for blood. Apple was next in line.
why would you try to insure how a device can be used? That was the first mistske.
The idea of purchasing branded and premium priced tables for public schooling system is stupid to begin with. It’s not like they even take advantage of half the features in the iPad.
Rather they should have made a deal with Amazon for the cheapest Kindle so the kinds wouldn’t have to carry their textbooks around and would actually use features like vocabulary builder and input dictionary.
Here’s a quote from the LA Times:
“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.
L.A. Unified made the deal anyway; it wanted to bundle the curriculum and the device into a single price.”
They should not have gone ahead with a buy of this scale without testing exactly what they were getting. Apple’s Education Sales rep should have demanded it but maybe he/she did, we don’t know.
I’m not defending Pearson, they suck, but LA Unified School District chose them, sight unseen.
My guess is Apple will make this right, somehow but this is an example of total incompetence on the part of a very large public school system.
Also probably already signed a binding contract.
As usual typical lazy educators, expecting everything to be done for them. The software/hardware was probably a long shot in hell to hope it would do the work of two teachers and save the tax payers.
Apple is in trouble for what? Making a deal to use their product in a public school system where most of the teachers can’t even afford the iPad for their own personal use. If a teacher doesn’t own an iPad. A teacher has to handle it with kid gloves because it costs a paycheque then how much do you think a teacher can teach a kid?