LA School District's $1.3B iPad Contract Goes Up In Smoke Following FBI Raid
The ambitious, deeply troubled effort by the Los Angeles, Calif. school district to provide every student with an iPad ended this week with FBI agents seizing documents under a federal subpoena. Federal officials are investigating questions regarding the $1.3 billion contract. Ramon C. Cortines, the superintendent for L.A. schools, put an end to the contract yesterday citing controversy surrounding the failed plan. Agents reportedly removed about 20 boxes of documents during the raid.
The effort to equip students with iPads was experiencing problems in the classroom, as well. A review by a Washington, D.C.-based group concluded that most of the schools were not using the iPads with the online curriculum offered by education software giant Pearson.
The review’s findings suggested that the deployment of the iPads focused on delivering the tablets to classrooms, with not enough resources being dedicated to providing teachers with training. The report also suggested that some teachers were unhappy with the curriculum.
The district had already purchased about 109,000 iPads before the complaints about the rollout came to a head.
