Two years ago, the Los Angeles, CA school system conducted an experiment. They wanted to to provide every student, teacher and administrator with an iPad educational purposes. The experiment failed.
Now, the LA school district seeks a refund for this failure. They may even seek legal action against Apple and Pearson. Pearson is the subcontractor that developed the iPad based curriculum. The plan intended to close the technological and socioeconomic gap failed from the word go. Now Apple and Pearson’s role in the bidding process is being scrutinized. Even the FBI is getting involved. LA School Superintendent John Deasey has resigned because of this. Keep in mind this experiment was $1.3 billion. The contract between LA schools and Apple/Pearson required Apple to bring the iPads and Pearson to provide the English and math curriculum. ?But Pearson could only provide curriculum for the first year due to licensing issues, and teachers never embraced Pearson’s product. Of the 69 schools under this new system, only two use it often enough. Teachers, students and administrators also complain of Pearson’s lack of language proficiency and lack of data, among other things. A spokesperson from Pearson stood by her company. She said she stands by the quality of her performance and is proud to be partaking in this groundbreaking initiative. Apple has yet to comment on this fiasco.
I wouldn’t call it groundbreaking until it’s actually working. But it sounds more like Pearson’s problem than Apple’s. I hope Pearson can fix it’s language proficiency problems and other issues. But if few schools are accepting this system, would the others accept a new and improved system? Before they sue and go through years of ugly litigation, maybe they should get another subcontractor. I think providing iPads to kids as a learning technique is a wonderful idea that shouldn’t be totally abandoned. And look at the crisis of education in this country. Wouldn’t a successful school iPad experiment help remedy the situation?