The Los Angeles Unified School District is demanding a multimillion-dollar refund from Apple following a failed iPad program that was set to give more than 640,000 students a tablet for education.
It is thought that the Board of Education is exploring the possibility of litigation against the Cupertino company as it seeks to claim back money that has already been lost on the scheme.
In a letter issued to Apple this week, David Holmquist, general counsel, said that LAUSD “will not accept or compensate Apple for new deliveries of [Pearson] curriculum,” or any further services provided by Pearson, the partner that was to provide education materials.
Holmquist added that L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines has “made the decision that he wanted to put them on notice, Pearson in particular, that he’s dissatisfied with their product.”
Announced in July 2013, the program was set up to improve education and provide children with new technology skills by giving each one an iPad. It was supposed to be a flagship scheme that would persuade other education institutions to follow suit.
LAUSD earmarked $500 million that would be paid to Apple for the iPads, plus another $800 million to upgrade schools’ wireless networking infrastructure to allow students to connect to pre-approved sites and content for learning.
But after LAUSD acquired 43,261 devices at a cost of $768 each — including a $200 license for curriculum software provided by Pearson — the program collapsed… and became very, very messy.
Much of the curriculum that was set to be provided by Pearson wasn’t available after several months of the program’s launch, and students quickly learned how to hack the iPads to access whatever they wanted online.
On top of that, many of the devices have gone missing.
Now the FBI is investigating to establish whether the program was somehow rigged. The SEC has also opened an informal inquiry into the case this week, LA Times reports.
Why? The price LAUSD paid for each iPad is significantly more than the cost of alternatives from Microsoft and Google. In addition, John Deasy, who was Superintendent when the program was signed off, was also an Apple shareholder.
The turnout will be a major blow to Apple, which has long positioned the iPad as an ideal tool for education.
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
34 responses to “L.A. school district wants multimillion-dollar refund for failed iPad program”
stupid
According Wikipedia, there are about 650 schools in the LAUSD. $500 million, later updated to $800 million, has been allotted to set up wifi networks. How do you spend more than $1 million per school on wifi networks?
It’s the outsourcing to private contractors. Although some say that private businesses run more efficiently than gov, contractors charge at least 2.5 times the cost of time and materials, not to mention design costs, maintenance costs, etc. One school here in my city had a new pool put in and ran out of money after spending $10 million – For a HS pool! Still not finished.
Because school districts, like other government entities, are staffed by idiots, we can charge double the rate. With all the forms we need to fill out in triplicates, dealing with stamp wielding clerks, and a dash of politics… it just cost more.
No its because contractors are required to pay a government mandated prevailing wage which is 3-6 times an employees normal pay scale.
The ‘government wage’ set by the FAR (for federal) and for states is always negotiable by both the contractors and government. Efforts to cut the cost by gov is always met with opposition by the contractor. I worked in this area for years. This is why it is a fallacy to think that costs will go down by privatizing services.
In your home you can get away with alot, in a school you need to pull miles of ethernet through the walls, use robust enterprise (likely cisco) access points configured as a single mesh network, insure you have enough backhaul to service 2k devices, and, most expensively, likely need to hire onsite IT staff to support it. Pulling ethernet, especially in old walls, is a special challenge, especially considering most schoolrooms were not originally wired for telephone service. Oh, and it all needs to be OSHA-compliant, meet electrical codes, and take place durig non-school hours.
In their current state, unless there are major changes, iPads will NEVER be ideal tools for education. I maintain the iPad ecosystem at a small school district (~1000 devices), and I can say without a doubt that Apple simply puts no effort into giving institutions the control they need.
and yet many schools do great with them. Perhaps the issue is that the way they do the control just isn’t the way you think it should be done. Which is fine. but admit it
I’m confused about how the Pearson curriculum sucking is Apple’s fault? Did Apple supply the devices or did they supply the system?
Pearson was a subcontractor to Apple.
“LA school district wants multimillion dollar refund for failed iPad program”
And this is Apple’s fault?? If I understand correctly from the article above… the LAUSD spent all that money for thousands of iPads, which were to include content that Apple •doesn’t• create or supply, the non-Apple-provided content was incomplete and late, a bunch of the iPads were stolen after they were delivered (imagine that in LA), and kids were hacking them. Correct? So, exactly how is any of this Apple’s fault or problem?
Seems like the LAUSD is entirely to blame for the expenditure, for not knowing what they were getting into and how to guard against predictable issues. The LAUSD needs to go back to school.
Apple was the primary contractor, then subcontracted the content to Pearson.
Doesn’t change a thing. The LAUSD should have known this is not Apple’s expertise, and should not have paid tens of millions of dollars to the tech giant for services they don’t normally provide. After all, it’s hard (if not impossible) to argue that Apple doesn’t properly execute the things within their expertise; it’s what makes them one of the most successful, trusted companies in the world.
No, the full responsibility for whatever failure the LAUSD perceives happened (I say perceived, as I doubt it’s as bad as they say), is on the LAUSD. When blame like this starts being levied at the least likely party, you can bet there’s the usual graft, kickback and corruption commonly associated with school districts, large and small. In any case, not Apple’s fault or responsibility.
Who has contracted to whom does change things. I have not seen the actual contracts, so this could be wrong, but my understanding is that LAUSD has no contract with Pearson, but *does* have one with Apple. Unless there was something in the contract with Apple to the contrary, generally speaking a contractor is responsible for the work of a subcontractor, because the contractor hires the subcontractor.
Note that I’m not speaking at all as to the merits of the case. I’m simply answering the question as to legally why Apple is named in the lawsuit.
Doesn’t change a thing if Apple is the primary in the contract. They are obligated to deliver the services and goods. Thats a risk they assumed when they signed. The full responsibility is on Apple to have the right subcontractors and deliver the goods correctly.
I’d want to check the contract, I can assure you Apple would not have guaranteed services from another company. Apple is not a services company, they’re a hardware and software company.
Actually, if it says in the contract that they make no guarantees as to the quality of sub-contracted product, and the school representative signed it, then the school really doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
Well said. Vapid living in LA.
These guys are morons! They flub their stupid plan now they are out looking for a scapegoat…
iPad can be a great tool to advance learning. I work in this specific sector and see schools doing amazing things with it every day. Looks like Pearson got greedy when they saw that amount of zeros and thought it was too good to pass up on but ultimately failed to deliver. Not directly Apple’s fault but they should have been paying closer attention to such a high profile roll out to make sure things went smoothly.
Agreed, they are doing great things when they are deployed properly with adequate testing and appropriate backend systems (wireless & profile managers).
Apple should tell them to shove off.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why on why didn’t they run a much smaller, test program to iron out the mistakes and misassumptions, and maximize the successes? Make small mistakes, learn from them, and then use your newly-learned smarts to expand the program. What a bunch of idiots!
I was thinking the same thing. Why would you do a major roll out of devices when the infrastructure and software wasn’t ready. Poor planning always leads to problems, I don’t care whose hardware and software your using.
Because the guy in charge of the program wanted it to be Apple and Pearson and made sure it turned out that way. Which is why he got ditched super quick.
I put 500 iPads in at a School I worked for recently, they are fantastic, we used already created Educational Apps (Teacher tested and approved apps). We spent 6 months testing the apps and the devices before we even announced it to parents. We updated our wireless system throughout the school at a cost of $80k (Cisco AP’s and Controllers to accomodate 1000 staff & students). We originally used an Apple Server for managing profiles, but since have moved to Casper. I fail to see how this is ’s problem. It is a deployment problem, which lies squarely with LAUSD and Pearson. Lack of planning and execution.
Every iPad needs to be returned in good condition… but I’m sure they want to keep them and just want the money back.
The trouble is that a good couple hundred of the iPads haven’t been returned. The kids just walked off with them or claimed they were lost/stolen.
Just another reason to hate LA. If you want to live a vapid life, move to LA.
The bad implementation of iPads is most definitely the school’s fault. I’ve seen iPads deployed to great effect in San Diego, so the fact that LAUSD couldn’t get it together and figure out how to implement them is really a function of their own laziness or ignorance. Then again, it’s LA, what else would you expect?
Any lawsuit won’t end up hurting Apple in the end. They will refund any monies prepaid for the program that was for product not delivered without issue. But for product delivered there were no problems with the hardware. They worked. It’s not Apple’s fault that the district didn’t vet the materials, train their teachers or pick better MDM. And Apple will argue and prove that and be just fine
its normal, Students are smarter than teachers. 80% teachers teach because they are stupid and they would not be able to work elsewhere. 20% are the good ones. Ofcourse you scream that program failed. Because they are stupid. Programs with ipads work in Europe, but students buy them themselves.
The iPad is good for education. However, you have to use common sense and do things like make the kids pay a fee based on what they can pay using the free and reduced lunch stats. Also, if a kid hacks the iPad, take it away.