The long-running disaster that was the Los Angeles Unified School District scheme to provide iPads to every student, teacher and campus administrator is apparently over — with Apple among the companies agreeing to pay out a $6.4 million settlement.
The tentative payout is hopefully the last phase in an aborted $1.3-billion plan for the second-largest district in the U.S. to get its hands on new iPads and Pearson educational software.
Under the agreement, Apple will pay out $4.2 million, while the school district will not have to pay the $2.2 million bill it owes Lenovo for laptops featuring the Pearson curriculum.
“That amount of money doesn’t make up for the damage to the district’s reputation or compensate for the amount of time lost by students and educators in this misbegotten project,” said Scott Folsom, a member of the independent committee which oversees school modernization and construction bonds.
By paying out $6.4 million, Apple and Pearson won’t have to undergo costly ongoing legal discussions.
This case has been a messy one for all involved — with delays, FBI investigations, missing devices, and students who did receive their devices quickly learning how to hack them in order to access whatever they wanted online. As the LA Times explains of the problems:
“At the time of the [2013] pact with Apple, Pearson was supposed to provide all the math and English curriculum for the school system. The contract with Apple included a three-year license for the Pearson curriculum that added about $200 to the cost of each computer.
During the first year of the license, Pearson provided only sample units of curriculum, rather than a finished product. The contract allowed for the partial curriculum.
Teachers received limited training on the devices. The district later accused Pearson of providing an underwhelming product beset by technical glitches. Consultants concluded that few teachers even used the Pearson software.”
Hopefully all involved can now put this behind them, and figure out a way to move forward.
Provided that the “tentative agreement” does, in fact, turn out to be the end of the line, that is!
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
4 responses to “L.A. schools to receive $6.4 million from botched iPad deal”
So the deal was apparently blown by Pearson software, not Apple, correct? I’ve never understood what part Apple played in this failed deal, and your article does nothing to clarify it. How about providing some more information? If the Pearson software was the problem that the LA School District rejected, why not simply contract for new software? If the iPads were being hacked so quickly, why not roll out a software update to correct the problem and defeat the hack? Why all the drama instead of just solving the problems? This appears to be a bunch of botched bureaucratic goofiness so often attendant with school boards, where money is wasted by the boatload on failed schemes (anyone heard of Common Core?).
At the time i don’t think DEP was available from Apple which would stop the hack, so even if the students factory wipe them they get tied back to an MDM server during the setup process which will lock them back down.
As for Pearson i had the pleasure of using some of their online testing software years ago, it left a nasty taste in my mouth.
Outside of the Pearson issue the other problem was LA Unified didn’t deploy and manage the iPads as Apple recommended or in accordance with best practices all so they could cut costs and resources from the budget. But for the sake of the relationship, and future sales, Apple is falling on the sword.
The major issue, which should not be forgotten until all school board members who voted for this debacle are removed by L.A.’s negligent voters, is that Los Angeles Unified defrauded the taxpayers of $1.3 billion (which ended up costing far less because of the project’s early implosion) by taking money allocated by the taxpayers for new school construction and facilities modernization and spending it instead on expendables like iPads: the district, and its bond oversight committee, should have its reputation durably tarred before the public, who flee its schools in droves.