LA Schools iPads: officials chose incomplete software over competitors
Grant Slater/KPCC
A student at KIPP Comienza in Huntington Park plays ST Math to review the week's material. The game tracks his progress and gives him harder activities as he masters skills. It's the type of interactivity L.A. Unified reviewers said they were looking for, but ended up choosing a program with no games or assessments.
When the Los Angeles Unified School District set out last year to buy tablets for every teacher and student, officials drew up a scoring system to rate 19 hardware and software options.
The scores meant a lot: the contract will ultimately be worth about $500 million and marks the largest school technology expansion in the country.
The winners were Apple and global education publisher Pearson PLC, which received nearly twice as many points as the next highest software bidder.
But there was a hitch: Pearson’s software wasn’t ready – and it still isn’t.
Since the contract was awarded last summer, school board members have laid into administrators for buying unfinished materials – and for paying nearly $800 per software-equipped device. The school district's Inspector General has also begun LA Schools iPads: officials chose incomplete software over competitors | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC: