iPad Watchdog Stuart Magruder’s Re-Appointment: Which Way Will LAUSD Go?
The question for many school districts around the country this spring was this: how are they supposed to give computer-based, end-of-year Common Core State Standards (CCSS) tests?
For over a year in Los Angeles Unified, parents, students, teachers, and community members have wrestled with the details of Superintendent John Deasy’s 1:1 iPad program and its $1 billion price tag. The second-largest school district in the nation serves about 650,000 K-12 students.
Disagreements over the iPad program are now culminating in a battle to re-appoint one of the most vocal watchdogs of the program, an architect and citizen volunteer named Stuart Magruder to the Bond Oversight Committee that is supposed to vet funds that pay for the iPad rollout.
On Tuesday, June 10, 2014, we’ll find out if LAUSD school board member Tamar Galatzan is successful with her argument that the school board need not honor a 2002 Memorandum of Understanding between the American Institute of Architects (Los Angeles) as key appointer of an architect and the school board. (The MOU says that the AIA appoints and the LAUSD school board is simply the body that approves the AIA’s pick.) Now Bennett Kayser, a second LAUSD school board member, has joined the fraysaying he opposes Galatzan and believes the AIA’s appointment should be approved by the LAUSD school board.
Superintendent Deasy’s iPad rollout has been rife with problems since the fall of 2013, when reporters began questioning key terms of the district’s deal with Apple: was it ok to use $1 billion for iPads paid for out of facilities bond funds when voters thought they were voting to fix schools plagued by crumbling ceilings, leaky roofs, broken drinking fountains, and non-functioning toilets? Were tablets loaded with curriculum “textbooks” (able to leave the building to go home with students) or were they “fixtures” that stayed in the classroom minus any curriculum, and therefore a legitimate part of a facilities revamp?
Stuart Magruder called attention to the fact that LAUSD had planned the effort poorly, did not sufficiently collaborate with teacherswho have to integrate the devices into the classroom, and paid top dollar for an old, legacy version of the IPad. Due to his K-12 News Network | iPad Watchdog Stuart Magruder’s Re-Appointment: Which Way Will LAUSD Go?: