What Chumps Feel When Tricked, Cheated Or Deceived: iHad
New LAUSD iHAD 1.2B $$$ |
The Edu Revelations coming from west of downtown over on Beaudry are fast and furious, like the responses from all around. So fast is the news regarding Deasy’s ipads morphing in the media, that no sooner does one settle as a stakeholder on some sort of ask or demand in response, than the situation reveals itself to be altogether different as a new set of spin replaces the old. Everything is just topsy turvy: Oopsy Deasy.
Casual eavesdropping reveals snippets of conversation all around; everywhere whispers from strangers to aficionados include epithets from a realm that is nothing if not melodramatic: “criminal” and “indictment” and “grand jury” and “fraud” and “liar” and “accountability” and “crook” and “cronyism” and “bid fixing” and “unethical” and “yes men” and “pig in a poke” and “falling on a sword” and “thrown under a bus” and “leaked report” and “inspector general” and “audit”.
Angeleno’s numeracy skills are well-limbered as we contemplate unfathomable numbers like “one billion dollars” and “$61m” and forty seven thousand ipads. What are we going to do about the national embarrassment that is Los Angeles’ Educator In Chief?
“ipad-gate” has grown to be a national story as John Deasy announced he was backing out of the multi million dollar contract for Pearson software bundled into Apple hardware. Following release of emails that indicate a suspicious degree of contact between vendors for whom contracts appear to have been crafted, Superintendent Deasy has tried to staunch the flow of questions bycalling the whole thing off.
This reaction does not sit well with Deasy’s professional corp, the voting members of Los Angeles’ teachers’ union, 91% of whom expressed “no confidence” in their leader last spring. They argue “[t]he superintendent does not get to just say, ‘never mind’ after all the problems the iPad rollout caused this district”.
And therein lies the monumental dilemma that has grown ever clearer this past What Chumps Feel When Tricked, Cheated Or Deceived: iHad – redqueeninla: