Update: Los Angeles Schools iPad Program Target of Federal Criminal Probe
No sooner had I submitted about the previous development ($500 Chromebooks or $700 iPads) [Eds Note: See Below] when the defecation contacted the rotary ventilator again.
The Daily Breeze reports:
LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines is scuttling the district's iPad curriculum contract with Pearson in the wake of an FBI probe of the deal.
According to documents released December 2, as part of a criminal investigation being conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a federal grand jury will weigh information pertaining to Los Angeles Unified's plan to buy $1.3 billion in iPads.[1]
The federal probe--which dispatched FBI agents to collect 20 boxes of records from LAUSD's headquarters Monday afternoon--along with a report from LAUSD's inspector general, prompted Superintendent Ramon Cortines to ditch the controversial deal with Apple and Pearson.
[...]While Cortines had hoped students at 27 schools in the next phase would have the devices this school year, they will now have to wait until fall 2015.
[1] I can't believe that the Daily Breeze editor allowed that sentence to go through in its original form.
Original Story: $500 Chromebooks or $700 iPads? Expanded Options for Los Angeles Schools
El Reg reports
A technology-for-schools deal touted as a huge win for Apple will become a head-to-head competition with arch-rival Google. The web ad giant has won the rights to sell Chromebooks to schools as an alternative to iPads, The LA Times reports, citing the Los Angeles Unified School District.
This will turn around what had been a sweetheart deal valued at more than a billion dollars for Apple with America's second-largest school district. The original agreement had called for all students in the district to be outfitted with a handheld computer--an iPad in other words. The deal would have resulted in an estimated 650,000 devices sold for use by students, teachers and administrators.
[...]Apple will be forced to compete against Google's Chromebook in 27 schools. Under the new plan, schools will be able to choose between purchasing iPads or Chromebooks pre-loaded with the educational software for the district's Common Core educational plan.
Related:
L.A.'s iPad-Friendly School Superintendent Resigns Under a Cloud
Related Stories
Techdirt reports
In a set of strange coincidences not unlike those surrounding the IRS/Lois Lerner email disappearance, the Los Angeles Unified school board has decided it will only retain internal emails for one year going forward.
The Los Angeles Unified school board voted Tuesday to buy a Microsoft email archiving service programmed to automatically destroy staff emails after one year.
Why only one year? According to the Chief Information Officer of the school district, the one year limit is mandated by district policy(PDF) -- which is handy, but likely not the real reason. (Keeping all those bytes is considered "too expensive.") After all, if this policy was already in force, why the vote on retention limits?
More likely, this decision was prompted by recent events -- namely the publication of emails more than a year old.The decision comes less than three weeks after KPCC published two-year-old internal emails that raised questions about whether Superintendent John Deasy's meetings and discussions with Apple and textbook publisher Pearson influenced the school district's historic $500 million technology contract.
KTLA TV reports:
Beleaguered Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. John Deasy announced [October 16] that he had tendered his resignation. Deasy would stay on with the district on a special assignment through the end of the year, according to a join[sic] statement from the superintendent and the school district. [...] As part of the severance agreement, he would receive about 60 days' pay, which would equal about $60,000, according to the paper.
Deasy, 53, has led the nation's second-largest school district for 3.5 years. During that time, he has faced much scrutiny and criticism, particularly over a technology program that he pushed for which would have spent more than $1 billion to provide an iPad to every student, teacher and administrator at LAUSD schools.
The program was suspended in August after it was discovered that Deasy and his top deputy had ties to Apple executives and the company that was providing the curriculum for the iPads.
Apple is ready to fight Google's Chromebooks with cheaper iPads
Apple has a big problem. Just five years ago, its iPads and Mac laptops reigned supreme in US classrooms, accounting for half of all mobile devices shipped to schools in 2013. Apple has now slipped behind both Google and Microsoft in US schools with Google's Chromebooks leading the way in classrooms, securing nearly 60 percent of shipments in the US as overall iPad sales declined for three straight years. Apple is now ready to strike back against Chromebooks with some cheaper iPads.
Apple is holding a special education-focused event on Tuesday that promises "creative new ideas for teachers and students." Rumors suggest Apple is preparing to launch a $259 budget iPad model this year, while Bloomberg reports that a "low-cost iPad" will be announced alongside new education software. The new iPad could even support a stylus, like the Apple Pencil found on the more expensive iPad Pro models.
The article notes a cancelled $1 billion program to give iPads to students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Administering the iPads back then wasn't easy, but Chromebooks store their data in the cloud. If a student forgets their Chromebook at home, they can log in to another device using their Google account. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has criticized Google's G Suite for Education for storing students' personal information in the cloud without their knowledge or consent.
Related: L.A.'s iPad-Friendly School Superintendent Resigns Under a Cloud
Los Angeles Schools Halve Email Retention after Scandal
Los Angeles Schools iPad Program Target of Federal Criminal Probe
NH School District: One Chromebook Per Student by 2018; Paper Textbooks Going
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @02:50AM
They won't be investigated or prosecuted for this. There'll be a fall guy for sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @03:06AM
Why the gratuitously employed preciosity? What wrong with the good old "shit hit the fan again"?
Far from seeing it as witty, the exercise of "translation" led me in finding faults in it:
It's like saying "the driving hit the wall" instead of "the car hit into the wall" (or "the car was driven into the wall")
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by anubi on Tuesday December 09 2014, @03:36AM
Governor Brown just got his sales tax hike approved by the voters in the last round of elections.
Just like every other politician, he has to get rid of the money so they can claim the state is destitute and justify another tax rate hike.
Voters fall for it every time.
Politicians spend every last dime they get authority over. Common corporate behaviour, as the more you spend, the more you get.
I have not seen voters yet demand a review of retirement plans when politicians overspend.
They have succeeded very well in maintaining the paradigm that it is OK for the government to require contribution from the populace, but not the other way around.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @03:37AM
Fuck crApple. Tim Cook is a raging faggot.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @03:48AM
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @03:50AM
Is that why you sucked your dad's dick every Wednesday?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @04:26AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @04:29AM
That's what daddy said the first few times?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @05:38AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @01:26PM
That was his response the times after the previous?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @04:25AM
Translation: "I crave big, black cock in my ass".
- Ethanol-fueled
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @11:53AM
Surprising that Ethanol-fueled is now posting as AC. I guess he wants to save whatever karma he has left.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @01:07PM
It's on topic so he was probably just didn't bother logging in.
I assume that Ethanol is referring to "Buba" from a federal PMITA prison.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @04:04AM
That will be welcome when it arrives. [soylentnews.org]
Meanwhile, links to S/N in summaries are still being munged by the engine.
L.A.'s iPad-Friendly School Superintendent Resigns Under a Cloud [soylentnews.org]
Los Angeles Schools Halve Email Retention after Scandal [soylentnews.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday December 09 2014, @08:26AM
when the defecation contacted the rotary ventilator again.
Very droll - worthy of Oscar Wilde himself.
Spare a thought for people whose primary language is not English, though. Come to think of it, spare a thought for those for whom it is - defecation is the act, not the substance.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 09 2014, @11:00AM
Reading at threshold=0 would have revealed that an AC already covered a significant portion of that.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday December 09 2014, @04:05PM
Yes, yes it would have. Any other factual but utterly useless tidbits you'd like to share?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk