Los Angeles' school system ends plan to give all of its students iPads

August 27, 2014

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest public school system in the United States, has decided not to move forward with its plans to offer an iPad to every student in the system, due to concerns about the iPad itself as well as how the contract with Apple was handled by school system administrators.

The school board of LA United approved a contract with Apple, along with a subcontractor Pearson, just over a year ago to begin the project for $30 million, with plans to expand that contract to $500 million over the next year. LA Unified also planned to spend another $500 million to help expand Internet access in the schools. However, on Monday, the superintentent of the school system, John Deasy, wrote in a memo to the system's school board, "Moving forward, we will no longer utilize our current contract with Apple Inc."

Some of the issues were related to the iPad itself. A number of schools said that students had problems reading state tests due to the size of the tablet's screen. There were also issues with the optional keyboards that were bought for the iPad, with schools claiming they did not integrate well with the device.

However, there were other non-technology concerns with the LA Unified plans. The Los Angeles Times raised concerns about the bidding process for the iPad contract, which critics of the deal believed were tailored to match Apple and Pearson.

What do you think of the Los Angeles school system deciding to end their big contract with Apple?

Source: Los Angeles Times