{"id":1109,"date":"2014-07-01T16:46:36","date_gmt":"2014-07-02T00:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/?p=1109"},"modified":"2014-07-01T16:46:36","modified_gmt":"2014-07-02T00:46:36","slug":"unassailable-logic-los-angeles-unified-school-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/unassailable-logic-los-angeles-unified-school-district\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unassailable Logic of the Los Angeles Unified School District"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"TweetButton_button\" style=\"float: right; margin-left: 10px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  data-url=\"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/unassailable-logic-los-angeles-unified-school-district\/\" data-text=\"The Unassailable Logic of the Los Angeles Unified School District\" data-lang=\"en\">Tweet<\/a><br \/>\n<script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,\"script\",\"twitter-wjs\");<\/script><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/reason.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/01\/la-schools-realize-giving-every-kid-an-i\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Unified School Disrtict Board: We spent $1 billion to give every student an I-Pad and the program was a disaster. \u00a0Dang! \u00a0What do we do now? \u00a0I know! \u00a0Let&#8217;s give every student a <em>laptop<\/em>! \u00a0<em>Now we&#8217;re talkin!<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>This falls under the headings of &#8220;never expect a bureaucrat to understand the real world&#8221; and &#8220;no idea is stupid if it&#8217;s for the children&#8221;. \u00a0Yes, the LAUSD spent a billion dollars to hand out I-Pads as a &#8220;homework aid&#8221; for the children. \u00a0What could go wrong? \u00a0Firewalls were installed to keep those krazy kidz off of the social networking and porn sites. \u00a0The kids would be using these strictly for doing their calculus, physics and chemistry homework. \u00a0I mean what&#8217;s the difference between some schmendrick on the street and a rocket scientist? \u00a0Well, the rocket scientist gots a computer. \u00a0So let&#8217;s give all the kids computers and they&#8217;ll be rocket scientists. \u00a0This education thing isn&#8217;t so hard after all! \u00a0Well, what could go wrong did go wrong. \u00a0When most of the I-Pads were broken, lost or stolen the district policy was sufficiently vague as to relieve the students or their parents of responsibility. \u00a0As far as the firewalls, it was a simple matter for the middle and high schoolers to recruit some third graders to disable those.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/unassailable-logic-los-angeles-unified-school-district\/cracked-ipad\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1130\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1130\" src=\"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/cracked-ipad-300x207.jpg\" alt=\"cracked-ipad\" width=\"300\" height=\"207\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/cracked-ipad-300x207.jpg 300w, https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/cracked-ipad-150x103.jpg 150w, https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/cracked-ipad.jpg 988w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Now chastened, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/local\/education\/la-me-lausd-laptops-20140630-story.html\" target=\"_blank\">LAUSD is assessing what went wrong <\/a>and how to move forward, and they have decided that what went wrong was a &#8220;one device fits all&#8221; approach.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333;\"><em><strong>&#8220;Why would we treat all our students \u2014 whether they are a first-grader or a high school freshman \u2014 as if they all had the same technology needs? They don&#8217;t&#8230;. To have a one-device-fits-all approach does not make sense.&#8221;, said LAUSD Board Member Monica Ratliff. <\/strong><\/em><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Obviously that was the problem. \u00a0The fact that a single device was used district wide made it simple to lose, destroy or steal them. \u00a0Allowing schools to choose from 6 different models of laptops will take care of that. \u00a0Problem solved. \u00a0<em>Heckuva job, Monica! \u00a0<\/em>You can&#8217;t expect all the kids to be able to use the same device, can you? \u00a0That&#8217;s just kooky. \u00a0They need choices. \u00a0Like in the real world when you go to work in an office and the first thing they do is let you choose what kind of computer you want&#8230;Oh wait.<\/p>\n<p>Initial funding for the I-Pad program came from a bond measure which all Californians recognize as &#8220;free money&#8221; and therefore impossible to waste. \u00a0The source of additional funding is unclear, but why not just pass another bond measure? \u00a0Or pick it from trees? \u00a0Better yet&#8230;I hear North Korea is printing some fine facsimile US currency these days.<\/p>\n<p>May I make a suggestion? \u00a0What went wrong was not a &#8220;one device fits all&#8221; approach, it was an &#8220;any device at all fits&#8221; approach. \u00a0The idea that a first grader, or any elementary school student needs a laptop or I-Pad to learn their lessons is ludicrous on it&#8217;s face and a colossal waste of allegedly scarce education funds. \u00a0I think you could make an argument that high schoolers need have access to computers at school so they have the opportunity to learn to use the computer <em>as a tool<\/em>. \u00a0It&#8217;s not the I-Pad or laptop that makes one smart. \u00a0It is a tool, like a pencil is a tool, and \u00a0a piece of paper is a tool. \u00a0The kids need to learn to work the computer that drives that pencil and paper &#8211; that&#8217;s the one between their ears. \u00a0If they can&#8217;t work that one, all the computers in the world aren&#8217;t going to help.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tweet Los Angeles Unified School Disrtict Board: We spent $1 billion to give every student an I-Pad and the program was a disaster. \u00a0Dang! \u00a0What do we do now? \u00a0I know! \u00a0Let&#8217;s give every student a laptop! \u00a0Now we&#8217;re talkin! This falls under the headings&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1109"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1133,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1109\/revisions\/1133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ego-vero.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}