See previous post: Los Angeles Unified halts $1 billion contract for iPads after revelations about shenanigans in the bidding process
FBI Seizes Los Angeles Schools' iPad Documents
FBI
agents seized 20 boxes of documents related to Los Angeles Unified
School District's beleaguered $1 billion iPad project, officials
confirmed Tuesday.
Agents confiscated documents at the district's offices Monday regarding
procurement practices involving the Common Core Technology project,
LAUSD's plan to equip all schools with 21st century learning devices.
The FBI confirmed an investigation into the district, but would not provide any further information, citing the ongoing probe.
"The L.A Unified School District will offer its full cooperation to
federal authorities during the course of the investigation," Interim
Superintendent Ramon Cortines said in a statement.
The FBI action was first reported by The Los Angeles Times.
The initiative to provide all 650,000 students in the nation's second
largest school district with iPads has been plagued with problems from
the start. Hundreds of students initially given the iPads last school
year found ways to bypass security installations, downloading games and
freely surfing the Web. Teachers complained they were not properly
trained to instruct students with the new technology. And questions were
raised after emails were disclosed showing that then-Superintendent
John Deasy had been in communication with vendors Apple and Pearson
before the contracts were put to bid.
"The idea of providing first class learning technology to all the kids
in the district, not just the kids who could afford it, is certainly a
worthy educational goal," said Charles Taylor Kerchner, a professor at
Claremont Graduate University. "That worthy goal runs up against
problems of organizational feasibility, and it did from the beginning."
It was unclear exactly what aspect of the iPad project ? one of the
biggest technological undertakings by an urban district in the U.S. ?
the FBI was investigating, though legal experts and education observers
immediately focused on Deasy's relationship with Apple and Pearson and
the use of construction bond proceeds to spend money on a short-term
device purchase.
Ariel Neuman, a former federal prosecutor, said the government is probably investigating possible fraud involving the contracts.
"If someone doesn't disclose a relationship they have with Apple," he
said, "those could be material omissions that could lead to a wire or
mail fraud case."
Deasy resigned in October, in part due to the troubled iPad rollout and
problems with the district's new computerized scheduling system, which
left some students unable to enroll in needed classes.
Interim Superintendent Ramon Cortines had planned to move forward with
equipping an additional 27 schools with learning devices, but said
Tuesday he canceling the contract and starting another. Cortines said he
made the decision based on "identified flaws" in the L.A. Unified
Inspector General's report on device procurement.
He added that the district would continue with a different contract with
Apple to provide iPads and another vendor, Arey Jones, to provide
Chromebooks for a new set of exams in the spring aligned to the Common
Core, the new academic benchmarks being implemented in California and
other states around the nation.
"My intent is that the students attending these schools will receive
devices under a new contract at the beginning of the 2015-16 school
year," Cortines said.
To date, the district has spent $70 million on the project, purchasing a total of 90,713 devices.
News of the probe immediately drew rebuke from United Teachers of Los
Angeles, a frequent Deasy critic. Union president Alex Caputo-Pearl said
Deasy, "cannot simply resign and leave a mess for others to clean up."
Deasy did not immediately return a request for comment.
———
Associated Press writer Brian Melley contributed to this report.
No comments:
Post a Comment