warning Hi, we've moved to USCANNENBERGMEDIA.COM. Visit us there!

Neon Tommy - Annenberg digital news

Apple To Provide 30,000 iPads To 47 L.A. Schools

Benjamin Li |
June 20, 2013 | 7:32 p.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

(Flickingerbrad/ Creative Commons)
(Flickingerbrad/ Creative Commons)

In a 6-0 vote on Tuesday, The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education agreed to a $30 million contract with Apple Inc, that will put 30,000 iPads in the hands of students.

"This is one of the most high-profile contracts this board will ever approve," board member Steve Zimmer said during the voting process.

The Board’s decision is the first phase of the ‘Common Core Technology Project Plan’ (CCTPP), a lengthy educational overhaul aimed at bridging the “digital divide” between students of different demographic or income groups.

According to the CCTPP website, the project’s ultimate objective is to equip every student in the region over the next 14 months with modern educational tools for unlimited access to 21st century skills and technologies.

With over 900 schools and 187 charter schools that enroll more than 640,000 students in the L.A. school district, the recent contract with Apple Inc. predicts a long-term, multimillion dollar partnership to supply the region’s low-income students with technology.

The contract attracted proposals from major tech companies competing for an edge in the growing education technology industry, but Apple Inc.’s iPad was deemed the cheapest and highest quality choice for the CCTPP’s objectives. 

Student and teacher groups tested tech products from the proposals of all contract contenders, but Apple's iPad "received the highest scoring by the students and the teachers," according to LAUSD deputy superintendent of instruction, Jaime Aquino.

The project will be funded by LAUSD’s voter-approved bond from Measures R, Y, and Q, which allow LAUSD to borrow billions of dollars by issuing bonds at legal interest rates. 

In retrospect, LAUSD’s $30 million investment in education technology is a natural progression from the school district’s continued successes in experimenting with digitally enhanced curriculums within the last decade.

In the past LAUSD has explored the academic benefits of utilizing digital learning aids in educational settings with organizations dedicated to academia’s digital future, such as the MIND Research Institute, a non-profit academic organization.

The MIND Research Institute’s “ST Math” instructional software, which utilizes interactive digital learning to teach grade school mathematics, had brought significant academic improvements since 2010 to the 37 schools that had fully integrated “ST Math.”

From 2010 to 2012, students enrolled in those 37 schools nearly doubled their math proficiency levels as measured by standardized tests, according to a 2012 report released by the MIND institute.

LAUSD has also been involved with the city of Los Angeles in a collaboration called the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (PLAS), founded to promote digitally aided academics. Just last year, PLAS announced the beginning of the Integrated and Blended Learning Initiative, an innovative approach to technology in the classroom combining traditional face-to-face teaching methods with online and digital tools.

The longstanding efforts by LAUSD to bring technology into Los Angeles’ classrooms reflects a growing national awareness of the traditional classroom model's inability to prepare new generations of students for a rapidly changing digital world.

At the very least, this incompatibility or "digital divide" will be solved for 30,000 students in the Los Angeles area who look forward to using their very own iPads for interactive digital learning suited to the 21st century. 

"I can sleep tonight with my conscience clear,"Aquino said during the vote for the $30 million contract. "You did the right thing for kids."

 

Email Staff Reporter Benjamin Li.



 

Buzz

Craig Gillespie directed this true story about "the most daring rescue mission in the history of the U.S. Coast Guard.”

Watch USC Annenberg Media's live State of the Union recap and analysis here.