Recently, the Los Angeles Unified School District embarked on a $1 billion initiative to place an iPad in the hands of each of the more than 600,000 students in the nation's second largest school district. But while Apple counts its coin, the district is learning a hard lesson in security and how technology can create as many problems as it solves.School Superintendent John Deasy, who was featured in an iPad commercial, insists that the initiative he pushed hard for is right on track. To Deasy, putting iPads in the hands of kids in a school system of mostly low-income families and a dropout rate of 20% is a "civil rights issue."
What's astonishing is the idealism driving Deasy to spend $1 billion in school bond money for the iPads, software and for wiring the campuses has led to record numbers of security breaches, stolen property and lawsuits. Meanwhile, that is a billion dollars that is no longer available to be spent on textbooks, teacher's aides, better facilities, etc....I suppose what they say is true, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."
