Apple wins $50-million dollar LA contract (half-billion eventually)

Apple Recommended for Major L.A. Schools Tech. Contract
By Sean Cavanagh on June 14, 2013 8:00 AM

Apple Inc. has been recommended to receive a lucrative contract from the Los Angeles Unified School District to begin implementing one of the most ambitious education-technology projects in the country, with the city's school board scheduled to vote on the issue next week.

A selection committee that reviewed applications for the project has called for the board to vote at its meeting Tuesday to select the Silicon Valley company from the 13 proposals submitted for the project, according to a report to be presented to the panel.

If approved, the decision would award Apple $30 million to begin a project to provide the nation's second largest school district with one computing device for every student and teacher in 47 schools. But the contract could eventually prove much larger, because the district has called for eventually providing a device for every student in the 660,000-student system, a project expected to cost $500 million.

And a chicken in every pot!

Common Core la-la-la

In a memo to the board, Mark Hovatter, the system's chief facilities executive, said the initial phase of work will include providing computing devices, storage and charging stations, a learning management system, upgrades to local area networks, and other services. The overall scope of the first phase of the technology project is expected to cost $50 million.

All of the work is designed to support the district's transition to implementing the Common Core State Standards, and the creation of an "individualized, interactive, and information-rich learning environment," he said.

Heck.

Half a billion dollars is cheap if you're expecting high school kids to tell you who is to blame for Romeo and Juliet's deaths. You can't get a learning outcome like that with paper and pencil. No way.