LA Schools: Millions for iPads, But Not One Cent for Math Textbooks

Remember when Los Angeles Unified Schools spent
$1 billion
trying to buy iPads for every kid in the district—and then,
when that became a fiasco, considered even more expensive
options?

Well, Steve Lopez of the
Los Angeles Times reported this week that some LA schools
don’t even have math textbooks for all grades:

With the conversion to Common Core standards, L.A. Unified
purchased new math books for eighth grade, but not for sixth or
seventh. The reason was lack of funding.

“We’re left to fend for ourselves,” said Kravets, who, like
other math teachers has scoured the Internet for materials and made
copies for students.

“We’re chained to the copy machines,” said Larry Rubin, another
Palms Middle School math teacher. Rubin said he spends more than an
hour on lesson plans in the evening and as much as 45 minutes at
the copy machine the next day.

Talk about putting the cart before the horse. Superintendent
John Deasy had money to burn on boondoggle after boondoggle, but
couldn’t be bothered to make sure that the classrooms he overseas
are minimally equipped for basic instruction? Lopez takes him to
task for this and other mistakes, including a failed tracking
system that caused some students to never receive class
assignments:

And by the way, what’s L.A. Unified Supt. John Deasy doing on a
tour of South Korea when he should be on a tour of Jefferson with a
clipboard and a bullhorn, directing student traffic while a fix is
made, and finally taking the blame for rolling out the ill-fated
system despite warnings that it wasn’t ready?

Deasy just announced his retirement; hopefully his successor
will dare to dream a little smaller, albeit more competently.

Incidentally, the situation at Palms Middle School is an
indictment of Common Core as well. The new standards rearrange the
levels at which students learn certain concepts, and the approach
requires entirely new teaching methods and materials. It’s not
possible to half-and-half it between the old way and the Common
Core way: This will generate both gaps and overlaps in a child’s
education—as well as massive confusion. I would like to see the
kids put through that experience try to pass one of the
rigorous Core-required standardized tests.

Schools have to be fully Core-aligned, or stick with what they
already got. But given the significant cost of being Core-aligned,
this reality can be a major problem, as Palms Middle School’s case
illustrates. Of course, it’s possible for administrators to
navigate such difficulties with more finesse than Deasy evidently
did.