We’re all going for ipads here in LAUSD and who’s to say the technology gap isn’t in fact a hallmark of social injustice? Putting an ipad in the hands of every kindergartener would seem to me to be a bit of window dressing for deeper, more serious issues of social inequality but it’s hard to know where to start in a circle of discontent and deprivation.
One place is to look at what isn’t getting done while implementing ipads instead. A facebook page has started to document issues of repair and maintenance in our schools, unaddressed. And a picture is worth a thousand words. More times than I can count I have heard people intimate that at the end of the day, they just do not believe things are as physically decrepit as all that. Always there is this sidelong implication that there is so much graft among public employees that really, it’s OK to decimate support staff for teachers … and our children. Maybe they kinda sorta had it coming? Or something??
Lost in all this is, as always, the civil rights of our children. In a democracy every child deserves access to the same, excellent, well-supported education. When physical conditions are decrepit, play equipment is dangerous and conditions of classroom crowding and under-staffing are so severe, no one is going to be learning abstractions beyond this one: that these children do not matter to society.
When we choose to divert $1B of maintenance and construction money to technology instead of to making our schools safer, we are sending a powerful message about priorities. When we disregard the oversight of our citizens’ committee safeguarded with tax monies intended for maintenance and construction, we send a powerful message about priorities. We can claim all we like that social justice is at the root of working to bust the technology gap, but when kids’ bodies are in danger of being busted first, it’s hard to believe the truth of any of this.
Fix Our Schools! Fund Our Schools!
Bring Back Arts Teachers And Librarians And Counselors.
And Patch Up All That Gross Plumbing Please.
3 Comments
February 7, 2014 at 11:07 am
As a parent, I worry about my children’s exposure to electro magnetic radio waves. All Wifi should be measured and safe levels need to be determined. There is a lot of research about the dangers, but there are no established safe standards.
I also worry about the school district internet filter. Several schools actually stopped distributing iPads to students because students hacked their way around the filter. The school district is required to control the student internet access by the Children’s Internet Protection Act. Does the Apple App store or the iTunes store comply with CIPA? I don’t want my children to access porn at school.
Can we trust LAUSD?
February 8, 2014 at 8:36 am
At a district meeting on ipads the other night the mouthpiece performing there – he reminded me of nothing more than the snakeoil sales man in The Music Man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp_x-0vtJ-k
This gent concurred it was “all about trust”, trust in LAUSD (bureaucracy). And quite frankly, that just about said it all right there for me.
February 6, 2014 at 2:21 pm
How many years have we been hearing about restrooms, roofs and plumbing? Yet it still goes on….Thanks for the link to that FB page where teachers post the graphic truth:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Repairs-Not-IPads/228827333958584
And the toothless Construction Bond Oversight Committee has to endure having its ‘oversight’ ignored. That pretty much says it all.