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Every Public School Student In LA Will Get an iPad In 2014
Jeremiah Cornelius writes "After signing a $30 million iPad deal with Apple in June, the Los Angeles School Board of Education has revealed the full extent of the program that will provide tablets to all students in the district. CiteWorld reports that the first phase of the program will see pupils receive 31,000 iPads this school year, rising to 640,000 Apple tablets by the end of 2014. Apple previously announced that the initiative would include 47 campuses and commence in the fall." Certain companies (not just Apple) stand to benefit from this kind of outlay.
Every student in LA Public schools gets a good education. Now that would be news.
what are they paying?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Will anybody question the lobbying that went into this deal, or will they just attack the public school system for waste?
.... Dec 2014.
This is most certainly not a gigantic waste of money that will produce no positive results. Next time we should do an ipad and a pony.
That's almost $1,000 each...? No wonder public schools are in trouble.
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Can't the students just buy an iPad if they want one? It would be cheaper and they could choose from a variety of different manufacturers. Oh...
Holy crap that is expensive. $968 per iPad. Considering how good a Nexus 7 is I can't understand the thinking here.
My Hello World is 512 bytes. But it's also a valid Fat12 boot sector, Fat12 file reader, and Pmode routine.
Tablets work nicely for casual content consumption; however, they are so limited for context creation. We should be encouraging our student to create and express versus simple digesting information.
How many will break in the first week?
...an iDucation.
This will make 'muricans smart, honest. -iSalesmen
30000000/31000=967, it's too hot for math. The point stands though.
Who pays for the new ones? Have a funny feeling the tax payers are going to have fun with this one...
Wasn't this tried before? The students and teachers found little use for them because they could not interact easily with their PCs with word/excel/email etc.
This is sad in so many ways. Primarily that there has to be such lock-in with public funds and on such an overpriced device. No need to go into ALL the details, it has already been hashed out on Slashdot before regarding price, toyness, theft, maintenance, battery wear, lack of E-Ink, lockdown, spyware, compatibility, damage, serviceability, insurance, attention span reduction, etc, etc.
Love technology, but sometimes it seems like it is not moving things forward, just sideways.... especially when it gets political.
Oh, and 30 million dollars for 31,000 tablets comes to $968 each. And that is supposed to be some special deal discount??? Meanwhile, the smaller, lighter, faster, higher res, second iteration of the Nexus 7 releases for $229 WITHOUT discount.
Otherwise Louisiana is going to be rearing an entire generation of hunt and peck typists.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
LA the city, not LA the state.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Ignoring the fact that you are giving children $1000 devices (Several times the cost of the opposition) that puts them vulnerable to attack. They are unfixable, and heavy, have to work with Apples closed garden. In a dynamic market where Apple is a niche player, its tablet sales dropping. You are rewarding a company that prides itself on not paying tax.
I'm glad its not my tax Dollars. This should have been given to a open platform, willing to provide low margin, easily fixable, assembled in America, Light, ugly tablets..that pays tax.
Its a shame because I think its a great idea.
Who pays for the new ones? Have a funny feeling the tax payers are going to have fun with this one...
The large costs will be when students get attacked for carrying around $1000 electronics.
Giving students computers? When you could, oh, I don't know, spend those millions on teacher education, classroom supplies and capital improvements that are probably critically needed but neglected because of retarded earmarked funds like this?
Considering the planned use of the devices, being behind a walled garden really isn't that big of a deal.
The reality is I would hope that LA would have a separate store with free (cross platform) edutainment created by Local People, to support teaching and learning and the savings on not buying apple could have bought a lot of content, and got a lot of people jobs...rather than it going towards buying its shares back.
I think its offensive Apple have been chosen.
I was just at liquidations for three schools where they tried this. Somehow they think that throwing high technology at bad students will somehow transform them into good students. The reality is three schools failed to perform, even with millions of dollars in apple miracle products. These children have a poor home structure, poor social structure that frowns on those who are smart as "acting white", a culture they idolizes those who chase quick money and material goods, and no penalties for parents who barely raise their kids. This too will fail, as technology is NOT a substitute for good parenting.
As an employee for a different silicon valley company. I would very much like to know why we were not allowed to bid on such a device contract. Is this more political corruption?
"Please get into the public schools privative software to get free citizens" It's good to know someone listen him.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2013/jul/28/ipad-tablet-computer-school-parents
Except that here parents will have to buy them, regardless of their income.
Also, check out the Netherlands "Steve Jobs Schools" :
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/07/02/dutch-steve-jobs-schools-to-use-apples-ipad-for-entire-education-experience
Personally I am still undecided between thinking this is all a phenominally stupid idea (kids are going to be using IPads for everything for the rest of their lives so why learn how to write? Hey Mr Criminal, every kid walking to and from school has a IPad in their bag!) or too much of a coincidence to not be a coincidence.
With Mayor Bloomberg (morn extraordinaire) claiming NYC's crime increase is due to iPads and iPhones ( http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/28/crime-is-up-and-bloomberg-blames-iphone-thieves/?_r=0 ) I predict a massive wave of crime as kids get beat up or killed for their fondle-slab. What a waste of resources. Perhaps they might consider getting rid of the teacher's union which is driving their state broke instead... http://reason.com/archives/2013/03/29/union-greed-drives-california-bankruptcy
The Ipad is DRM. The kids cannot study, share or modify the code or freely run the programs as they wish. The kids are beholden to whatver rules Apple imposes. A better route would be an open device that allows for an understanding of how it works along with innovation. Consequently, generations of dependant users are not encouraged to understand and improve things. I prefer generations of innovators, thinkers, who share ideas, challenge and improve. Give the kids access to the source, let them root the thing. The devices should run libre software and made locally. Do you want Islaves or Thinkers? Rewarding oppression does not do much good for the world either. Apple's labour policies leaves a lot to be desired. http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/activate/2011/09/201194144739197637.html The third world has better devices, like the One Laptop Per Child http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child that runs the opensource Sugar OS. Heck, places like China, India, and South America have the right idea. They use devices that run LIbre software. Why is it that the US is taking the worst route possible? On everything?
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
Why iPad? Reading textbooks and answering questions doesn't seem like it requires a premium tablet. Why not a much cheaper Android one?
Talk about f**king up big time! Not only are they paying more than retail for (Cr)apple junk, think of the children! All of those poor kids having to use (Cr)apple's inferior technology. They will be at a huge disadvantage whe they graduate and have to deal with the real world, not (Cr)apple's walled garden and reality distortions!
Just why did they go with expensive ipads, instead of a more "made for education" version of some cheap $150 android tablet... Wasting money, you're doing it right.
A 30 year bond to pay for technology that is outmoded in less than 5 years?
smh
What sort of "creating" are K-12 students expected to do within the scope of their K-12 education that is impossible with applications running on an iPad with Bluetooth keyboard? Even high school programming can be taught on an iPad with Bluetooth keyboard thanks to various policy reversals on Apple's part that allowed Codea and Python for iOS to reach the App Store.
Yeah. But MOSTLY Apple.
Sure, the stupid DRM'ed online-only "book" companies too.
Oh, and all the Apple stores around the area for when the little "darlings" inevitably break something.
I'd rather this money have gone into things that would actually BENEFIT these kids' education. Like building new schools or staggered school hours to reduce class sizes. Setting tighter metrics (or ANY metrics for that matter) on teachers to weed out the incompetent. Hell, increased police presence to help tone down the gang bangers.
But nope! Kidz gotsta haz teh bling bling!
Fucking morons...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
How does this affect me in Norway?
In all honesty, if I was a parent of a pupil in LA, I'd ask them if they lost their mind and replaced it with an iBrain. Or something similarly locked-down and inflexible.
What the hell is this supposed to accomplish? What do they think the kids are going to do with those iPads? Learn? Please, don't make me laugh.
First, these things will be jailbroken before you're done handing them out. It will probably finally give the geeks in class a bit of street cred as they'll be the ones to go to if you want your Pad opened, but I guess every child below the age of 15 should have sufficient tech skills to get this down. Then, every single one of the pads will contain Angry Birds, or whatever the time-killer game du jour is. Apologies if I don't really know what's the latest fad in this area, I don't really follow that trend too closely.
And now try, just TRY to teach. Because you can't simply do what you usually do when the kids play with their tech toys in class: You can't take it away, they need it for school.
Yeah.
Sure.
Please don't get me wrong, but my first thought when I heard this was: Find out who pushed this through and you know who got bribed to buy the junk.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Most likely this will be considered a computer for each child. Since Apple's app policy disallows programming environments on iOS it's likely that this will lead to many children not being introduced to programming.
LAUSD already barely has money to buy paper and pencils, and now they've found money for this?
As a Cisco shareholder I thank LAUSD for requiring wireless in every classroom and additional WAN uplinks... etc etc etc...
The iPADs are a way to get around paying the teachers more. "Ok class, now watch the video on your iPAD..."
Why an iPad? Seriously if they want to go the tablet form factor there are plenty of alternatives that are cheaper and just as bit as good for the job involved.
This is just another throw-technology-at-the-problem situation that will, yet again, produce no observable benefits. $30 million only for the first 31,000 students. What a joke.
Why is the money for this, but no money for textbooks or education infrastructure repair?
I fail to see how this well help anyone besides apple. at $1000 per device, this doesn't help anyone but apple, and the other companies who got the extra $500 dollars worth of whatever.
I'm going to guess its someone like pearsons education, known education racketeers.
As far as spending $30million on education, I could think of far better ways to spend it, such as fix crumbling infastructure, better school lunches(even in my not-ghetto high school, they were utter crap).
Or even if I was going to spend on technology, I wouldn't spent it on such worthless White iElephants, but in equipped computer labs, full of machines which are self-hosting, equipped with compilers, IDEs, and other tools to teach kids technology.
Once again, the system gets it wrong, and wastes millions of dollars on what is essentiall a racket, and paid advertising to get more people into apple's sphere of influence.
I fail to see how this is helping children.
A loss for the schools and the students
Yes, teaching children about technology is good
No, forcing them to all use the same device is bad..especially when it's Apple(the distilled essence of evil)
Americans and Russians put people in space with the above. School education was no different. Why do people think a gadget is necessary.
And the usual defense is, "kids need to be ready for the technological working world." They'll have many, many years to become experts with technology, just through their normal use of it. And if they need to know Excel, they'll take a boring business administration course track like the rest of us.
Watch us continue going down in international match scores.
This. Stuffing technology in schools in this manner has no impact on education. Facts actually sugest that pencil&paper and and show exact solution with answer lead to better brains than smart expensive pads which react to touch and simplify radiobutton selection options.
I think the move to pads has more to do with the move to e-books, and not so much to do with paper and pencils. Also an educational app does not have to implement, say math problems, as multiple choice radio buttons. It can use a graphical mode more like a drawing program and have the kids show their work and their solution in a manner very similar to paper and pencil.
LA muggers rejoice.
Now they can all play Candy Crusher in class...instead of learning
“I used to think that technology could help education. I’ve probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on the planet. But I’ve had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What’s wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent.”
-- Steve Jobs, Wired, February 1996
... it [Photoshop] comes with a price tag and features Jon Doe will most likely never use.
Photoshop Elements was about $70 last I looked and it has the features John Doe will actually use.
Wouldn't it be better to just give them unlocked phones, or phones without the actual phone part, so it might actually make them think "hey, I gotta get me one of dem ipugs mayn". (the students that is)
You can still do quite a bit with the phones, just with a slightly smaller screen.
Most apps can usually scale pretty well, which is the good part about applications on things like Apple and Android stores.
They design them to be semi flexible, more so on Android now because it may be getting Windowing support sooner or later if Samsung actually get their way. I really do hope the Android community take it up, it is SO DAMN USEFUL.
Having, say, Polaris open next to notes and working together with them is quite handy, or likewise browser and notes.
The current system is pretty limited at the moment, but it works very well so far. With more work, it could be brilliant, and brilliantly simple at that.
Plus, it basically NEEDs to happen if there is any push for Android on the desktop, which is being looked in to by some people right now.
If only it was more Raspberry Pi or Arduinos though, or even other board suppliers.
Bringing up a generation of the electrical engineers, computer scientists to replace the current population is a very good thing.
These brilliant minds won't be around forever, they want to retire and have a nice life living in the Bahamas or Hawaii or something. (I certainly have my spot picked out, I am less than a mile away from it on holiday right now at the family holiday flat, the dream man, the dream!)
I hope they have a lot of plans for edutainment and educational apps.
Circuit simulators are a dream for prototyping, and Zoombinis was the best edutainment game ever.
Simple or even complex CAD apps too for technical and hands on classes.
I feel jealous of kids these days. We only had big black Dells that were somehow slower than my late 90s laptop of 660Mhz of 512MB at the time. (The Dells were like, 175+% of my laptop but were noticeably slower. Still, only bad experience I have had with Dell, my 7 year old PC is still going strong. I say that and get back to it exploding on Monday most likely...)
Hopefully it will also teach kids to have more respect for hardware in general, I can't count how many times you can see stories about people absolutely wrecking their phones or tablets in the most stupid ways possible.
Are their fingers made of a substance half out of phase with our universe or something?
Also, Gambit is cool. Screw Logan, give HIM a movie.
Are these going to be kept at the school? Or home? Have they thought this out? What is to keep an addicted parent from selling the ipad? The curious toddler from taking it apart or dropping it in the bathtub? I don't think will end well.
Could you name the schools? Better yet, do you know of any newspaper that reported this?
(I'm currently a tech director for a ~1000 student school district in Minnesota. Any info on how and why this failed would be really helpful in my dialog with teachers and administrators regarding the issue.)
If I would want to replace a book, I would use an ebook reader. Does what it's supposed to do (and almost nothing else), can be read in bright sunlight, last quite long on one charge and is way less expensive than a table or notebook.
It's unfortunate that there probably isn't any american made/assembled tablets that they could be politically pressured into buying. (If there are any, let us know...)
Tablets for kids + employment would be a win/win.
I have to applaud the LA school district here. They'll save a lot of money on lunch trays. All the students have to do to turn the crappy iPad into a useful lunch tray is smash the screen (not much use for it anyway) remove the glass and you have yourself a tray so food won't slide around.
I've also found another redeeming quality to the iPad: you feel better about yourself as a programmer. For any student struggling in programming, all his teacher has to do to give the student more self-confidence is point to the iPad and say, "Hey, at least you didn't design *that* thing."
Maybe LA could buy some iPhones next. I know, I know: just like an iPad, it's hard to picture how an iPhone can actually help people accomplish tasks. But with a little creativity you can come up with so many ideas: new dodgeballs, gym shoe protectors (you don't want the souls of your gym shoes scratched now, would you?). The possibilities are endless!
I'd say they'd be perfect for students. I used one in college for textbooks and note taking and the only problem I had was with the damned capacitive crayons you need to use to write.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Now every robber will know/think that a bus stop of 4 kids yields 4 iPads. Bus stop robberies in LA will rise whether the kids really carry them home or not.
I heard a rumour that MS have a few spare tablets floating around. They would probably give them away for tax breaks.
The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
i thought California was broke...ipads......wtf ever
I knew iPads where a rip off :)
$30000000 / (31000 +640000) = $44.70 per iPad wholesale? No wonder apple is so profitable
And you get an Ipad! And you get an Ipad! Everyone gets an Ipad!!!!
Currently, those really suck for everything but text and don't do color.
A simple ereader would be the tool for the job, be cost effective and it would provide less distractions in class.
Otherwise, if the point is to provide the students with learning tools, then in those quantities, and at that price, you can get an education spec laptop that could probably survive hiroshima. Has more flexibility and computing power. Runs real programs that the kids will find usefull in real life. And has an actual keyboard because it's a tool rather than a consumer device aimed at browsing, playing games and watching youtube, which is exactly what the students will be doing with them instead of listening to their teachers.
I still remember when you weren't allowed to use a calculator in math class because teachers expected you to work it out using your brain, a pencil and paper. Insert quote about kids and lawns here.
Tablets are the new PCs and it will be a significant tool for personal and business life.
I'm not saying it is all there is too it, but it is a part of it. You'll notice most careers that require both a lot of education and have some crappy component (danger, long hours, poor work environment, etc) pay better than others. Medicine is a good example. It requires a ton of education, and it is pretty stressful/long hours. So no surprise it ends up paying quite well. If it didn't many people would choose something else.
Most college students can compare two numbers and determine which is larger and decide that teaching is not worth it. Improving the pay scale will improve the interest in the job.
Apple fanboys, GET OUT OF SCHOOL IT DEPARTMENTS! There are $80-150 tablets that function just as well if not better than an ipad for student-related uses. It's one giant waste of money. Schools should not be buying overpriced luxury editions of any hardware.
Parental engagement is the biggest predictor of academic success in kids. More than intelligence or economic status even (those are also strong predictors). The #1 most important thing really is parents that care and are engaged in their kid's lives. However that is also something you can't easily fix, you can't just magically buy something that'll make parents more involved.
An eReader in line with the Kindle or Nook would be a much better idea. Why? Well in addition to being easier to read and having a longer battery life, it is something that only does text display. You can't use it to screw around and play Angry Birds or watch Youtube instead of reading your course material.
I remember it was problem enough when I was in highschool and the TI-82s were the big thing in math and chemistry. Students would play games on them (some of which I wrote) instead of paying attention. I can't imagine how much worse the problem is with a tablet.
Being proficient with technology is highly important in today's job market. However, that doesn't mean they need a tablet, which is more or less just an expensive eReader and toy. Rather the right answer is for the school to have classrooms with computers for teaching those subjects that need them. I mean think about it: We don't have students go and buy a fume hood, chemical resistant table, large set of glassware, a bunch of chemicals, and so on do we? No, rather we have a chemistry classroom, a room with the necessary equipment for learning chemistry, since properly learning it takes some hands on.
Same shit for computers. When the students are learning about something that requires a computer to do, they go to the class that has the computers. Not only does this mean the computers aren't a distraction otherwise, but the can be locked down and admin'd to only do what is needed, and are there for use for other students, you don't need one per pupil.
For that matter, places already DO that shit. I do IT support for a university and part of my job is maintaining some instructional computer labs. We spend about $1000/computer... once every 5-8 years depending on the needs of the classroom. Also a classroom only has 10-50 computers, depending on size (10 for things like electronics labs, 50 for things like Matlab lectures). However we have way more students that use it. One of the 50 seat labs sees probably 200 students per week for a basic programming class. They just aren't all in there at the same time.
That is the right way to do it. It is cheaper, less distraction to students, easier to administer, and being real computers you can run, well, anything you want on them.
This is just some stupid Apple fanboy wanting shiny technology for the students.
I for one see a potential for this initiative. Though I think it would have a better chance of succeeding somewhere like South Korea or Japan; where the children are more respectful of property and appreciative of education. At the very least this can be used to lessen the weight carried by children in text books. If it's even slightly successful other districts might do something similar, maybe experimenting with differing devices and content. In my view this shouldn't be a replacement for how children are taught, but an alternative to carrying heavy books. Personally I would have started by using a cheaper low cost book readers loaded with the material needed for that school or grade, rather than the more expensive iPad. Will the LA School Distinct and Apple succeed, I'm not sure, but it does pave the way to progress that might just catch on with other districts.
the Pawnshops and ebay shall runneth over.
Once 640k ipads has locked the city into buying books from apple authorized dealers, prices will hike by atleast 200%, as per se, when something is sold cheaply (hi gilette!)
Given that Apple is a Cult(TM), surely this is a breach of the Establishment clause?
What kind of argument is that?!? Did you have textbooks that had color in them? Color doesn't matter in anything but science books, and even then, it can be worked around. Ebook (e-ink) readers would rock for that sort of application.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Some of it isn't even eBooks. The students at my school rarely use textbooks anymore due to the curriculum that's been implemented. Most of the time their reference material and assignments is being given to the teachers in pdf form by the curriculum office. Being able to have the kids just look at it on an iPad as opposed to making lots of copies has some value.
I just wish my district had at least been smart enough to go with iPads. They ended up with some grant and bought Nooks for all of the kids... Great until you realize that B&N is pretty much shutting down with that now or soon. We'll probably have wasted more money in the end by trying to save money!
What kind of argument is that?!? Did you have textbooks that had color in them? Color doesn't matter in anything but science books, and even then, it can be worked around. Ebook (e-ink) readers would rock for that sort of application.
Yes I did. I recall it being pretty important in science, geography, history, art, driver's ed...
... be used to track where kids go and not by their parents, or worse. Have they done a full background check on all the IT admins and managers to be sure there are no sexual perverts among them?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I work in the technology department of a large school district. I am not picking on the iPad by any means, but I truly cannot fathom how a tablet makes sense in the hands of students. They are wonderful devices and I can see their uses for many needs, but when you need to do research papers and type things up, a tablet even with a keyboard just doesn't quite cut it. The ergonomics offered by the device is just not there, and never will be in the current sense of the tablet.
Likewise, technology is a supplement. One school district laid off a number of teachers to afford doing a 1 to 1 program with Macbook Airs. This I believe was in North Carolina. Now, the MBA with every student thing is already foolish in itself as it's an extremely poor way to utilize money (does a 2nd grader REALLY need an MBA for playing educational flash games? C'mon...), but the fact that they were aiming to utilize technology as some sort of educational babysitter is downright astonishing. Technology in the hands of students is only as powerful as the pilot of the classroom. Without guidance, it's borderline useless.
Must be a huge surplus if EVERY student gets one. (Which includes the illegal aliens)
Oh, wait....they DON'T have a surplus?! Weird!
Why not just pay a subsidy to Apple and the DRM content companies in the big-copyright industry, and give the students Kubuntu laptops that are open and usable? This is just training kids to consume DRM content. In an ideal world, companies that get tribute from taxpayers would not happen. But, if they have to have a tribute to exist, just give it to them as a subsidy, and not use their products to teach kids to be consumers rather than creators. Taxpayers should see a line item in the budget that is simply a payoff to big-media and its gatekeepers.
The education that the kids are getting is EXACTLY what the parents asked for. As others have posted, the spending policies of CA school districts are dictated by the regional school boards and middle management. The teachers don't really get too much of a say on how the money is spent.
When you look at who is running these school boards and what policies they have for education, one would think a trained squirrel would come up with better plans. Millions in solar panels anyone (don't give me that shit about sustainability, they DONT HAVE THE FUCKING MONEY TO TAKE FROM THE CLASSROOM TO PAY FOR THIS!)? New pools at an existing school when a brand new one is built a mile or so away? Big screen TVs for the football field? And yet who shows up for school board meetings? Certainly not 99% of the parents who vote the school board clowns in. No, all that attend are either companies who want to extract money from taxpayer's pockets or the sycophants who applaud the clown school board directors like trained seals. And yet when these school board clowns dare show their face for school functions and for election campaigns, the people who actually show up for these events applaud them like trained seals; there is no correlation between idiotic school spending policies and the election of the people who implement them.
So should there be any surprise we get idiotic iPad giveaways such as this?
What kind of argument is that?!? Did you have textbooks that had color in them? Color doesn't matter in anything but science books, and even then, it can be worked around. Ebook (e-ink) readers would rock for that sort of application.
I love my Kindle Paperwhite. I have even used it for reading some programming books. Text and source code are great however even the black and white illustrations suck when zoomed it. YMMV.
Have you looked at textbooks today? IMHO them make excessive use of colored artwork. I don't think e-readers are a good choice yet, more conventional tablets are it for now.
Plus, apps are or should be a part of the textbook package.
Ever since Microsoft got so many contracts. Somebody somewhere had to dump plenty-O-cash into Apple just to shut the the kid up! These fat cows of welfare breathing companies can't stop inhaling tax dollars faster than they can be extracted. The kids will love them and they will break them, loose them, trade them, and sell them. That is the business angle here, simply a cash grab... Excuse: "Better Learning"
Microsoft should beat them to the punch and give them all free Surface RTs.
So hide the crap teachers behind the face of expensive tablets? This is going to be a great system!
This is ridiculous. You have systemic problems in your education system, so instead of addressing them directly, you throw distracting technology at the problem and hope it goes away. Explain to me how this will aid students in any way except allowing them to play video games in class as well as at home.
The iPads are just the beginning of the cost -- they will need to upgrade their network infrastructure to handle 30,000 iPads wirelessly connecting, license some kind of MDM (Mobile Device Management) software to have some control over the machines, buy cases, probably carts / charging stations, bluetooth keyboards (in order to be compliant with Common Core / PARCC) apps, third party software, server infrastructure to handle a 1:1 environment, provide professional development / teacher training, etc.
And these devices will have a useful life of 3, maybe 4 years, in which time they'll have to replace them all. Network infrastructure has a useful life of 5, maybe 10 years (with minor upgrades and annual licensing costs).
Point is, there are much cheaper options to go 1:1 with devices.