A fortune for iPads, but not enough for math books | The Compost Bin | Forums

huh, and I thought this was just a problem in Maine, they can afford laptops for the kids, but no books

Something was missing last week from a seventh-grade math class at Palms Middle School in West Los Angeles.

It wasn't the students; they were at their desks.

It wasn't teacher Bruce Kravets; he was eager to dive in, as he has been for 45 years.

But there were no textbooks.

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.

Yep, you can add this little problem to the many woes of L.A. Unified. I'm not sure where you would rank this calamity, given the implosion of a $1-billion iPad plan and the hapless multimillion-dollar student tracking system that exasperated teachers and students, and left Jefferson High youngsters parked in an auditorium without 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?

more here : http://www.latimes.c.....olumn.html