Irony: Detroit Free Press touts 40,000 "free" laptops to DPS kids days after reporting DPS laptops being hocked at pawn shops

from theblogprof by The blogprof


Irony: Detroit Free Press touts 40,000 "free" laptops to DPS kids days after reporting DPS laptops being hocked at pawn shops: "The Free Press headline today: Laptops for DPS: 'Today we opened their classrooms to the world'

The Free Press news of 5 days ago: DPS says teacher tried to pawn school laptop

From the latter piece:

Detroit Public Schools officials say they have suspended a Durfee Elementary School teacher who allegedly tried to pawn her district-owned laptop computer at one of the biggest, most popular pawnshops in Detroit.

The DPS Office of the Inspector General investigation said Karen Drysdale-Oriucci, a DPS teacher since 1994, went to American Jewelry and Loan on Greenfield Road on Wednesday to pawn the netbook computer she received from the district on Dec. 17.

Store staff refused to pay the teacher for the netbook –- which is engraved with the DPS “I’m In” logo on its cover -– instead confiscating it and contacting DPS officials.

But somehow, from today's news, this is going to go much better:

Detroit Public Schools students will have access to 35,000 laptop computers in school starting next month in what the officials are calling an unmatched infusion of technology in the district.

DPS teachers already have received 5,000 new ASUS Netbook laptops and training as a result of the $49 million technology program funded by the federal stimulus money...

Let's see - DPS only graduates 1 in 4 students and the vast majority of the kids can't read their own diplomas. And those that make it through are not at all prepared for either college or career. Those not dropping out have such bad scores on national standardized tests that Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, had this to say:

'These numbers are only slightly better than what one would expect by chance as if the kids had never gone to school and simply guessed at the answers'

The district was until recently run by an illiterate. The emergency financial manager declared that only 1 out of 3 students can be serviced because of obscene union benefits that are sucking the district dry. Which is why this is happening: Detroit Public Schools No Longer Preparing Kids For College, Instead Some Are Being Prepped For Cosmetology, Culinary Arts. With all that in tow, and far more (hit the 'DPS' tag in this blog if you want to be depressed), how is an infusion of laptops for students that can neither red nor write going to do anything but waste taxpayer money. Oh, that's right - it's stimulus money. So this $49 million is going to be thrown down the proverbial toilet just like the hundreds of billions before it.

UPDATE: Curiously, the initial freep article I read this morning stated 40,000 laptops plus 5,000 desktops (WSLS in Virginia still states the 40,000 number). The number got reduced to 35,000 laptops later in the morning when I wrote the above. Did 5,000 laptops already go missing?

UPDATE #2: From a few months ago: Laptops stolen from Detroit schools

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