Apple Inc. (AAPL): iPads for Students in This Big City District

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has not always been prominent in educational and other school settings, at least in the sense that Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has  leveraged its Windows operating system and related software into a dominant market control in the educational sector, but Apple has found its niche in certain areas.

You will find Macintosh computers in come school computer labs and you may find them in school offices or on teachers’ desks. And iPads have found their place in some schools, providing instructional opportunities for teachers, and sometimes being a valuable  tool for students to put in their backpacks along with their homework.

Well, if Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been wanting to be more involved in the educational system in terms of giving our kids access to the knowledge they need, the company is certainly getting a positive nudge forward with the latest report coming out of Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest district in terms of enrolled students, has just approved a $30 million contract with Apple to provide an iPad to every student in the district, K-12.

For being a premium-priced device, the school board unanimously approved the contract after district staff praised the tablets for having the best quality for the lowest price among devices that lived up to the district’s criteria.

We might just be a little dubious about the district’s criteria for deciding on the best device for students. While we do not profess to have a stance  one way or the other as to whether these devices should be provided by a school district or the parents, we are a bit skeptical about the criteria for determining that the iPad by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is the best quality for the lowest price.

We are not questioning the quality of the devices, but we just wonder how high of criteria the district was citing. Were the criteria essentially specific to the iPad, like the district had its mind made up all along and just needed to find a justification for the high price of the devices, or was there a legitimate bid process and true analysis of several devices and what the students would need or want from the devices for them to be effective educational tools?