“Cobb County schools Superintendent Joseph Redden announced his resignation Tuesday evening, ending months of controversy over a groundbreaking technology program that became a litmus test on his leadership,” Kristina Torres and Mary McDonald report for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“‘We’ve got a divided board, we’re spending far too much time (on this),’ Redden, a retired Air Force general who came to Cobb in Nov. 2000, told a reporter. His last day is Wendesday. ‘For the good of the district, this helps us move forward. No individual is more important than the organization.’ In a statement released to the school system’s staff, he said, ‘Clearly, the best interest of the district lies in moving forward to serve the children of Cobb County, and I don’t believe that under current circumstances we are able to do so effectively.’ Redden told staff he hoped they would be able to focus on student achievement without ‘the added distractions that have consumed our energy of late,’ a reference to scrutiny of his role in awarding a multi-million dollar contract to Apple Computer,” Torres and McDonald report.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: So, are the people that ginned this whole thing up finally happy?
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Cobb County Schools Superintendent blasts Apple iBook audit findings – August 16, 2005
Investigation finds Cobb School Board ‘deceived’ the public, Apple iBook deal terminated – August 15, 2005
Cobb County school board pulls plug on 63,000 Apple iBooks plan – August 02, 2005
Judge shuts down 63,000 Apple iBooks for Cobb County students – July 29, 2005
One Cobb County Apple iBook audit expected to finish soon – July 27, 2005
Inquiry into Cobb County Apple iBook bids requested – July 14, 2005
Cobb County iBook saga: allegations that school leaders pressured employees to pick Apple – July 11, 2005
Lawsuit to halt Cobb County’s 63,000 Apple iBooks for education plan goes to court today – July 08, 2005
Cobb County’s Apple iBooks in schools saga continues with lawsuit – June 04, 2005
Lawsuit filed to stop Cobb County’s Apple iBook program – June 01, 2005
Cobb County school board approves Apple Mac plan; could eventually distribute 63,000 iBooks – April 29, 2005
Henrico school board dumps Apple Macs, picks Dells with Windows – April 29, 2005
Cobb County school officials intend to move forward with Apple iBook program – April 21, 2005
Cobb Commission chief urges delay in Apple iBook program, says issue has become too emotional – April 20, 2005
No conflict of interest in ongoing Cobb County Apple iBook saga – April 19, 2005
More controversy in Atlanta-area school district’s plan to buy Apple iBooks – April 16, 2005
Cobb County Georgia approves first phase of plan that could equip schools with 63,000 Apple iBooks – April 15, 2005
Atlanta-area school district on verge of deal for 31,000 Apple iBooks – April 12, 2005
Cobb teachers voice concerns over using Macs for proposed laptop program – March 29, 2005
Cobb County Georgia meeting discusses plan to equip schools with 63,000 Apple iBooks – February 24, 2005
Report: 90 percent of emails opposed to Georgia’s Apple iBook program – February 10, 2005
65,000 Apple iBooks for Georgia schools one of the largest school laptop programs in the country – February 10, 2005
Georgia school district to propose 63,000 Macs for students and teachers – February 07, 2005
What a crock.
One a few people, and one in particular, don’t like the way the money was spent and they use the letter of the law rather than its spirit — and they find a judge who will enforce the letter of the law rather than its spirit — and who get’s hurt? The children. They don’t have any computers. Not Macs. Not HPs. Not IBMs. Not Gateways. Not even Dells. Nothing.
Good going, idiots.
Welcome to the wonderful world of local politics.
“f*ck the kids, I want to keep my money”, Local tax payers.
This story is pathetic. Never in my lifetime have I seen such a frightening tendency in so many people to rabidly oppose anything they don’t agree with or understand. Some people, clearly, are threatened by virtually anything even slightly outside the mainstream.
I wouldn’t be all that surprised if, sooner or later, some moron declares that using a Mac is like being a Communist… positively un-American! Perish the thought.
Sounds like they lost a good man. Hope they don’t get some idiot to replace him – like some doofus sheep who will say “We should buy Dells, no one will contest that, everybody buys Dells”
Brando,
Please do keep your money. We will gladly take care of your work, so you don’t need to train your children.
When we open our new local shops in the US you can clean our floors.
Sincerely,
India Institute of Technology
Class of 2027
I don’t recall my district asking me if I wanted to use Dell?
to the simpletons whose comments are without a factual basis.
this “good man” was given the boot based on the results of an investigative team he and the boaard hired.
Folks, it’s Cobb County, Georgia. The area that elected Newt Gingrich. The school system that wanted to put evolution “warining labels” in biology books. They’re red-state idiots.
Typical politician spend unnecessary money on a useless project with no results, then when it starts to heat up resign so it will not effect his record. I still think all the school board should be arrested and prosecuted for sighting riot and stealing from the tax payers. Any laptop should be worth $50 in parts if it did not work. There is not a one of them that should be allowed to participate in the education of a child. Dumb in and dumb out.
I love the Mac as much as anyone, but this is ridiculous… From all the whining around here, you’d think it was impossible to provide a quality education without a computer at every desk! Who cares whether the laptops are from Apple or Dell when the kids are going to be mind-numbingly ignorant when they graduate anyway? No amount of money dumped into the bottomless pit of technology is going to save the wretched public school system in this country…
-ap
Morgan=Terrorist!
MacGoog,
You are confusing this situation with Henrico County!
Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.
Hey, ap, are you putting forth the utterly shocking notion that we need actual flesh-n-blood TEACHERS who are competent and able to get ideas and a love for learning across to their young students? How oddly refreshing…
Morgan=Terrorist!
LOL, Christoff, I can only assume you’re being sarcastic, if not you’re no better than Pat Robertson, a prime example of the education system if there ever was.
MacGoog, it was Henrico county with the 50 dollar laptops. Cobb tried to buy Apple and people screamed.
You know this saga and the other one in Hendrick county really go to show we need some sort of IQ test to qualify these people for office.
If you put cr*p in charge, it just makes everyone in that county cr*p.
Then they elect cr*p and the cycle repeats itself.
For example just watch this video to see how really bad it can get.
http://www.bpninc.com/evideo/video_mac_hi.mov
Now you know why Johnny, Jane, LaQwan and LaShonda cannot:
Read
Write
Spell
Calculate
Nothing in the US is more captive to the worst sort of politics than public education.
The schools leader had been charged by his board with the mission of moving his district toward greatness in education. He did. The board learned it couldn’t handle moving forward with greatness. The board yielded to a bully, let the bully wreak havoc. The entire board should resign out of self-respect now. Duty calls for such.
The former governor’s clique has shown how much of a loser they can be now. He can rot in hell alongside his newspaper crony. Here’s an irony: the teachers of the state managed to can the errant governor during the last election. His chances of a re-election now? Zip, nada, a big zero. He has demonstrated how he, too, can’t handle greatness.
The iPod generation is best known for being royally screwed over. Here in Cobb County we have the screwing all bundled up in superstition, ignorance and prejudice. We’re anti-education. If you want your children to learn, live anywhere else.
I wonder how Redden’s leadership style that was obviously effective in the Air Force translated to local politics. He goes from an environment where everyone under him jumps to attention and is at his beck and call to one where respect isn’t automatically granted based upon rank.
It would have been interesting to see it in action.
This is actually the case, at least in Texas. I am a teacher, and I have mandates on technologu education. The mandates want all children using computers in all subjects — almost on a daily basis if you read the curriculum and mandates. I have ONE computer in my classroom. We have two labs, one is down the vast majority of the time, and the other has about 25% of computers down most of the time.
Now, I believe that both Windows and Macs have a place in the educational system. I believe that there should be labs using both machines. Students need exposure to both platforms. That way they are ready for whatever they will use after high school. Those that go to art institutes must know the Mac platform.
Now, form an IT standpoint. Our labs would not be down so much if they were Macs. I don’t think there is an argument there. I think that our one lab that is always down should be replaced with Macs while leaving the other lab as Windows. That would give students exposre to both platforms. However, my district has a NO MAC policy. We cannot by Macs with district funds. This is because the current head of technology has no Mac experience and, quite frankly, is afraid of them.
A local school to us just used grant money to buy iBooks for every student in the school. That is exactly what I would do. These laptops will run for far longer than their Windows counterparts. Besides, when the students take them home and get on the Internet, the iBooks won’t get viruses, etc.
MDN Magic Word “almost” — Cobb County ALMOST had a good thing going.
I started commenting here, but decided to blog about it instead. Entry will be up later this morning.
my take
MacConvert – I’m sure glad you’re not teaching my kids. Your spelling is horrible and your syntax is even worse. Take some extended education now.
Knowing a specific platform is false requirement for higher education. One can do art, math, physical sciences on any platform. What about UNIX and Linux?
What happened to learning? We’re stuck in training kids to use computers, not teaching them to learn their subject matter. The computer is a tool, the means to learning the content, not the content itself.
I bet the baby boomer knew their core subjects better using pencils and paper then kids do now with computers. Look at all of the coutries with out the computer resources in schools that score markedly better than the US on core subjects.
I don’t think our lagging has much to do with technology being lacking….
teach – if you noticed mac converts “spelling errors” were mere typos. Something anyone can do while in a hurry. Let’s see the u is right next to the y, very easy mistake and letters flipped, also very easy to do. My god it’s just a board! Get over yourself.