I don't want to defend LAUSD; they made a hasty decision that a lot of experts criticized at the time. But, it's a big oversimplification to speculate on why the per device cost is higher than retail. They were probably getting the device below retail, but that cost included other things not mentioned in the article. The cost may include AppleCare, pre-configuration by Apple (they will do that with large enough orders), it might have more storage than the base model, include sales tax etc.

The $200 for the Pearson content that doesn't seem that off the mark. Basically we are looking at Textbook costs here which have always been enormously high in any format. The way the textbook publishers have the textbook licenses written for electronic copies are such that the license is to the student not the device and are not transferable, so it's a terrible deal because when Johnny completes the third grade and doesn't need that curriculum anymore they have to buy a new license for Billy when he starts third grade the following year year. Under the old model they could at least reuse the textbooks, but this deal actually seems slightly better since the curriculum was provided for 3 years at $200 per student. That said I loath Pearson with a deep passion and I wish them all the bad press this brings them.

Four in Six? Can we not reduce our fractions? Two out of three.

I have a true upgrade disk for 10.5 and it will not install on a blank drive. You can perform a clean install, but there must be OS 10.4 installed on the drive before installation will commence. It is a huge pain. I wouldn't be surprised if this was what they are selling for $30.

Look, I work for a school district, granted I am the youngest systems engineer, but I actually have to side with the students. I was a student once too and I understand the thrill/curiosity of their actions. I would rather learn from the 13 students who committed this "crime" than punish them. I say the district should find out how the password was compromised and learn from that it was probably a bad choice for a password in the first place (how about 34hysErt& instead). It was the school that F'd up. Felony charges will haunt these students for some time, but the fact is they out smarted people like me. From what I understand the students in question just wanted to see a few "inappropriate" photos and install some software that they were curious about. Perhaps their punishment could be to help the IT folks to keep this from happening again instead of punishing them. This is a very natural thing to do in high school. Authority sucks when your 15 and this kind of punishment really doesn't help that attitude. IMHO the more restrictions you impose the more people want to circumvent them.