If you have kids or grandkids with various iPads or iPhones, you probably know the almost daily frustration of "Mo-o-o-o-o-ommmm, have you seen my iPhone?" The good news is that Apple's security features make them easy to find and basically worthless (except for certain parts) if they're stolen.
Nevertheless, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) managed to lose an incredible number of iPads and laptops — roughly 77,000 of them. Not 77,000 total, since the massive unified district started supplying kids and teachers with pricey computers a few years ago. They lost 77,000 in one school year. That's roughly $23 million worth of missing stuff.
CPS is the nation's fourth-largest school district, with around 340,000 students and 22,000 teachers. All told, CPS managed to mysteriously misplace more than one laptop or iPad for every fifth student or teacher. Every class of 16 students lost, on average, 3.4 computers. There's something fishy going on but I'll get to that in a moment.
The trendline stinks, too.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported this week that while 3 percent of CPS's "technology assets" went missing in the 2018-19 school year, the figure was 8 percent in 2020-21 and 11 percent in 2021-22. Either students have gotten almost four times more careless, or somebody has found a juicy new revenue stream.
Notice I did not say that students lost 77,000 laptops and iPads, although surely a few careless students really did misplace their equipment. But a couple of things don't add up.
While some computers turned up during inventory checks, many more did not. "CPS rarely used a tracking system to find its computers despite spending $3 million on it," the Sun-Times reported.
Well, why not?
I don't know what kind of laptops CPS issues but I know a thing or two about the security features Apple builds into its iPads and iPhones. Once a user is signed into a device, the thing quickly becomes a brick in anybody else's hands. If your device goes missing, launch the FindMy app on another device (or even just a web browser) and tell your missing iPad to play the I'M HERE UNDER THE SOFA CUSHION AGAIN sound. It's quite loud. If FindMy can't locate it, just click the Mark As Lost button and your lost item is effectively bricked. Just as soon as the lost iPad re-connects to any WiFi network, it will report its location.
Apple's security can be a real pain in the keister sometimes but Cupertino added it after a rash of iPhone thefts several years ago. The thefts stopped cold. The only two ways to defeat FindMy are to either completely sign out of each device or to have the six-digit passcode.
For thousands of iPads to go missing from a single school district, even one as large as CPS, reeks of a theft ring.
Here's the real kicker, though. CPS didn't pay for all those laptops and iPads — we all did.
"Thrust into online learning during the pandemic," the Sun-Times said, "Chicago Public Schools spent hundreds of millions in federal COVID-19 relief money on laptops and other devices over the past few years, heralding a monumental shift for a school system in which computer access was limited to one where it’s now plentiful."
No wonder CPS didn't bother using their $3 million tracking system; everything was paid for with Other People's Money. If there was more money to be had "losing" a few tens of thousands of OPM computers, so much the better.
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