Unified School District says $42 million iPad program helped raise graduation rates

In 2013 voters in the Coachella Valley Unified School District in Southern California approved a $42 million bond measure that supplied 20,000 iPads to all of its students, the Wall Street Journal reports. The controversial measure has now been confirmed as a success, according to the school’s superintendent. He credits the iPad program with raising the graduation rate from 65% of students in 2011 to 82% of students in 2015. In addition to giving iPads to every student, the school district also took the novel step of fitting school buses with Wi-Fi and parking them in poorer neighborhoods so families with no home broadband could get free access to the Internet.