iPads break in the hands of kids, taxpayers pay

The government uses taxpayers' money in many ways which some of those taxpayers object to. Ever hear of Obamacare? Or any recent war? Seriously, buying Apple products when some taxpayers boycott them is hardly a "worst part" of anything.

As for why they bought "one of the most fragile brands" - well, they didn't know that, they didn't do research. They go by the same time-tested rule I knew as "no manager ever got fired for buying IBM."
If they'd bought some no-name Chinese tablets and half of those broke (as they would have, these are children after all), people would be all "Who's the idiot who decided to skimp and get cheapo junk? If you'd gotten genuine Apples this wouldn't have happened!"

But yeah, the stupid thing is getting tablets for schoolkids. Besides being too fragile, they're also far too toy-like. Should have given them desktops for home, if they absolutely had to bring them into the information age.

This reminds me of how my a school in my country got netbooks for the kids. The first education they got on it can be pretty much summed up as 'The Internet is for porn' as some were caught with downloaded porn soon after.