A huge injection of public money into an unproven educational tool - with the profits flowing to a corporation well able to afford the cost should it have any faith in the efficacy of the approach.

How do you know that Apple didn't prove their efficacy to the city?

You're comment comes off as incredibly naive - why should Apple have to foot the cost? Are you suggesting that all technology products should be given for free to educational institutions unless they're educational efficacy can be proven?

I fail to see how this is different from schools buying desktop or laptop computers. They're still computers running applications - which is where the true educational component comes into play. If the software is worthless than sure, it's probably pointless but with a working software solution than why can't this be effective?