Los Angeles Unified schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho introduced \u201cEd\u201d the AI chatbot amid fanfare in March 2024, touting a revolutionary tool that would put the district at the leading edge of school technology. <\/p>\n
But the multimillion-dollar project failed within months and never fully launched.<\/p>\n
Now, the deal to bring Ed to the nation\u2019s second-largest school district \u2014 and Carvalho\u2019s longtime association with Debra Kerr, the Florida consultant who helped sell the technology to the district \u2014 is under scrutiny as part of a sweeping FBI investigation that included early morning raids Wednesday at Carvalho\u2019s San Pedro home and district office and a home owned by Kerr.<\/p>\n
The LAUSD contract was inked with a Boston-based startup called AllHere. But behind the scenes the company was collapsing and ultimately declared bankruptcy. Its founder, Joanna Smith-Griffin, was indicted on allegations that she defrauded investors. The charges were filed eight months after she and Carvalho stood side by side during the chatbot unveiling.<\/p>\n
The raids mark a dramatic expansion into the activities and records of Carvalho and Kerr, who has filed a claim saying that the now-defunct AllHere owes her $630,000.<\/p>\n
Neither Carvalho nor Kerr have been charged with a crime. The FBI has not released information about the nature or scope of the investigation; search warrant affidavits are sealed. <\/p>\n
Sources with knowledge of the probe told The Times that Carvalho, not LAUSD, is a focus of the investigation. The raids are connected to the failed chatbot contract and fall under the broad category of financial issues, the sources said.<\/p>\n
Neither Carvalho nor Kerr responded to requests for comment. Carvalho, who is typically the public face of the school system, has been silent. The Los Angeles Board of Education was scheduled to meet Thursday afternoon and the sole agenda item was \u201cPublic Employment: General Superintendent of Schools.\u201d<\/p>\n
The failed company behind the chatbot<\/p>\n
Smith-Griffin was indicted in November 2024. Federal court filings in the Southern District of New York show that hearings in her case have repeatedly been pushed out after requests from both prosecutors and defense attorneys.<\/p>\n
The most recent request for an adjournment of a scheduled status conference came in September. The prosecutor stated that additional time would \u201callow the parties to discuss a potential disposition for this case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lou Shapiro, a well-known federal defense lawyer who is not involved in the case, cautioned that the \u201cTrump administration tends to be trigger happy with raids.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said people should not jump to conclusions about who may be guilty of wrongdoing. <\/p>\n
Trump administration targets fraud<\/p>\n
The Trump administration and Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for Southern California under Trump, is especially focused on fraud. The administration has been accused \u2014 including by former federal law-enforcement employees \u2014 of targeting perceived political enemies.<\/p>\n
Carvalho could fall on that list. He has been outspoken in the school system\u2019s unflagging defense of immigrant rights and its criticism of Trump actions, including the administration\u2019s opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion programs.<\/p>\n
Yet the federal case against Smith-Griffin began before Trump took office.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is likely this is going somewhere,\u201d said Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor. \u201cYou don\u2019t raid the superintendent\u2019s home without a plan going forward.\u201d If the target also happens to be \u201ca political enemy of the administration,\u201d the investigation is \u201clikely to be a priority,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Carvalho-Kerr connection<\/p>\n
Carvalho and Kerr had a professional association going back to his long tenure as superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, according to their social media and Miami news reports. Kerr promoted education products for a variety of firms. <\/p>\n
A figure within the industry said it would not be out of order for someone with her skills and connections to command a 10% commission on products for which she secured a contract. <\/p>\n
Her demand for payment of $630,000 from AllHere, cited in bankruptcy documents, is roughly in line with 10% of the value of its contract with L.A. Unified.<\/p>\n
Kerr is listed as an AllHere creditor in bankruptcy documents. In terms of AllHere\u2019s contract with L.A. Unified, the district is an alleged victim: AllHere never delivered various contracted services.<\/p>\n
L.A. Unified, however, has consistently said it was not financially harmed. Officials said they paid about $3 million out of $6 million in contracts, and that specific services and products were delivered for the $3 million that was paid. <\/p>\n
A surprising collaboration<\/p>\n
AllHere had limited experience in artificial intelligence \u2014 and in 2023 AI was largely a nascent industry, particularly in education. AllHere was best known for devising an automated system that could deliver messages to students and families that were individualized, but fell well short of what is commonly understood to be artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Such messages would be generated, for example, if a student missed school.<\/p>\n
One client of the company was Miami-Dade. Messages to students also might touch on academic issues and social-emotional development, according to bidding documents of the Florida school system.<\/p>\n
AllHere apparently signed a contract with Miami-Dade after Carvalho\u2019s departure from the school system. The company later defaulted on that contract, records show.<\/p>\n
Carvalho has said he had no role in the selection of AllHere to work in L.A. Unified. The company was chosen during the district\u2019s legally mandated contract bidding process, he said. <\/p>\n
AllHere competed against two other bidders for the work. Under L.A. Unified rules, a panel would have reviewed and scored the bids. Underpinning the deal was the plan to begin a long-term collaboration: The L.A. Unified product could be marketed to other school systems \u2014 with profits and licensing fees shared by AllHere and LAUSD.<\/p>\n
In later defending the selection of AllHere, a senior L.A. Unified official said the district was not alone in being fooled. The official pointed to positive press clippings about the company and its founder as evidence.<\/p>\n
Celebration at first<\/p>\n
The raids were an astonishing turn for the endeavor. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a technology that becomes a personal assistant to students,\u201d Carvalho said at a demonstration at Roybal Learning Center, west of downtown, in March of 2024. \u201cIt demystifies the navigation of the day … crunches the data in a way that it brings what students need.\u201d<\/p>\n
In December of 2022, Carvalho was already talking about his vision for each student having an individual academic acceleration plan. In his mind, this goal soon became married to the concept of artificial intelligence and an accessible interface that was to become Ed.<\/p>\n
The announcement put L.A. Unified on the front page of a quickly evolving tech landscape.<\/p>\n
Carvalho subsequently appeared with Smith-Griffin at an influential education technology conference. <\/p>\n
But only a small number of schools tried it out, each with a sample of students and parents. And the company already was collapsing behind the scenes, its technology quickly being surpassed by companies better resourced to refine and advance their products. <\/p>\n
By June \u2014 three months after Ed\u2019s high-profile debut \u2014 most of AllHere\u2019s staff was laid off. In the bankruptcy filing, one of the largest assets at the time was an LAUSD contract valued at $2.88 million. Criminal charges against Smith-Griffin followed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Unified schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho introduced \u201cEd\u201d the AI chatbot amid fanfare in March 2024, touting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[91449,86402,1436,91634,1804,91174,4579,91633,87370,68834,48,52,51,91631,91632,47,50,49,85439,4574,1695],"class_list":{"0":"post-196639","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-allhere","9":"tag-carvalho","10":"tag-case","11":"tag-chatbot-smith-griffin","12":"tag-company","13":"tag-debra-kerr","14":"tag-district","15":"tag-ed","16":"tag-fbi-raid","17":"tag-l-a-unified","18":"tag-la","19":"tag-la-headlines","20":"tag-la-news","21":"tag-lausd-contract","22":"tag-lausd-supt","23":"tag-los-angeles","24":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","25":"tag-los-angeles-news","26":"tag-school-system","27":"tag-student","28":"tag-trump-administration"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}