RALEIGH – We’ve been down this road before. The drive wasn’t pretty and the destination turned out to be a ghost town.
The Triangle Business Journal is reporting that Sen. Vernon Malone of Wake County and Rep. Joe Tolson of Edgecombe County have filed a bill to create the “School Connectivity Initiative.” Its aim would be “to connect all local school administrative units into a statewide network that ensures broadband connectivity to all schools and classrooms.” The initial cost to taxpayers would be $48 million, a downpayment on a three-year effort at $121 million and an eventual price tag for the initiative in the range of $200 million to $300 million.
If this sounds somewhat familiar, you’ve been paying attention. Years ago, the Department of Public Instruction convinced state lawmakers and the Hunt administration that a new computer and networking system for the public schools would cost only $54 million and revolutionize record keeping, teacher planning, and student tracking. The result was NC WISE (Window of Information on Student Education), which has cost more than twice the original estimate so far, will cost $250 million eventually, and has yet to realize its original promise.
One of the consultants for NC WISE wrote, in an abundance of euphemistic delicacy, that education officials had been “naïve in estimating the level of effort it would take to make the transition” from the previous system. A clearer way of putting it is the NC WISE was a confusing mess.
The new effort appears to be more about technology-based instruction than record-keeping and teacher planning, admittedly. But North Carolina’s recent experience with technology purchases and contracts remains relevant and cautionary. As TBJ reported, five of the 10 largest IT projects commissioned by state government agencies in recent years exceeded their original budgets by a total of 65 percent, or more than $200 million.
I’m hardly an IT geek. But I’ve talked at length to the experts and experienced my own series of technology investments and computer upgrades in my organization. It’s important not to yield to the common temptation to want to have the latest and the gee-whizziest technology, regardless of whether such technology will save time or money or help an organization accomplish its fundamental objectives. In the case of the School Connectivity Initiative, its goals include the installation of digital whiteboards, data projectors, document cameras, and “a technology facilitator” at every public school.
Are public schools failing to impart basic skills to North Carolina students because teachers have to write on blackboards and can’t do PowerPoint presentations with the flick of a button? No, of course not.
In the context of the many billions of dollars spent annually on North Carolina public schools, a $300 million capital expenditure on IT may not seem like much, but it translates into lots of new school buildings or textbooks for a growing state. I hope that state officials will look before they leap this time, setting clear priorities in networking public schools and holding contractors accountable for cost overruns and program incompatibilities. And I hope they won’t get carried away thinking that the School Connectivity Initiative has anything much to do with improving educational outcomes.
I have absolutely no legitimate reason to be hopeful. Just felt like being optimistic today.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.