I am not sure why the communications staff at the NC Department of Public Instruction wrote the following headline for an April 1, 2009 press release:
North Carolina Public Schools Complete NC WISE Deployment; NC WISE is Largest Technology Project in Public Schools’ History
There are two things to know about the history of NC WISE, a statewide student information system. While it is the largest technology project in public schools’ history, it is certainly the most expensive, costing taxpayers around $250 million. Second, teachers that I have talked to really don’t like it.
And contrary to the title of the press release, the text of the release indicates that NC WISE is not quite complete. Of the state’s 115 school systems, the two largest (Wake and CMS) will not be linked to the NC WISE system until June. Thus, the NC WISE celebration may be a bit premature.
