New Jersey School Funding Fiasco
As a big part of the federal “Race to the Top” program, many schools were meant to receive additional funding to help improve the overall quality of those places. Even so, New Jersey didn’t offer the correct data for such a big program.
Not only that, but they also forgot to take into consideration the budget information, which basically compared the 2008 results with 2009 (if you ask me, a very expensive mistake). Eventually, the state missed out on no less than $400 million worth of funding.
The 2005 Denver Airport Computerized Baggage-Handling Fiasco
In 2005, the Denver Airport was ready for an upgrade. That’s why they adopted a new computerized and automated system to handle baggage and baggage claims. However, it failed miserably. Software failures basically made the system “eat” people’s luggage.
And ever since no designer fully anticipated just how complicated things might prove to be, they didn’t think adding any recovery or backup systems was necessary. There was no such thing as coping with or rebooting after failures, and the whole trouble cost all those people more than $410 million, which is very expensive. If there’s any lesson we should take from this, you need to think of a backup system, no matter what!
