You know Bleacher, if that is the case, it would seem a simple adjustment to the law making the lottery money go to the schools OVER AND ABOVE their initial budget would be a reasonable fix. What is also happening, down here at least, is that parents are being asked to contribute additional money to keep some of the schools programs ie 20-1 student ratio, etc going. Personally, I have some problems with that. First, I already contribute, its called "taxes". Second of all, more affluent communities can get a significant advantage. Most disturbing to me is who is controlling these "donations". Many well meaning parents contribute with no thought as to who is holding the purse strings, etc. As bad as the government can be in handling our money, I wouldn't necessarily trust an indivual or group of them without some checks and balances. Now my wife does contribute her time (and a lot of it) to volunteer at the school and we will buy the teacher supplies through out the year. But just to blindly keep throwing money at the problem, whether it be through taxes or donations, I think just perpetuates the real problem which, in my humble opinion, is a gross mismanagement of funds. Hey, maybe we should put Sabean in charge of the schools, he seems to do OK with a budget! :D