money; parents are left to advocate and negotiate for necessities with school superintendents/Boards" You need to get one thing perfectly clear. Yon CANNOT save money in education. Every dollar not spent in education will eventually be spent anyway X10. It will be spent on welfare, EI, prisons, courts, cops, productivity losses, lack of innovation, lower GDP, higher debt and deficit, and eventually higher taxes. Education spending is the one chance we have to avoid all of this. Yes you can spend inefficiently but it is almost impossible to spend to much. Some nations appear to spend less per child but it is because they have less. China for example, spends the world's highest % of GDP on education. If you want to fall seriously behind PR China, the asian tigers and other emeging nations I suggest slashing the education budget. Of course Doug, China and India would have have larger GDP growth, based alone on population, and exports. plus government spending. Impossible to spend too much??? Perhaps when education needs on based on SEC factors, and equity policies that more or less works at the lowest bench marks, always creates the need of more money, to prevent "welfare, EI, prisons, courts, cops, productivity losses, lack of innovation, lower GDP, higher debt and deficit, and eventually higher taxes." What a sorry excuse Doug, and the other advocates of increase expenditures, in the public education system, when none of the policies work for the best interests and the learning needs of students.