An article in the NY Times is reporting on the not-so-surprising predicament that schools systems across the country are finding themselves in: broke.  No money.  Or at least not enough to carry on the way they have been.  School systems in the north, south, east, and west are facing budget cuts, program reductions, and lay-offs.  Here's a thought.  It may be sort of radical in a country bumpkin-kind of way.  Don't cut the people or the important courses.  Cut some of the stuff.  The junk.  Schools spends thousands of dollars every year on copies and copy machines.  What did we do before those things....we taught and wrote a lot but we survived.  Many school systems are now purchasing multiple copies of textbooks for each student.  One for the classroom and one for home, so the kids don't have so much to carry.  Consider it a workout.  (Maybe we can fight obesity with the First Lady with this approach.)  It seems to me that when it comes time to pare down, to cut back to the very basics that we overlook just exactly what the basics are.  Students ought to be educated in the academics and exposed to the arts and vocational trades.  Beyond that the resposibility falls to the parents.  And the rest of the stuff is just fluff, excess, and another dollar sign.