Windy,

The cost per student for facilities and administrators should be and is a perfect example of how we should be leveraging our spend. It is an almost pure example of economies of scale at work. While there has been consolidation it has been far outpaced by the reduction in the number of students and since you brought up counties they too need to be consolidated. There has not been a county consolidation but there needs to be. There are 105 counties and 300 school districts in Kansas. Both of these figures could be trimmed significantly without impacting, materially, the general populace's level of service. My kids are on the bus for one hour and get up at 6am and their school is less than 10 miles away! The increase in traffic accident risk would still put that risk FAR below the risk kids in metro areas are exposed to. Eventually the inhabitants would move closer to the school if it became too much of a burden. I would advocate four day school weeks too. There are challenges but it is time we start working smart and figuring ways out to better utilize our dollars and not spend "just because we always have." Do you think there are no absentee land owners in western Kansas? There are probably as many or more than there are resident land owners! We, I am own, pay your property taxes and don't use any of the services but even worse we don't get to vote on how our tax dollars are spent!

In 2009 we will see some really tough economic conditions. Not unprecendented as it will not be as bad as "The Great Depression" but yet and still there will be many, many people without jobs and many, many government spending cuts. Why not be proactive and start figuring out how we can put our dollars to better use and spend less of them along the way.