Starving the schools to death

The Florence School Board has voted to close its schools and sell its assets because it doesn't have enough money to continue operating. AP story.

The Republican strategy of squeezing local schools between revenue caps and inadequate state funding has claimed an entire school district. It's a graphic example of what conservative strategists mean when they proclaim they will "starve the beast." Without revenue, governmental units (the metaphorical beast), including schools, cannot function.

The budget passed by the GOP-run legislature will drastically slash state support for Wisconsin's public schools. For the tiny Florence district, it would cut $305,000 over the next two years. List by district.

Starving the beast is no longer an extremist fantasy. The first victims are the children in Florence.

Who is next? It could well be the surrounding school districts that will have to absorb the children from Florence. Some of the nearby districts have only a few hundred students.

Putting even 100 of Florence's 600 students into another little district, while the receiving district waits three years for the mechanisms of the state school funding system to respond to the increase in costs, will put pressure on the receiving district to close.

The superintendents in the Florence area anticipate a domino effect if Florence goes through with this. Then what's next?