$70 per student per day

I was reading a welcome message by Des Moines Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Nancy Sebring (http://www.dmps.k12.ia.us/schoolboard/1sebring-index.htm) and her State of the Schools speech entitled. "EDUCATING DES MOINES. THEN. NOW. TOMORROW." (http://www.dmps.k12.ia.us/schoolboard/1stateoftheschools07.pdf) from October of '07.

From these two sources, I retrieved some facts that paint a picture. Here, let me help you with that brush.

The budget for school year '07/'08 was $385,500,000.00 (that's 385-point-5 Million dollars). There are 30,000 students and 5,000 staff. That seems like a lot of money and a lot of staff, doesn't it?

I think so. I'll break the big numbers down into the most singular form possible for context and to help us get our mind around what they represent. Let's start by figuring the per-student dollar figures. It's $12,850.00 per year and $71.39 per student per day for 180 days. There's a 6:1 student-to-staff ratio.

It takes the Des Moines Public School District more than $70 per day, per student, to teach the three Rs. Amazing!

Another way to look at this, in somewhat equivelent terms, each member of the school staff could be paid $77,000 to handle six kids for 180 days per year. That actually seems pretty doable. And you wouldn't need actual teachers; just teaching facilitators. Each TF could pay a monthly fee and get all curriculum materials via a teaching server on the Internet. Student logins, attendance recording, testing, etc., all done by computer, with you as their facilitator/principal/custodian/cook.

Imagine that you're one of the TFs. You'll have to hold class at your house because you (and 4,999 others) are receiving the balance of the annual school budget to take care of all six students' educational needs.

You're gonna have to buy a few things, like computers, desks, supplies and internet access, but you could still perform OK in an average house. No bussing required because the students probably live within a block or two.

Might want to install a basketball hoop.

HOT LUNCH PROGRAM
You don't have to buy their lunch (unless they can't afford), because the district doesn't have to. You do have to prepare lunch though. That's OK because the $210 per week the students bring you to make lunch will easily cover all the hotdogs, hamburgers, mac & cheese, tader triangles and fish portions you'll be needing. Really, a pan of boiling water and an oven are all you really need to cook school-like food.

Smartphone Start-Ups Have a Friend in This Fund - NYTimes.com

Smartphone Start-Ups Have a Friend in This Fund - NYTimes.com

This could be something. iFund invests in select startup companies that write applications for the iPhone. To give you an idea of popularity of these apps, Apple's iPhone App Store has served 60 million of then since the store's launch last month. Blackberry maker RIM (Research in Motion) sees this trend and will announce a yet-to-be-named fund specializing in developers of applications for its smart phone.

Are we paying attention? One thing we don't fully appreciate about hundreds of millions of smartphones in users' hands is that they have eyes, ears, know their location and are connected to the Internet. Developers can leverage these assets to unimaginable ends -- with potentially questionable aims, possibly creating a transparent world or the mother of all big brothers.

Gannett 2Q profit falls by 36 percent

I don't believe the paper's decline is because of any perceived liberal bias, dittoheads. Fewer readers get their information from print because there are so many free and instant sources -- including this web site. 1. Local delivery audiences are dying off -- literally; and 2. local advertisers don't understand how to market to an audience that's obviously shifting to online sources. Consider that a typical newspaper reporting staff today is comprised of two-thirds online content producers.

That's telling. And it lends a lot of credence to the Craigslist argument in the comment section of this story; my baby boomer mother uses it.

And partly because...it's the economy, stupid.

This is an awkward time for traditional media, but I assure you that "liberal bias" is nothing more than a branding campaign aimed at the feeble-minded.