Spending Restraint in Education

Mr. Brightside at Morgan's Riflemen has a great post up about school budgets. While it points to specifically the Valley, the entire state is probably affected the same way; our local school budgets are getting bloated. As Republicans, we need to establish fiscal restraint at all levels of government, and starting with the local ones would probably help the most.

Today too many people think money is the answer to education, but its not. Most Valley schools spend much less than systems throughout Virginia and still have equal or better SOL scores than those schools that spent alot more.
Wasteful spending is everywhere in school budgets. For example, schools don't need to be built every few years just b/c people want a nice new building. Thats wasteful. As long as a building meets capacity requirements, keep it in good shape and it will last a long time.
Same goes for books. Last time I checked, math doesn't change. Why then do our school systems buy new books every few years even when there is nothing wrong with their current books? Again, money could be saved if books were replaced every 10 years instead of 3-5.

We need to hold our local elected officials accountable for this wasteful spending problem and try to right the ship. Encourage your school boards, supervisors and city council members to slow the spending growth that exists in school budgets. If everyone does that, it will go a long way toward curbing spending growth at the state and national levels as well.