Bob Robb's blog post today is excellent:

How could significant cuts in K-12 state spending be managed to minimize adverse effects on student learning?

The answer is to couple them with a radical decentralization in the management of public schools. In essence, turn every school into a charter school, independently managed but held accountable to state curriculum and testing requirements, with complete freedom of choice about school attendance by parents and students.

Having resource allocation decisions made by principals and teachers who have to compete for students will do far more to make sure the cuts occur where they will least damage student learning than leaving those decisions up to school boards and school district staffs. Make those decisions bottom-up, not top-down.

Here is the full post:

http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/RobertRobb/64748