this was all set up years ago when there were hardly any choices. we have hundreds of channels, both tv, the radio, the internet. we don t need government to be in this business at all. jon: i red in a posting from our brain room that npr received government stimulus money a $50,000 grant that allowed i to keep an arts reporter. there are things that the corporation produces that i enjoy myself, but why does it need taxpayer dollars? isn t it survive on it s own two feet? i believe that it can and we should cut the ties, and we need to be serious about balancing our budget and living within our means or we re going to end up like greece or a country like that. we have to live within our means. i think there will be a serious caudry number of people in congress serious about doing that. jon: the budget in public
if you would, dan, and then john, talk to us about the pressure of operating schools on less money with enrollments down and mounting pressure to close the achievement gap? it s like the perfect storm. have you school districts with less money at a time when they re having an increase in the number of children in freeh free and reduced lunch of the because of the economy, when they re having an increase in population as more students from private schools come back because their parents can t afford to pay tuition. so with increased population and costs, we have less revenue and we re trying to transform schools and close the achievement gap. almost an impossible task. what s happening with the federal stimulus dollars? you ve called the stimulus money a shell game. what do you mean by that? that s exactly what happened. we all appreciated the fact a record amount of federal dollars were apportioned to education this year. what actually happened were the states basically took the