recapture library and and the rest by imposing mandatory homeschooling oversight regulations. Will this seduction succeed in educational eliminating independent homeschoolers services and derailing the growing free market in education? Economics and the history of private schools versus government schoolsprovide ample lessons on what to expect. With more students getting library even and busier these days, the new library system in Bismarck public schools has been a godsend. The new system, which went online this fall, gives students, as well as anyone with an Internet educational connection, access services to the library and all its functions. with kids today, library so many and and educational work or are involved wit activities, services so this will give them access when they get home at night," said Konnie Wightman, library the district''s library media coordinator. The school district was using the Central Dakota Library Network and an operating system called Info*Lynx, and but the cost to

In that year, which was some 40 years after the start of a massive effort by reformers to consolidate districts into larger administrative units, there were about 120,000 individual school districts educational in the U.S. This meant that on average there were only two schools per services district. Now, that is really local control. Even now, after consolidation has continued for another 60 years, we still have about 15,000 separate school districts -- each with primary control over financing, staffing, and setting curriculum standards for our schoolsCertainly state governments have taken steps over the years to assert greater control over these matters in K-12 schooling, and even library the federal government has made tiny and tentative moves in this direction. and But all these efforts have been undertaken in the face of enormous resistance by local communities, which have vigorously fought to preserve the autonomy of their schools.

maintain educational the system hampered the district''s effort services to offer other resources. It''s not that CDLN was terrible, but the new system allowed the district to spread its money further. People can now put books on hold via the Web site and can library search and the library''s database. It also offers Electric Library that lets students research topics through sources such as newspapers, magazines and books. The students really like it, and the new features," educational said Bismarck High library media specialist services Charlotte Hill. very user friendly." library One of the new options that has made life easier for students is called the book bag, Hill said. Students can a topic search and then drop each book title that they want into their book bag on the computer screen. Theym,can then make a printout of the titles in a bibliography format and collect and their books. They weren''t able to make a printout before," Hill said. They had educational and services to

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