Wake County Superior Court Judge Howard Manning Jr. is at it again, this time ordering the state to send $768 million collected from fines to local school districts to help pay for computers. Using a formula I think someone just made up, that works out to about $440 per student, or around $60 million for CMS.
Manning’s ruling is a follow-on to a 2005 state Supreme Court decision which found the state was not setting aside all civil fines toward education as required by the constitution. The state’s last-ditch argument before Manning was that only the six school districts who sued the state should be eligible for the new funds. Manning disagreed — big surprise there — and said every district in the state had been shortchanged.
Following recent trends, I suppose CMS will use the money to buy one massive super computer for the EdCenter. We could keep track of athletic eligibility with it — or lunch menus — or bus routes. I am sure someone at IBM could find a solution that would spend $60 million.
