CNN is reporting today on its web site that due to a miscalculation in the school district budget for Dallas, Texas, officials were forced to lay off 375 teachers and 40 counselors and assistant principals yesterday. Another 460 teachers were transferred to other schools within the district.

At least one girl was crying, in the article, as she said good-bye to her music teacher. "Why do you have to leave?" she was quoted as wailing.

The irony would be funny if it weren't so sad and serious: that a math error is hurting Dallas' school children. A math error? A math error has led to the dismissal of math teachers, and numerous other instructors, and it's going to make at least the Dallas area's educational system even weaker, and as I noted in a post just yesterday, when we have a weak educational system, our entire country suffers.

While the nationwide school program No Child Left Behind program is often maligned for its bureaucracy, it's incidents like this that make me see why it was created. When children are left behind, some of them grow up and get jobs. Like in the government, not to mention Wall Street, and even the occasional corporation like Enron. Suddenly, I'm starting to see that a lot of people, kids and grownups, would be better off if at least some adults in prominent financial positions were forced to retake some of their high school and college math courses.

Geoff Williams is a freelance journalist and the author of C.C. Pyle's Amazing Foot Race: The True Story of the 1928 Coast-to-Coast Run Across America (Rodale).

If you're looking to make some money-saving changes around the house, you know that kicking your thermostat up or down a few degrees is a small change that can save big bucks -- and that's just your personal electric bill. Think about the savings when we adopt the same practices in our larger buildings, like office complexes and schools.

Unfortunately, in many school buildings, it's not as simple as moving the thermostat up or down a tick. These buildings are heated by huge furnace boilers that can't be easily switched on and off -- so once they're on, they stay on. That's why a school board in Nova Scotia voted to push back the "on" date by approximately two weeks this year, to November 1.

With the rising cost of furnace fuel, this region was one of many that found itself way over its heating budget last year. This year, the school board estimates that the change will save approximately $1,000 per school in its system, adding up to approximately $24,000 in savings. Additionally, the board has asked that all cabinets and bookshelves blocking radiators in the schools to be moved so that the heating system can perform at maximum efficiency.

Sounds like a smart idea to us -- just don't forget to dress your kids in layers this year!

I was strolling through the men's clothing department at Wal-Mart yesterday and realized something: it's not that cheap.

Plain, ugly, Faded Glory jeans were $12.88 and oP polos are $13. Of course that's a lot cheaper than Macy's but it's also pretty poor quality clothing. A lot of families will head to Wal-Mart because it seems like it would be a cheap place to do back to school shopping but the reality is that you can do much, much better. Here are a few ideas:

• TJMaxx and Marshalls: if you limit your kids (and yourself) to the clearance rack, you should be able to find plenty of nice, name brand stuff for less than you'll pay for much lower quality stuff at Wal-Mart. Example: I recently found American Eagle jeans for $10 at TJMaxx. That's less than the Faded Glory ones are at Wal-Mart, even though American Eagle jeans retail in the $40 range.
• Plato's Closet: The absolute best place for teens. With brands like American Eagle and Abercrombie in gently used condition at 80% off mall prices, it's worth a bit of a drive. Bring friends!
• Steve & Barry's: Recently filed for bankruptcy but still operating all of its stores, this chain offers shoes, sweatshirts, jeans, t-shirts, etc all at $8.88! Great place to buy stuff with college logos.

Also, check local thrift shops and consignment shops, if you can talk your kids into it. With stores like TJMaxx and Steve & Barry's, you should be able to do your back to school shopping just as cheap, if not cheaper, than you could at Wal-Mart and you/your kids will look infinitely cooler.

During my lifetime video games have transformed from simple games mastered with a single joystick to a graphically intense activity for men and women of all ages, bordering national past-time status. It should come as no surprise that during this rise popularity and growth an organization would emerge to catalog competitions and showcase battles of epic proportion waged solely with controllers and trash talk. Major League Gaming (MLG) started in 2003 and has grown into the main purveyor of video game exhibitions, offering fame and fortune to those with enough hand-eye coordination and swagger to brave an arena filled with competitors named, "FaTaLitY" and "godsmurfrmc".

Amateurs can compete in "GameBattles," which are essentially the farm leagues of Major League Gaming, for the chance to be called up and compete for over $100,000 in prizes at national competitions. Some of the famous players in the MLG also net lucrative sponsorships for their aptitude at destroying opponents in HD on demand. Can it get any better? I know I'm not alone when I say that I would love to make playing video games my main job, especially at a six-figure level, but for most of us it isn't realistic. The leaders of the MLG circuit can rip us newbs to shreds as easily as you or I can make a PB & J sandwich.

Before you decide to quite school or resign from your job you need to remember that it is called Major League Gaming. I'd be willing to bet that the number of gamers who can turn pro and make a living off of gaming is lower than the 3% of college athletes who play professional sports. MLG focuses on shoot'em up games, but there is also a very competitive arena for rhythm video game stars who kick out killer jams in Guitar Hero. Recently Chris Chike, a 17-year-old from Minnesota, attained the highest rating on Guitar Hero leaderboards and a place in the Guinness World Records book for his gaming skills. Chike also became the spokesperson for Ant Commandos, a video game hardware company, letting him cash in on his gaming prowess.

Staples wants your back-to-school business and this year is trying to compete with penny deals and freebies on school supplies. You can get report covers for 20 cents each, plastic binders for 25 cents each, pencil boxes for 50 cents, and plastic rulers and pencils for free.

You can find out all the details in the weekly circular and find out what else there is by visiting your local store.

Of course, once Staples gets you in the door, they're hoping you'll go home with a lot more in your shopping cart -- anything from backpacks to furniture to computers. So if you're only interested in spending a few dollars, stick to the penny bins.

When I was a kid, my parents sent me to private schools, which meant that, not only did they pay a pretty hefty tuition bill, but they also had to pony up dough for school trips, lunches, after-school programs, textbooks, tissues, PE uniforms, and hundreds of other expenses.

My classrooms were habitually under-heated in the winter, my carpools often took me on byzantine routes across the DC area, and there were times when adult supervision was totally nonexistent. Even with all of this, I somehow managed to get a decent education: years later, I still remember how to do basic math, have a fairly good idea of how the federal government is structured, and rarely misspell the word "very." I think that this might put me a couple of notches ahead of Dubya.

Coming from this background, I'm not all that horrified by some of the cutbacks that school districts are using to deal with America's current fuel crisis/recession/inflation/stagflation hiccup. I think that some of them might even improve our schools; as a child, I found it hard to fall asleep in my chilly classrooms, which actually seemed to help my studies. Furthermore, bake sales and money drives could increase parental involvement, something that is sorely lacking in many areas.

When your son or daughter applies for educational aid from the government you first have to fill out the FAFSA, a free application which helps determine how much money you as a parent should be able to contribute towards their education. In most cases the dollar amount that you are expected to put towards his or her future is easily way more than you can actually provide.

The Wall Street Journal took a look at one of the additional expenses of sending your child off to college this fall; spending money. It's hard to believe that you'll need more money after you've already covered room and board but students realistically will need some funds to get by. The amounts which several colleges recommend students have for personal expenses are rather large, especially if all of the money comes from mom and dad. The estimates are different for every school but can go above $2,000 in some locations.

The article also looks at whether the student or the parents should be the ones footing the bill for incidentals at school. One concern they raised is that some colleges suggest students do not work their first semester in order to adjust to college life. Personally I think students should get a J-O-B; there are plenty of student jobs on campus that typically provide low hours and the ability to work around class and sports schedules while still providing spending money.

Call me a miser, but a lot of the headlines about weak consumer spending bring a smile to my face. People have been overextending themselves for a long time and the hippie in me believes that a recession may be just what need to bring our focus back to what's really important.

The USA Today reports that "New back-to-school duds and supplies will be at the bottom of many family shopping lists this fall, with 71% saying they will spend less on back-to-school items this year than last year." According the Deloitte survey, 83% will cut back on clothing.

The USA Today coverage continues without a hint of irony: "More say they plan to do back-to-school shopping at dollar stores than at department stores, office supply stores (such as Staples) or off-price stores (such as TJ Maxx).

After weeks of VH1's, "I Know My Kid's a Star," a Time story is a reminder that high schools (and middle schools) offer a financially and emotionally viable theater alternative. The Time story is really about the trend toward high schools taking on shows that are "new and edgy;" rather than the old favorites like "Oklahoma," and "Guys and Dolls." I'll get to the "edgy" issue - but the Time story reminds me that there is a much better option to investing significant parental resources into kids' activities.

For too many American families, childhood is now all about lessons. The result is over-scheduled, stressed, competitive, self-conscious kids - and their parental counterparts. Suppose your child has a theatrical flair - many do. Like the VH1 parents, you can opt to drive from acting and improvisation to voice lessons, to portrait studios and auditions, to agents. If you think for a moment that your child doesn't feel pressure to succeed from all that parental investment, (s)he does. It's all about competition.

Just because those with higher education have lower death rates doesn't mean that bachelor's degrees are all they are cracked up to be either. In an column for the Chronicle of Higher Education Marty Nemko, a college consultant and author, shares his view that the bachelor's degree may be the most overrated product in America. Marty cites many factors and studies in reaching this conclusion but the key factor seems to be under-prepared students. Thankfully Nemko provides more than a headline by linking to supporting facts and most importantly offering suggestions to fix the problem!

Doesn't the under-preperation of students for college speak more about the job high schools are able to do than the job that colleges are doing? Not that I can blame the high schools who have to spend a significant chunk of time on standardized test taking rather than instilling knowledge in children. Sadly even a high percentage of students who are prepared coming out of high school won't make enough in the long run to justify the cost of a bachelor's degree. Another one of the facts Nemko cites is that the literacy rate amongst college graduates is currently declining. Take a second to absorb that; the number of illiterate college graduates is rising!

My wife and I have an upcoming long weekend during which we are looking forward to relaxing and getting a massage. As always I was looking for ways to save money, which prompted me to check into our local massage therapy school.

As part of the schooling process to become a licensed massage therapist in Ohio and many other states students need to have a set number of hours giving massages to individuals. This requirement leads to a very nice price reduction if you are willing to have a student provided massage.

Our local school provides student massages for $25/hour compared to $50-70 at other local providers. In some regions, masseurs in training will offer free massages -- just to accumulate their needed hours! (In this case, your best course of action is to befriend a massage student! Then you can be their willing guinea pig.)

A privately funded program in a public school in Manhattan offers kids up to $50 for doing well on standardized tests. Schools across the country are experimenting with incentive programs that reward students for everything from showing up to school, to doing well on tests, to getting good grades overall.

Is this just a sign of the times? Or is it something that we should frown upon? I'm a believer that kids should go to school and they should learn because it is the right thing to do. You can't get ahead if you can't read. Yet these days, it seems that fewer students and families value education the way we used to.

I will be interested to see if these incentive programs really do any good. Part of me thinks that the students who already try hard will keep doing so, while the majority of those who don't want an education will not take advantage of this opportunity. I hope I'm wrong.

I am glad, though, that the incentive programs are being paid for with private funds. I do think a case could be made for better ways to spend that money, but so long as it is not paid by the taxpayers, I don't really care. Oh, and the teacher has an incentive too: If the class improves enough, she can get a bonus up to $3,000.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

An article on Consumerist today, Report Card on Personal Finance Education Nationwide stirred up memories for me. The article was prompted by the decision in Tennessee last week to require a personal finance class for all graduating high school students, starting with this year's 7th graders. This is a decision that adds Tennessee to a list of LESS THAN 20% of states that currently have a personal finance education requirement.

Through most of last year, I listened to my son, then a high school senior, rant and rave about the curriculum at his high school. The school requires four years of a foreign language (and at the time there were only two choices, French or Latin) but, you guessed it, not an hour in the curriculum on personal finance. What this means is that students might graduate proficient in translating the Aeneid, but knowing essentially nothing about compounding, investing, stocks and bonds, mortgages etc. Huh?

It's hard to believe that in all of New England, the only state that seemed to actually require financial literacy is the State of Maine.

The Consumerist article includes a map so that you can see where your state stands. Consider sending an email to your superintendent's office.

A piece in the USA Today looks at an emerging, and I would say disturbing new trend: Kids being paid to go to school, get good grades, or attend after-school programs.

And not just parents slipping their kids a few bucks: We're talking about the government cutting kids checks for going to latchkey.

In suburban Atlanta, eighth and eleventh-graders $8 an hour for attending an after-school study program.

Baltimore is set to pay kids as much as $110 for improving their test scores, and even New York fourth graders can win $500 for improving their scores on standardized tests.

There are a few things that come to mind. First, shouldn't kids be grateful for their educational opportunities? Second, doesn't incentivizing fourth graders with large sums of money make these tests even more stressful, and is there any good reason to put little kids under that much pressure?

But a key issue to me -- as someone who was bored out of mind during school -- is that the fact that we have to bribe kids to go to school is indicative of how boring and insipid the work is. Standardized tests and textbooks have taken all the fun out of what should be a time for learning and discovery. Now it's all about drilling.

Why don't we take the money we're going to pay kids for study and use it to develop a curriculum that kid might actually want to study.

I feel compelled to followup on my rant earlier this week ("Kitty Couture: Money Down the Drain") by a reader reminding me that a preschool enrollment race is underway. This is especially true in New York City where 3 year-olds face heavy competition to be accepted at preschools with an annual tuition as high as $30,440. Forbes recently did a piece on the most expensive preschools in America.

It isn't the tuition that bothers me. Infinite money entitles people to whatever expenditures they choose. I don't care that by comparison to the Ethical Culture/Fieldston School rate, the preschool at New York City's prestigious Horace Mann is a more affordable...$26,880. I don't even care - although it is mystifying - that in a 2002 scandal, Smith Barney investment analyst Jack Grubman appeared to have raised the rating of a stock important to Citigroup just as the Citigroup CEO was putting in a good word for Grubman's twins at the prestigious 92ND Street Y Nursery School.

Grubman?