Michigan's Governor Recommends...

...smaller schools:

Gov. Jennifer Granholm will propose in her State of the State address Tuesday a plan to spend $300 million on as many as 100 smaller, more personalized high schools to replace larger schools whose students are doing poorly and have high dropout rates.

The plan is based on the idea that smaller is better. High schools with about 400 students are more manageable, students can get more individual attention and the principal knows everybody in the building, Granholm administration officials said.

Funding for the proposal would come from bonding against the $32 million a year the state sets aside to pay off a special-education settlement with local districts. The last payment on a portion of that settlement will be made this year, so the state would continue setting aside that money to pay off the bonds for this program, to be called the 21st Century Schools Fund.