On Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:26:26 -0600, jakdedert
wrote:

In Tennessee, the money is strictly earmarked for college scholarships,

In California, the state lottery money is distributed directly to the
various state skool districts through the state bored of edukation.
http://www.calottery.com/support/lotteryfunds/

Most of the money goes to the State and local colleges.
Kindergarten - 12th Grade 80.54%
Community Colleges 13.31%
California State University System 3.74%
University of California 2.20%
Other Educational Entities 0.21%
The bulk of the K12 funding goes to school districts with large
immigrant populations. The percentages seem to vary each year
depending mostly on the success or failure of various skool bond
elections.

The problem is that for every dollar contributed by the lottery, the
state redirects some of the budgeted educational funds for other
purposes. It's a net win for the skools, but not as much as it would
be if the state were not constantly juggling the funding. I keep
hearing horror stories of teachers buying classroom supplies with
their own money, so I know things are not working too well.

In Santa Cruz county, the state installed a central 900MHz wireless
access point on top of the 4 story county building. Various
convenience stores and gas stations all have yagis pointing to the
this access point. Saves quite a bit on telco and datacomm costs.

Personally, I'm opposed to the entire concept on ethical grounds.
However, since it seems to be a tax on the statistically challenged,
I'm not opposed to separating them from their money. I bought a few
tickets perhaps 20 years ago when the system first appeared. I lost
on all of them and have not bought a lottery ticket since then.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558