Politicians often advocate lotteries as ways to augment funding for education, and more than half of the 42 states that run lotteries funnel lottery cash to their schools. But education gets barely a trickle of that money: Most goes right back to perpetuating the games themselves, with an average of 1 to 5 percent finding its way to educators. In some states, schools are just breaking even, with lottery cash simply replacing funds that used to be spent on education but are now handed to other programs. (New York Times)
