Cost of truants: nada

Not only won't it cost the L.A. schools $2.1 million for yesterday's 27,000-plus protest absences, it pretty much won't hurt at all financially. School Me, the new Times blog on education, says that after April 15 each year public schools receive full state funding no matter how many students are absent. It's just the way the formulas work. By the way, one reason that more students didn't walk out to protest is that Advanced Placement testing was scheduled yesterday at some schools.