Economy: IN School District Agrees To House Gitmo Detainees

Forced to look for every possible way to raise revenues, the cash-strapped Merrilville (IN) public school system has decide to convert one of its largest high schools into a maximum security prison where detainees from Guantanamo Bay will be housed under contract with the federal government. 

"We really had no other choice," said superintendent Marvin Braxton about the decision, made at a board meeting last night after a hotly debated 6-3 vote.  "The building was empty and the Homeland Security money will help us make it to the end of the year."

The school district is the first in the nation to take such drastic steps.  Other districts have reduced the length of the school day, raised class sizes, put cell phone transponders in kids' backpacks, and raffled off principals as domestic servants.