Earlier this week, voters in Winthrop, Massachusetts, defeated a Proposition 2 1/2 override that would have bailed out the financially strapped public schools in that town. Numerous teachers will now be laid off and all school sports will be eliminated this fall. Obviously, a situation this drastic did not happen over night. Still, the ongoing fiscal crisis in this state along with the unreasonable demands of the No Child Left Behind Law continue to drag more and more school systems, especially in urban communities, towards this kind of precipice, pitting cash-strapped home owners against advocates of the public schools in the kind of struggle that no one can win.