This is key. There's more to FOSS than Linux. Tools like OpenOffice, GIMP, Inkscape, Moodle, and Drupal can offer huge savings to schools without forcing users onto a whole new desktop environment.

Oregon is doing quite a bit with open source solutions for K-12. The Oregon Virtual School District - http://orvsd.org/ - serves more than 200 public schools around the state. It's primarily Drupal and Moodle on servers funded by the state Dept. of Education.

Seconded. You'll never get anywhere driving it from the top down with mandatory "we're switching to XYZ campus-wide" decrees. Make it optional. Introduce voluntary users to a good OSS tool in a non-critical area - clubs, non-credit courses, etc. - where the stakes are lower. Make sure they have a good experience by having lots of in-person help. If it goes well for them, word of mouth will become your friend. "Hey, Dr. SoAndSo did this really interesting thing with ..." "I wonder what Prof. ThisNthat is doing that has her students so engaged and excited?" Your early adopters become advocates for the cause. They can also help other users on campus get going with the new tool(s).

It's very similar to grass-roots organizing: start small and build momentum.

I saw him deliver a keynote address at the Government Open Source Conference in October: http://goscon.org/node/150

He and his counterpart across the river in Virginia, Aneesh Chopra, are both very open source friendly. Both of them spoke at the conference advocating for open source and open standards, arguing that our government should be as open and transparent as possible.