Towards a simpler desktop environment: What is the current state of the art?

[john]

Hello all,

I am getting complaints from teachers that students are customizing
their desktops to the point that they are distracting students from
productive work. I'd like to make the edubuntu desktop MUCH simpler,
just an applications menu and little else. I guess the approach is to
lock the desktops but I'd like to take the "right" approach. I've used
both the gconf-editor and Sabayon in the past with mixed results. The
last time I looked Sabayon was seriously broken ( I use winbind to
authenticate users and after applying Sabayon no students could log
in). I don't see that gconf-editor has the ability to lock the
desktop, prevent changes to desktop fonts, backgrounds and remove
access to system settings.

Does anyone have a recipe for simplifying and locking down student desktops.
Does anyone have experience with KDE/Kiosk Tool and would anyone
recommend this over the gnome environment?
How can I get _complete_ control over the user environment?

Thanks!

John