Hawaii's 'Furlough Fridays' frowned upon

Beautiful beaches, clear skies, and low pollution - from the chilly autumn East coast I am sitting on, the Hawaiian environment sounds ideal right now. After all, it is an island paradise that houses the only palace on American soil, a unique culture and the nation's shortest school year.

Last Friday marked the beginning of a two-year, statewide school furlough system where the schools will be closed two Fridays of every month - along with government offices - in order to make up for a budget deficit close to $1 billion. Hawaiian Gov. Linda Lingle is using this controversial move in conjunction with a 7.9 percent pay cut over the next two years with the state's teacher's union, whose members number 13,000. The Hawaii Government Employees Association will also begin a similar furlough program.

Needless to say, from parents to the President, many are unhappy with Lingle's decision. Hawaii already has some of the lowest test scores in the nation. On the first "Furlough Friday," a protest carried a petition with thousands of signatures to the state capital to meet in a closed session with Lingle. But the Governor's receptive nature to the complaints of parents, teachers and students will not be enough if nothing is changed. Many working parents now struggle to find childcare options or take the day off to care for their children. Communities have pulled together to help meet the needs of children and families in ways the state government has not. The Pearlridge Center mall had booths and workshops to provide constructive alternatives for families affected by the furlough days. Friends and relatives stepped up to the plate to watch children in their neighborhoods, and school administrators and PTAs have instituted learning opportunities that give children somewhere to go, and help them apply what the students have already learned. Such programs are barred from furthering students' educations by the Department of Education on these days, and administrators are also hesitant to do so, as it would give these students an advantage over those who could not participate in these programs.

While younger students see this as just a fun day off, older students have noticed the extra strain of fitting five days of educational time into four has resulted in an increase in homework. Sophomore Desiree Mateo even told a reporter for the 'Honolulu Advertiser' that "it doesn't feel like we're learning."

Put bluntly, this is possibly one of the most inane and imbecilic decisions to be made by a state legislator, and out of place in a time where education is supposed to be a right guaranteed to children in the United States. The only lesson students will learn from such a decision is that knowledge has no value in society, when it comes to the question between education and money. School is more than a factory for homogonous brains in vats - it is a place where students should be able to discover their strengths and interests, so that they can find something to be inspired by for the future. This arrangement will be in place for the next two years, but what happens when, although each furlough day saves the state about $5 million, that money becomes re-purposed or the deficit gap has not been sufficiently reduced? Should Hawaiian students just reconcile themselves to the idea that their governing body does not believe their minds are tools worth investing in and that they do not deserve the most complete education available? This is the decision made by the state that just gave us our current President, who is pushing for a new focus on education across the board, but whose Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, was quoted in the "Honolulu Advertiser" as saying, "students will lose out in the long run if they don't receive the education they need and deserve … even in these difficult times, we have to invest in our children's education."

Cutting a school budget in such a way that it directly affects the quality and quantity of a student's education is irresponsible and can only be the best possible solution when not putting the needs of these children first when even contemplating altering how schools function. Gov. Lingle and the members of the teachers union that ratified this decision need to reconvene and determine another way to deal with the budgetary crisis in Hawaii in a way that does not diminish the rights of students to learn. Furloughing government offices is different on so many levels from furloughing schools. Perhaps Lingle would do well to revisit some of her own childhood memories of school, and contemplate whether she could have risen to the position she now holds if her elementary and high school education had been jeopardized in the way she now harms future generations of Hawaiian students.