Editorials

Wednesday, October 24, 2001

Budget cuts require
care and thought
in light of attacks

The issue: State legislative leaders
are asking for all departments
to trim their spending.

The proposal from legislative leaders for cuts in state spending makes sense in the light of Hawaii's economic decline and the likelihood that revenues will drop in tandem. Instead of the across-the-board reductions they propose, a prudent approach would be to set priorities and trim judiciously because some government operations have become more crucial since the terrorist attacks of September 11.

Lawmakers are discussing a hiring freeze, but this, too, must be carefully considered. Jobs should be reviewed for their value in lending some relief in the present crisis.

House Speaker Calvin Say is worried that with tourism, the state's primary industry, suffering huge losses, tax collections will drop significantly. He and Senate President Robert Bunda are asking that Governor Cayetano pare government expenses and curtail spending in all of the state's special, general and revolving funds as well as federal funds.

Trimming the budgets of all departments equally is politically expedient, precluding turf battles and negating pressure from special interests. Lawmakers should recognize, however, that not all government services are equal right now.

For example, any department responsible for protecting public health and safety deserves full funding. The number of anthrax scares in Hawaii in the past month has accelerated and there is no predicting that the state will not have to face that menace.

Human service agencies should be exempt. With so many people out of work, the need for such help will multiply. Nor should public education be subject to cuts; the school system is already struggling to make ends meet.

A hiring freeze should be similarly judged. Jobs must be weighed according to how much benefit the public would gain. State officials cannot set aside the need for jobs with the huge increase in unemployment filings in the last four weeks.

Budget-cutting is an unenviable task made easier if all departments are called upon to do so. If it is to be done, it should be with deliberation as to its effects. One responsibility of leadership is to make the tough calls.

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Eliminating a class
disrupts learning

The issue: Part way into the school
year, a kindergarten class is cut at Pahala
Elementary and parents are protesting.

The elimination of a kindergarten class at Pahala Elementary School on the Big Island may seem but a small kink in the twisting operations of the Department of Education. It also may be taken as an illustration of how a clumsy bureaucracy can frustrate parents, disrupt children's learning and further erode confidence in Hawaii's public school system.

Eight children in a class were not enough to justify a teaching position at Pahala Elementary, according to DOE rules. So even though the students had already spent a quarter of the school year in their own class, last week they were placed instead in a combination class with 19 first-grade students.

The decision to eliminate the kindergarten class came about because teacher allocations were calculated later than usual this year and with only a certain number of teachers assigned to a school district, the student count was deemed too small warrant a teacher.

The DOE, already short 320 teachers, certainly is expected to put its work force to best use, but placing young children in one environment and then forcing them to adjust to another can be unsettling. Kindergarten is the first classroom experience for many children and is important to their intellectual and social development. Although Pahala's curriculum puts children of different ages in various programs based on skill levels, the attention of their leading teacher should not be divided.

The frustration of parents is understandable. Months before the start of the school year, aware that there were few children likely to enroll in the class, parents had checked with the school in case they needed to arrange for other schooling. That the class was first approved, then eliminated part way through the year has proven to be particularly vexing. Parents of at least four of the children may take their children out of Pahala and educate them elsewhere.

Teacher allocations involve a tangled formula with 2.8 students -- or more, in some cases -- equaling 3 teacher positions. Another formula designates 12 students as enough for a class. Whatever the case, the calculations should not have taken the DOE so long to figure out. The delay comes at the expense of children. Learning is challenging enough without such administrative disruptions.

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Published by Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press.

Don Kendall, President

John Flanagan, publisher and editor in chief 529-4748; jflanagan@starbulletin.com
Frank Bridgewater, managing editor 529-4791; fbridgewater@starbulletin.com
Michael Rovner, assistant managing editor 529-4768; mrovner@starbulletin.com
Lucy Young-Oda, assistant managing editor 529-4762; lyoungoda@starbulletin.com

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