Posted on: Monday, September 24, 2001

Editorial
Education a victim of economy again?

Hawai'i lawmakers yet again are talking about the cuts that education spending will have to take in light of projections of a severe economic downturn resulting from the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

That's utterly wrong-headed.

True, the glimmer of economic recovery that Hawai'i has enjoyed for the past couple of years is quickly tanking. The tax revenues that fuel government spending — including education spending — are thus drying up fast.

But because Hawai'i's economy is so singularly dependent upon tourism, we remain utterly at the mercy of the duration of the terrible fright dealt to would-be travelers worldwide.

If we are ever to end our powerlessness in the face of changes far from our shores, our vital mission must be to develop much wider economic diversity.

And education must be the engine that takes us there.

We could do what we did in the economic desert years that followed the Gulf War — that is, allow our kindergarten through university educational establishment to rust and rot through prolonged neglect.

But, as George Santayana wrote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

It's our vital mission to seize control of our fate. Education is key to that. Cutting education spending — as we foolishly did throughout the 1990s — condemns us to more of the same.

Yes, education must shoulder some of the financial blows to come. But the response should be to institute long-delayed efficiencies and reforms rather than withdrawing dollars from the business of learning.