Education should be the No. 1 priority for the 2008 legislative session.

Students are not a static commodity. Every year, thousands of high school seniors graduate from Hawai'i's public schools, and every year, thousands more pour into kindergarten classes. The students that dominate the 2007-08 school population will not all be there in 2008-09. And as their population fluctuates, so do their needs.

Sitting in the Legislature's "to-do" pile are dozens of education-related bills. There are some that address badly rundown facilities, some that propose mandatory physical education, some that promote civic awareness — even one that improves school lunch. There are bills that provide for new textbooks and materials in math and science. There is a push for more college programs in the schools, more ease in hiring much-needed teachers, more innovative curriculums — more of a lot of things that schools desperately need.

Many of these bills have been here for more than a year.

Schools plan their annual budgets and strategic plans months in advance. The 2008-09 year is near-finalized for most schools. As the Legislature waits, the longer it will take to make these bills into reality. The longer education sits in limbo, the more students slip beyond the system's reach.

Focus on education now. The future leaders of Hawai'i — your children — are depending on it.