School’s out for Fridays. Hawaii’s 256 public schools have switched to a four-day school week as part of statewide cost cuts. Hawaii now has the shortest academic calender in the country, with only 163 school days each year. Parents and politicians are protesting against the new “Furlough Fridays” program. “We are about to rob 17 days from our children’s school year,” lamented Democratic representative Neil Abercrombie. “Days they will never get back.”

The policy has left parents scrambling to find adequate supervision for their liberated little ones—and local news agencies fearing the worst. The Honolulu Advertiser predicted that students would “wind up at grandma’s house or . . . simply be unsupervised at Hawaii’s beaches and malls.” But in the face of a projected $1-billion state deficit, schools superintendent Patricia Hamanoto insists there is no choice: “During this difficult economic period the department is utilizing the resources it has.” Continue…