If the Board of Education decides to cut the number of classroom days to meet a slashed budget, it will be taking the easiest way out.

BOE Chairman Garrett Toguchi said last week that a $278 million cut in the Department of Education's $1 billion, two-year budget could result in cutting the school year by about 13 days. Those are classroom days that can never be made up.

From a bookkeeping perspective, the easiest way to cut costs in an operation that spends 70 percent of its money on payroll is is to figure out how much needs to be saved, divide it by the number of employees and cut individual hours by the result. That's a reasonable approach, but not when the future of Hawaii's children is involved.

In per-student spending, Hawaii ranks among the highest in the nation. The money isn't going to island teachers. Classroom teacher pay rates are a long way down national rankings. So where is it going? Some years ago, the state auditor gave up trying after getting lost in the byzantine bureaucracy's money maze.

Toguchi urged increasing the general excise tax, echoing a plea made by unions representing other state employees facing the loss of about 14 percent of their pay via furloughs. A better way would be to put all the DOE managers to work finding ways to cut the fat that must exist above the classroom.

As it is, the DOE Web site lists 180 instructional days for students. Thirteen more days off doesn't sound like much, but then 180 days is little enough as it is. At the very least, the BOE and schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto should protect the classroom days most needed in a student's schooling.

The closer students are to graduation from high school, the less important classroom time is. They should know how to learn. What to learn can be a matter of direction, not dictation. Where classroom time is most important is in the lower grades where students are acquiring basic skills - learning how to learn.

The economy is forcing everyone to find ways to do more with less. Meeting that challenge will pay off even after the economy recovers.

* Editorials reflect the opinion of the publisher.