Just last week, the question of four-day school weeks entered the conversation in Los Angeles, as LAUSD Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines has begun studying various proposals to make-up part of the expected budget shortfall of at least $500 million for the 2010-11 academic year. If implemented, the district would use a combination of furlough days and shortening the school year to close the gap, as furlough days alone will not be sufficient.

Recently, Hawaii, like many other states, has been buckling under a $1 billion deficit. The state’s Department of Education has had to cut $468 million from its budget to compensate for the budget shortfalls. Public school teachers have been required to take a 7.9 percent pay cut and Governor Linda Lingle, with State Teachers Association, adopted a measure allowing 17 furlough days each for the next two years. Now students, who formerly spent 180 days in the classroom each year, will be spending only 163 days with underpaid teachers scrambling to make up the lost hours.