I'm a strong believer in public education and graduated from a Hawai'i public school myself.

I put both of my kids in the Hawai'i public schools as a matter of principle even though I could have afforded private, a decision I came to regret as it became obvious that both of them would have been far better off outside of the rigid public system.

My grandchildren are in the public schools, sort of; both of them attend one of the better public charters schools that looks like it could become a model for a positive direction future public schools could take.

Reading between the lines of a story in yesterday's Advertiser, I'm starting to fear that DOE bureaucrats are using the budget crunch as a cover to kill off innovative charter schools started under the Waihee administration, which the bureaucracy has always seen as threats to its ironclad central rule.

The DOE has slashed per-pupil funding to the charter schools this year to about $5,530, down 33 percent from the $8,149 they received in 2007-08. The DOE's most recent estimate of per-pupil spending in the regular public schools is more than $11,000.

Charter schools, whose teachers aren't automatically subject to the furloughs the state negotiated with public school teachers, have been socked with a 14 percent furough restriction, even though furloughs in the DOE were only 7.9 percent.

A series of charter school administrators have either quit or been fired by the Board of Education in an endlessly contentious working relationship.

There's no logical reason to slash per-pupil funding at the charter schools so much more than the regular schools unless there's a hostile intent in the DOE to end-run their legislative authorization and put them out of busisess.

This would be a tragedy of great proportion, since even with the unfairly low per-student funding they've had to live with, the better charter schools are outperforming most of their DOE counterparts in student achievement.

I look closer at the morass in our public schools in my column in the Opinion section of today's Advertiser, "Teachers' contract leaves keiki behind."

I had an e-mail exchange with UH-Manoa professor Meda Chesney-Lind and she made a reference to an old Leadbelly song, "There's a Man Going 'Round Taking Names."

It was eerie because I'd recently been listening to a Smithsonian podcast on Huddie Ledbetter that included the song. I went back to listen to it again and it's been haunting me ever since.

Meda mentioned it in relation to her insight on the budget slashing and possible job cuts at UH, but it seemed to me to reflect the mood over what's going on in the whole state government and entire nation as we deal with the most unsettling times of our generation.

I'm not sure what to do with it except pass on a link and see if others have the same impression. Maybe the first thing we need to do to dig out of this mire is change the music.

I have to say I got a major chuckle out of a letter to the editor in Thursday's Advertiser complaining about coverage of the performance by the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds at Hickam. It was short, so I'll just repeat the whole thing:

STORY COULD HAVE COVERED COST, ETC.

Michael Tsai's front-page narrative of the Thunderbirds' "thrilling" and "patriotic" Hickam performance is no doubt an accurate reporting of the crowd's response. (Advertiser, Sept. 20) With all the shock-and-awe daredevil feats of a digital video game, the skills of the pilots must have been impressive. That the U.S. Air Force has the budget and financial resources to produce such an "open house" is somewhat surprising given the current economic situation.

To add depth and context to the story, the reporter might have provided readers with information as to the cost to taxpayers, how priorities for public relations are negotiated, and a consideration of possible (more "green," less militaristic) alternatives for public celebration. A deeper philosophical question might consider whether citizens could bond and have fun celebrating peacemaking, conflict resolution, and downsizing the military's mighty technical footprint.

Nancie Caraway | Honolulu

For those who don't recognize the name, Nancie Caraway is the wife of U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie. She raises some fair questions, but I have one, too:

Why castigate the newspaper and bust the chops of a hard-working reporter covering a fun community event instead of bugging her husband and congressman, who is A SENIOR MEMBER OF THE U.S. HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE and should either have the answers she seeks at his fingertips or be able to assemble A WITNESS TABLE FULL OF GENERALS to get them?

Or as an e-mail I received put it, "How curious to have the wife of a congressman blaming other people for not being tough enough on an agenda her spouse and his committee apparently support."

With Abercrombie running for governor next year, my correspondent asks, "Are we about to have Hawaii's first anti-military first lady?"

I don't know, but Caraway is articulate and opinionated and the more she's heard from, the more fun this campaign is going to be.

flASHback: Under the bus

Where else but the teachers' contract to start our "flASHback" on the week's news that amused and confused:

• Public school teachers accepted furloughs that amount to a 7.9 percent pay cut and will shut schools 17 Fridays a year. At least they gave it  a catchy name: Every Child Left Behind.

• Schools said they hope day-care providers will step up on "Furlough Fridays." The kids can ride to day care on the same bus the labor deal threw them under.

• Superintendent Pat Hamamoto urged parents to read to children on furlough days. Good idea. We'll read them all the pious quotes about how keiki come first in our schools.

• UH-Manoa professors, who are being asked to take a 5 percent pay cut, angrily grilled administrators about the budget cuts. It didn't seem overly dramatic until one guy started to cry, "STELLA! STELLA!"

• Lt. Gov. James "Duke" Aiona said because of furloughs, his office will close two Fridays a month. Anybody who can tell the difference gets free tickets to a ribbon-cutting.

• Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann handed out his annual $2 million in bribes, er ... rewards, to the Leeward community for putting up with the Waimanalo Gulch landfill. Silly me. I thought a $5.3 billion commuter train was thanks enough.

• The City Council this resumed the long-running battle over whether to issue permits for  new bed-and-breakfasts. They couldn't find anything new to be indecisive about, so they're revisiting old dithering.

• Hawai'i Sen. Daniel Inouye opposes Rep. Neil Abercrombie's push to force a military construction project on Guam to pay Hawai'i wages. If Gov. Linda Lingle wasn't shutting the film office, the state could market it as "Megadeth vs. Mighty Mouse."

• Kaua'i Police Chief Darryl Perry withdrew his name from consideration to be Honolulu chief. He decided his time was better spent begging to keep his current job.

• Queen's Medical Center celebrated the 1,000th operation by its da Vinci surgical robots that have produced shorter recovery times for patients. The best thing is, between surgeries they do double-duty as ATMs in the lobby.

And the quote of the week ...

... from Lingle's labor chief Darwin Ching on state plans to seek a $61 million federal loan to cover shortages in the unemployment fund:

"We'll be insolvent, but we won't be bankrupt."

That's Lingle-nomics in a nutshell.

The agreement between the state and public school teachers was a necessary first step toward resolving a series of labor disputes that are making it impossible for the state to effectively deal with record revenue shortfalls.

The Department of Education has no meaningful budget two months into the school year, and you can't blame Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto for taking the bull by the horns and making the best deal she could so the system can move forward.

It was painful for teachers to accept furloughs that amount to hefty pay cuts, and they deserve credit for recognizing reality and ending the uncertainty for themselves and the schools.

However ... as this story unfolds, many people would like more more of an explanation about why the entire weight of the consequences was placed on the students and their learning.

All 17 of the furlough days in each of the two years covered by the contract will be on instructional days, putting a far bigger hit on student learning time than the 13-day teacher strike in 2001.

While the 17 furlough days represent a 7.9 percent cut in teacher pay, they represent a nearly 9.5 percent loss in students' 180 instructional days a year, and this math doesn't compute.

More conceivably could have been done to save instruction time by creative staggering, using the day each week that schools run on short schedules, or scheduling furloughs on holidays or "waiver" days when teachers work but there is no instruction.

The fact that all 17 furlough days will impact instruction while non-instruction days weren't touched leaves many with the distasteful impression that the agreement deliberately sticks it to the kids to make some kind of point to the public.