School district officials in Los Angeles are using a scalpel to cut their budget to meet a revenue shortfall. Are they slicing generous salaries and health/retirement benefits for teachers and legions of administrators? Nope. Instead days are being shaved off the school calendar.

Forget, all the publicity about our children falling behind the rest of the world, or of a bleak future for uneducated children - all the scare stories we hear when tax increases are advocated by school officials and politicians. What takes priority are unions and not children; children and their parents are not first.

Los Angeles school district officials and employee unions announced an agreement Saturday to cut five days from this school year and seven days next year in an effort to maintain up to 2,100 campus jobs.

If approved by members of the teachers and administrators unions, the move would save the Los Angeles Unified School District about $140 million and preserve class sizes in grade and middle schools, officials said. The district, the second largest in the nation, is facing a $640-million deficit.

District officials had been urging unions for months to make concessions to help balance the books. Administrators agreed to the furlough days Monday night, and the teachers union reached a deal late Friday, representatives said at a news conference.

"It is extremely important in going forward that we have this kind of partnership," said Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, who had occasionally appeared frustrated that the groups had not joined others in taking action to help the district with its budget crisis.

Under the plan, educators would have two extra paid, student-free professional development days next year.

The response to complaints about the shafting of children and their parents?

Teachers, a union representative said, will have to cram instruction into a shorter calendar. "We are concerned for the quality of education for our students," said Julie Washington, a vice president with United Teachers Los Angeles.

Now some sacrifices are being made. Some teachers will face a few days of unpaid furloughs throughout the year: these amount to temporary pay cuts. Layoff notices were sent to some employees but the president of the teachers union, said he, "believes that many of his members could be brought back to the classroom through other methods.

Smoke and mirrors.

The strategy here must be to raise our children to be so stupid that they will actually believe drivel that more education will actually be crammed into fewer hours. My children waste endless hours watching Disney movies, school assemblies, study halls (where children do homework at school) etc. during the year. I don't think the educational establishment is going to turn on a dime and start "cramming" knowledge into children. We just bought more tutorial books for our children at the local bookstore.

Teachers' unions-and complaint politicians who feed them are creating "The Dumbest Generation".