WE'RE ALL FAMILIAR with the expression, "You're either for me, or against me." The thought surely will be on the minds of South Carolina's educators this week.

A number of proposals are being floated with regard to state education funding. Meanwhile, a crisis in state support for schools festers. It will only grow if ignored.

Senators, who will debate the state budget this week, must decide if they agree with a majority in the House, which drastically cut basic per-pupil spending. The fundamental building block of classroom funding, the base student cost, was set at $1,600 by the House. The Senate Finance Committee put the per-pupil number at $1,900. A formula established by the Legislature decades ago says the number should be $2,200. In the absence of improvement in the House-passed funding, thousands of teachers will lose their jobs. Fifteen hundred educators already have received their pink slips.

With that as a backdrop, the South Carolina Policy Council last week held a news conference to enumerate "non-classroom" expenses, which might be redirected to save teacher jobs. It is hard to see what is helpful about classifying the electricity to keep the lights on as "non-classroom expenditures." The Policy Council chose to lump one-time school building costs in with annual operating budgets, a violation of the widely accepted accounting principles used in private business. That construction also was placed with "non-classroom expenditures." Nor do the Policy Council numbers reflect budget cuts K-12 schools have already taken or the drastic reduction proposed in the House budget bill.

Such an announcement at this time can mislead South Carolinians about the gravity of this crisis.

Gov. Mark Sanford also has muddied the waters at this crucial time with his proposal for flexibility in education spending. In the present situation, this measure would merely allow school districts to decide which crucial endeavors to abandon. A number of those programs were mandated by the Legislature -- with good reason and encouraging results so far. There are not $200 million worth of unnecessary programs to be found. Implying that there is flexibility of this scale distracts us from the drastic underfunding proposed for public schools.

Educators are not asking for a huge, new infusion of cash. They simply seek to continue the solid reforms that lawmakers wisely adopted in the Education Accountability Act. They seek also to implement the federal No Child Left Behind Act. This landmark measure aims to wipe out pockets of ignorance that have festered in our country by holding every teacher, school and state accountable for student performance.

You will likely hear more diversions, such as the trite jab that we're "throwing money" at educational problems with no proof they work. Baloney.

South Carolina students' academic performance is improving -- on measures such as the SAT, the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test and national standardized tests such as Terra Nova. We are asking more of our students, teachers and schools -- and they are delivering. Great strides have been made. However, they are but tiny steps in the long journey we face out of what has been an educational wasteland. This is no time to abandon that quest or to distract from the serious nature of the threat facing our public schools.