Last week, Nina Shapiro wrote about Fred Jarrett’s proposal for massive increases in education spending. Today, four Yakima-area legislators are proposing something in the other direction: allowing schools to go to a four-day week in order to save costs on transportation and heating.While it’s important for districts to be efficient and to have the flexibility to address their problems, the truth is that schools are de facto day care for a lot of families. A lot of parents aren’t going to be able to afford to pay for the day care to replace school. Thus, any district that shuts its doors on Fridays will either be sending bored kids out in the neighborhood to do their best Craig and Smokey impressions, or paying for transportation and heat for a day care program on school grounds, which would be less efficient than the current system. It seems like this is a proposal that would only work in wealthy districts–precisely the places that don’t need it.