The quick-hit ideas for bailing out California's finances are raining down: hock the lottery, furlough state workers two days per month, hold up refunds to taxpayers. Here's one that shouldn't go on the hit list: a shorter school year.

The plan suggested by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would trim five days off the 180-day school year. The idea is a bit player in the larger budget drama, a $1.1 billion savings as the state searches for ways to plug a $41.5 billion shortfall over 18 months.

Credit the governor with considering every option. But this hit on education - which is already part of $17.4 billion in proposed cuts to education, health and welfare programs - is asking far too much.

If this dunce of an idea takes hold, the school year would shrink from 180 to 175 days. It would put California in a bottommost tier of states with a nation's shortest classroom year. The plan would be "devastating," according to state schools chief Jack O'Connell. If anything, California should be devising ways of lengthening the school year, once the financial storm passes.

A shorter school year may save money, but it would aggravate a string of pervasive problems: high dropout rates, low test scores, and performance gaps between racial groups. Chances of recruiting and keeping motivated teachers would diminish. Who wants to work in a state that regards class time as a bargaining chip when it's time to write a budget?

The governor may not be serious. He may be throwing a scare into his Sacramento adversaries, both Democrats who have balked at his deep cuts and Republicans who unbendingly oppose any new tax. But Schwarzenegger hasn't withdrawn the school-days cut in his latest budget plan.

One hope is that the idea dies on the negotiating table, one that's crowded with crumpled-up budget plans. But the state is on notice from its financial officers that doomsday is approaching next month - a date when Sacramento will run out of cash and will need to pay its bills with IOU's.

This pressure is producing ideas that range from the nonsensical - such as the school year cut - to the barely tenable, like a hold on $3.8 billion in state construction projects. No question the California finances are at a historic low point with a shrinking economy failing to produce expected state taxes.

All sides need to go back to work on a mix of plausible ideas. A blend of tax increases, serious cuts and borrowing seems the most likely outcome. Cutting the school year is a plan that should be flunked.