Maybe it's my imagination; maybe it's purely coincidental, but it seems to me that every time there is a major "reform" in education, it is followed shortly thereafter by a decline in the economy and, correspondingly, in federal and state aid.

So, like the classic question, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" we must now ask, "Which comes first, the results the elected officials want or the funding to help achieve those results?"

Traditionally, legislators have opted for the ready rush of results as their first course. Only when it becomes clear that results involve something more than wishful thinking and booming rhetoric do they look at funding for the programs that might help achieve the desired results.

Next month the New York State Legislature convenes and, once more, funding for education is expected to be one of the most critically-important issues facing the legislators. The message the legislators need to get from educators is a simple and direct one: Give us the means and the tools to get the job done. And, oh yes, one more thing: test reasonably, not to the point where the tests interfere with what needs to go on in the classroom.

Part of providing adequate funding to achieve the state's education goals on Long Island is assuring that Long Island gets its fair share of education dollars. Many upstaters think we are loaded and, while salaries are higher than in upstate areas, so are housing, energy and taxes. Right now we get back only about a quarter for every dollar we send to Albany. That's not good enough and our legislators need to fight for meaningful change.

There are those who may say I have visions of sugar plums dancing in my head since New York State, like most states in the nation, is particularly hard hit with falling revenues and rising costs. Where, these naysayers naysay, will the state get more money for education at a time when it is having a hard time meeting its most basic needs and at a time when a tax increase is all but unthinkable?

In response, all I can offer is a refrain from one of my very favorite bumper stickers: "If You Think Education is Expensive, Try Ignorance."

I know. It's glib. Its flip. It educational McLogic. But it's so, so true.

I don't envy the legislators their jobs of trying to balance the equities of competing interests for every tax dollar. But every dollar spent on prisons is a non-recoverable dollar.

Every dollar spent on drivers' licenses is similarly gone forever. But every dollar spent on education is an investment, an investment that pays dividends that the leaders of most mutual funds would sell their first-born child for.

But if we don't make that initial investment, we won't get the return. We won't get students well-prepared for the world of work or for advance college work. We won't get students who want to remain in New York to raise families and pursue careers. We won't get the type of education systems that produce the best and the brightest and that annually add greater value to our homes and businesses.

Unsurprisingly, this straightforward objective is not a particularly easy sell to an electorate that regularly asks for its taxes to be cut but its services increased. It's hard work. But that's why they ran for office. As my mother once said to me when I complained about an after-school job, "When you leave the house you don't say, "I'm off to fun, Ma.' It's work and you better be doing it."