The raw reality of the Legislature's decision to redistribute school money on the basis of "need" is now becoming apparent.

As reported by Education Writer Beverly Creamer, close to half of the state's public schools will soon lose money under the new spending formula, which is based on "weights" assigned by student need.

Of course, the other part of this story is that half the schools will gain money that can be targeted at students with special needs.

This major shift in spending policy has forced individual school administrators to make difficult, even agonizing choices.

In many cases, the choice has been to take the hit in non-classroom positions, including counselors, maintenance workers and librarians.

The thought of losing librarians is particularly tough, since in-school libraries have been an important part of our public school system for years.

In an ideal world, this shift of resources to basic classroom instruction might be made up by extra money for library services and other amenities coming from other sources. And in some cases, that might — indeed, should — happen.

But school administrators cannot wait and hope that this extra help will arrive. They need to begin making these difficult choices now.

The good news is that under the Reinventing Education Act, it will be individual school administrators who will make the decision. If the emphasis is on basic classroom instruction, that indeed will be where the money will go. Other schools may conclude that library (or music, or counseling or other services) are critical to their students.

The point is that the decisions will be made by individual school communities, rather than the central bureaucracy.

In reality, no school in the Hawai'i system is truly "over-funded." Needs still exceed resources available. But the real world has a habit of intruding into these matters.

Until the day when there is adequate funding for education, choices will have to be made. Under the latest formula, at least those choices will not be made in an arbitrary manner but rather by those closest to the students they affect.