Any reduction in athletics funding will surely decrease Hawai'i public high school test scores and No Child Left Behind Act compliance, something that should be of great concern to all of us.

Athletic programs provide valuable lifelong lessons — teamwork, sportsmanship, winning and losing, and hard work. Through athletic participation, students also learn self-discipline, build self-confidence and develop other skills to handle competitive situations so that our student-athletes become responsible adults and productive citizens.

Allowing the budget cuts and inevitable elimination of sports will cost us many millions of dollars more down the road for increased incarceration and treatment programs, not to mention the other costs of increased drug and alcohol usage, including increased domestic violence, child abuse, property crime and violent crime.

More specifically, according to the state of Hawai'i's Office of Youth Services, the cost to Hawai'i's taxpayers to incarcerate just one youth is approximately $70,000-$80,000 annually.

Therefore, any cut to our public school athletic programs, even a temporary one, will cause long-standing financial and social damage that will adversely affect all of us, far beyond the $1 million cut that we are now facing.

The Department of Education's budget for the current school year is $2.4 billion, of which only $13.3 million, or just 0.56 percent of the budget, goes to our public high school athletic programs. Consequently, our public high school athletic directors must already fundraise more than $1 million annually to pay for basic necessities, such as ground transportation, uniforms, supplies and equipment for their 2,000-plus sports teams and 25,000-plus student-athletes.

Additionally, according to a recent national survey, should Hawai'i's public schools be forced to cut all or even a portion of its junior varsity athletics programs, we will have the dubious distinction of being the only state in the country without complete public high school JV athletics programs.

Moreover, even if we don't cut any portion of our JV athletics programs, Hawai'i is already one of only three states in the country that does not have three levels of public high school athletics programs (freshman, junior varsity and varsity).

Despite the many challenges our public school system faces in terms of test scores and NCLB, one of the brightest areas is athletics. Indeed, the entire state takes great pride and joy in seeing public schools such as Kahuku (football), Kaimuki (boys basketball), and Kona-waena (girls basketball) win state championships against our private schools, and takes similar pride and joy (and inspiration) when our public school products shine on the national and even international stage, such as current U.S. Olympians Brian Clay (Castle High, decathlon) and Natasha Kai (Kahuku High, women's soccer).

Therefore, if anything, our public high school athletics budget should be significantly increased, and not decreased.

By fully funding our public high school athletic programs, we will be making a wise investment that will allow us to continue to make great strides in our efforts to develop healthy, well-rounded, and productive citizens who will eventually play a key role in shaping Hawai'i's path to success in our global society.

Keith Amemiya is Executive Director of the Hawaii High School Athletic Association. He wrote this commentary for The Advertiser.