Your attention please, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. Attention, all the governor's lackeys, too. And all those selfless, humanitarian members of state workers' unions:

Having fun yet?

Enjoying the way you have now succeeded in dragging children - always the children - into the morass?

It's been a few days now since we learned of a proposal in the latest game of budgetary chicken that would suspend all athletic programs, music, art, library media department heads and social workers at state technical high schools. Must have been a hoot being in the room that day when a bunch of suits decided that, yes, this would be a boffo idea.

Ooooh. Sports! That always gets em! Let's mix in music and arts and a few social workers, too! That'll really frost their adenoids!

Some have suggested this was a ploy to weigh on guilty consciences of union workers. (If they have any.) I can't profess to caring about motives, though, when necessary precepts of the educational process are being denied to kids.

It's hard to sing arias about the benefits of sports, arts and music without degenerating into a cliché festival. Let's leave it here: If you don't think the lessons from fields, courts, stages and exhibits are as enduring as math class, you don't have enough bandwidth to participate in the rest of the conversation.

Not to get all Utopian on you, but isn't society's primary function to give kids every chance to succeed, so that one day they are honest, decent and self-sufficient? Not every kid is wired for the classroom. Arts, music and athletics contribute to cognitive growth on scores of levels, never mind a social worker who can help kids navigate one of the most exciting, but confusing, times in their lives.

But what the hell. Proper educational opportunities mean nothing to these people. Not when they have to look all big and bad and tough during periods of negotiation.

We are Connecticut: where negotiation trumps education.

One technical school principal said Monday, "The state never treats us like an educational organization. Last year during a spending freeze, we got treated like any other state agency. We couldn't even buy paper."

Why would, you know, a school ever need paper?

Every kid who attends a technical school is being told that he or she isn't worth the paper they can't print on. Sorry you don't have sports, music, art or an adult you can safely confide in, kid, but you're not worth the expense.

Bet if someone convinced these people that better access to paper would improve standardized test scores, our state suits would stage a coup d'etat on W.B. Mason.

Seriously. Someone give me an example of how a standardized test has any practical application in the real world. Any. Any at all. Just one example. Please. Nothing shows politicians' ignorance more than standardized testing. They've made standardized testing the almighty antidote to what ails education, ignoring how giving a kid a test that lasts a few hours has nothing to do with educating them. Zero.

And all that rests on them is funding.

Imagine if the suits thought back to their school days - when they received benefits of the educational system they're not willing to pass down - when their own voyages of self-discovery happened through interacting with their classmates on teams and stages. I'd sure love to know how many of Malloy's minions or all the aggrieved union workers have kids going to state technical schools at the moment.

I understand that these are unprecedented times. And that Malloy's predecessor, Betty Crocker Rell, did less than nothing. But to use children as pawns in all this is one of the great acts of sleaziness in the history of our state. Removing athletics and arts is not the answer. It's not even on the table. Not now, not ever.

And if you think this is somehow justified, you forfeit your right to whine about directionless kids or a rudderless educational system. Know why? Because you are as culpable as Malloy and the unions.

Put the kids in the middle of the bickering? Sickening.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.