I’ve written plenty of WHAT. I desperately need to flesh out the picture with HOW. But my attempts at “how” all hit the same barrier. What can we do to make education better without using money? Because the available money is pretty much committed.

Lucky teachers and students live within my nationally-praised district, where parents think backpacks cost $80 — because that’s what they spend. Unlucky others live 17 miles north, where backpacks cost less than $20, and are sometimes even free, after local groups raise money for school supplies and winter coats. Average housing prices are less than half what prices are where I live and industry 17 miles north is pretty close to nonexistent. Hungry? Try the Dollar Store or the remnants of the fast food dollar menus.

In a system based on property-tax based funding, those schools to the north have been hurting forever. What is the process for fixing these schools? No one knows, Administrators throw globs of half-formed hope at the fan and then try to explain the mess that results.

Eduhonesty: We all keep writing WHAT. We are honestly not writing much HOW — not much realistic how, anyway. Because even dedicated educational professionals are ignoring the elephant in the room, the elephant that is the US property-tax-based school funding system.

This system has traditionally favored those in areas with big houses and upscale malls.

Still true. Still hidden on the backburner when we talk about fixing schools. Still discussed only rarely.

I worry that the fight against vouchers and charter schools is sucking energy away from this issue — even as I worry that those vouchers and charter schools are being used to do an end run around fixing the inequities that allowed those schools to muscle into the educational landscape in the first place.