Producing a gourmet – or even just nutritious – dinner requires a kitchen with certain features: sink, stove, refrigerator, chopping block. And yet, the photos of House Beautifulmagazine’s most gorgeous kitchen tell you nothing about the food produced there. That depends entirely on the chef, ingredients and recipes.

Scott McCown, executive director of Austin’s Center for Public Policy Priorities, uses this metaphor to explain our school finance system: It does a fair job on the bricks-and-mortar part of public education. But what happens when the bill arrives for what’s cooked up in our shiny new schools/kitchens? Somehow, the state’s plan for paying for the good chefs and fresh groceries for our classrooms – despite decades of litigation and legislative debates – remains half-baked. [View Article]