Here’s a tip for your reading list. It’s no page turner. It’s not written with dizzying voice and cadence.

It’s about Oregon K-12 education funding.

Many debates about K-12 education in Oregon begin with the assumption that Oregon underfunds education. Compare the starting salary of a teacher in the Bend-La Pine Schools and rents in Bend and that is just one reason why so many are concerned. It is surely a certainty that when Oregon legislators gather next year they will be looking at options to spend more on schools and perhaps ways to bring in more revenue.

Before Oregon goes there, for many of us, including editorial writers, there are big gaps in our understanding of K-12 money — where it comes from and how it is distributed.

Jim Scherzinger, who was the superintendent of Portland Public Schools and the director of the state’s Legislative Revenue Office, wrote a primer on K-12 money. It was written for the Oregon Business & Industry Research and Education Foundation. It comes across, though, as a thorough, factual 24-page explainer and not a polemic.

After reading it we only had more questions. How do we know we are getting good returns on those dollars? If we spent the same money differently, could we get better outcomes?

Many who work in K-12 education may have answers to those questions already. But the rest of us need to know them, too, before legislators ask us for more money.

You can find the primer here: tinyurl.com/ORK12.