Todd Murphy of the Portland Tribune runs down the situation in Portland Public Schools, a system that was once one of the best in the nation but is today highly underfunded.

• Spending on programs outside of the classroom has decreased significantly. Spending on instructional support — things such as child development programs, library materials and staff development — has been cut by more than 30 percent since 1990. Spending on building support — items such as student transportation, school administrators, custodians and maintenance workers — has been cut by about 25 percent.

• Spending on central administration is down less than a half a percent from 14 years ago. It now amounts to about 5.8 percent of all district spending.

• Without the temporary Multnomah County income tax and a temporary property tax levy, district spending would be entirely different. Per student spending, adjusted for inflation, would be 20 percent less than it was in 1990.

If everything has been cut except for administration, that sounds a bit problematic to me. What would I know, though... I was only a student there.