As its name suggests, the weighted student formula has proven to be a logistical burden for Hawai'i's public schools.

Designed as the answer to provide equitable public education funding, the formula has been anything but that. Instead, it's been a complicated formula that would give the most diligent number cruncher a headache. It's no wonder after several iterations, there's little consensus on the best way to weight various socio-economic and learning factors into one formula. The funding scheme has resulted in a highly charged and divisive political situation.

Perhaps, that's why Schools Superintendent Pat Hamamoto has stepped up with her own plan to best adjust the formula, and rightly so.

Hamamoto has proposed basing the formula on student proficiency. She feels if the best programs could be applied systemwide, she'd have a good handle on annual costs that produce real achievement. That could establish a baseline of funding needed for all schools. At that point, the different "weights" that meet specific needs can be applied.

Hamamoto's proposal is far from perfect. It decreases the level of implementation of the weighted student formula from 25 percent of school funding to just 15 percent. And the larger hurdle is her plan to ask the state Legislature for another $20 million to cover any shortfalls — for the second year in a row.

Still, what Hamamoto's proposal does is enable experienced educators to drive the discussion on how best to allocate school funds. That's a sensible start.

Now it's up to the superintendent to use her knowledge of the classroom, school programs and the needs of Hawai'i's students to redirect the debate from being just about money to what the money was intended to do: to ensure the funds are there to educate our kids more effectively.

That certainly would be an improvement over the discussions thus far and will bring us closer to a formula that works.