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Brinette's avatar

Last in the nation on education. One of the highest crime rates. One of the highest overdose rates. Highest taxes in the nation. Even when you die! We are losing at all the metrics we win at!

Deschutes county came after us again last election for more school funding...crying about losing pandemic funds and laying off teachers. Well, when you don't give your customers (students and parents) what they want and they no longer come to school and you spend more and more money on administrators and consultants, guess what? you're going to lose money and have to cut back on spending. That's how a real business is run.

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Chris Patrick's avatar

ACtually West Virginia has the lowers public school achievement and quality.

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OregonB's avatar

So we got that going for us.

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James Lyon's avatar

I noted, in our local newspaper today, that the vast majority of the Letters to the editor were castigating the Trump Administration's actions. It would appear that Ms Kotek is playing to the crowd. Typical politician: ignore that mess in your own backyard, and decry all that you can do nothing about. It seems to be working for 'them/her/it'.

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Stephen Peifer's avatar

Oregon is a sanctuary state for illiterate children.

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Theresa Griffin Kennedy's avatar

Well said. Exactly.

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Kevin Starrett's avatar

The reality that will not be acknowledged by almost all Oregon Republican Legislators, is that Kotek's policies are working exactly as intended. Kotek may be an ice cold witch who can make grown men (read Democrat legislators) cry, (I have seen it myself) but she is not stupid. If she were stupid enough to believe the left's plans were working, she could not find her way to work in the morning. Destruction IS the plan. Insisting that minority kids are too dumb to learn and letting them graduate is not an accident. It's part of the goal of keeping them from ever achieving anything and therefor forever dependent on the state. Toss in the added benefit of shoveling money to the left wing cabals that get you elected, and the continued sexual mutilation of children that keeps THEM forever dependent on the medical cartel, and you can relax. It's all coming together.

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BH's avatar

We have the exact same graph trajectory in Washington. There's zero accountability. All the state schools super cares about is tranny boys competing in girls sports. I'm so disgusted with WA and OR.

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Javier's avatar

At least you don’t have a state income tax. :)

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BH's avatar

Not yet. The WA legislature is desperately trying to circumvent our state constitution to impose income taxes. Oregon's income tax is high.

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victor chudowsky's avatar

The education blob wants to hide information about student achievement whenever it can. Gov. Brown, if you recall, lowered educational standards for high school in 2020. She knew that achievement was declining prior to that (note the downturn started in 2018). Now it is a vicious circle: lower achievement causes lowering of standards, and vice versa. Also, there was a huge loosening of requirements for students opting out of the state Smarter Balanced test, so now the results of state test scores are not accurate because so many students don't take the state test. Another worry: Trump is gutting the US Education Department. Cuts are necessary, but the subject of your report, NAEP, is the best test for showing how shitty OR is doing (and other states). NAEP should be preserved. Otherwise we will have no clue as to how OR students are doing, and the blob wins.

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TheXdDx12's avatar

Somehow every msm article written about these failure factors neglects to use the letters OEA. That’s who really runs the system, and the media carries the water for them. Like it’s some impossible mystery to untangle why nothing gets better.

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JR's avatar

Oregon truly meets the definition of a failed State. Education is a big metric, of many, that grow worse the longer the Kotek criminals are making the decisions.

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Shayne Olsen's avatar

One word “RECALL”

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Brett Hyland's avatar

One need only look at the illustrated graphic to know that the feminist-marxist indoctrination in our public education failure factories has achieved great generational success, one that we Oregonians can readily point to in celebration of a long-line of elected leadership, culminating in the glorious reich of Tina Kotek on the heels of Kate Brown and our previously emasculated cis-male-comrade governors.

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Theresa Griffin Kennedy's avatar

An obvious deflection move on her part. Distract voters and the citizens of Oregon with this focus on big bad Trump. I don't like Trump for many reasons, but I approve of his policies with regard to immigration and stopping the butchery of so called "gender affirming care," which is actually woman hatred at it's core.

America simply CANNOT be the Be-All, End-All for immigrants trying to find a better life. Biden and Harris dumped us with ten MILLION immigrants, unvetted lunatics, many violent rapists and killers, and it will take years to reverse that. They don't care. They exist in their Ivory towers with money, power and security details. They have nothing to worry about.

Tina is a terrible leader. She's a liar, a con artist and a parasite.

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Mike Kabakaba's avatar

4J school district actively encourages parents to opt-out low academically performing children from statewide testing to spare the struggling kids from text anxieties.

I wonder how that affects the skewing of academic performance data.

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Mariah Rossi's avatar

The most academically gifted students can opt out as well. Maybe you should start a grass roots movement to enourage them to opt out.

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Mike Kabakaba's avatar

Of course they “can.” I never said that the opt-out was contingent to performance, if that’s what you’ve interpreted.

However, students that perform well academically also have higher levels of confidence, lower levels of academic-related anxiety, and are, therefore, less likely to be interested in an option to opt-out of testing. Whereas, academically-low performing students tend to have an opposite experience. Logically, this means they and their teachers (in my personal, anecdotal experience) are more likely to encourage opting out of state testing.

The end result: low performance is not captured in state testing data, while mid to high performance is captured. This positively reflects the school’s performance as well as the district’s—regardless of the motives behind the results.

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Mariah Rossi's avatar

What I hear from m kids school district is the high preforming students see the tests as a waste of time and are less likely to participate.

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Mike Kabakaba's avatar

Be that as it may, it does not contradict anything I’ve previously stated or suggested.

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Anne's avatar

Oregon's leaders don't care about Oregonians. They care about their club, power and their pocket books.

Oregon schools were terrible back when my kids were about to head off to school. This is one of the main reasons we've been home-schooling since they started kindergarten. Always more money, always less results.

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Kwaku's avatar

Given the negative correlation between spending and test scores, Oregon voters need to choose other options, including recalling Kotek as she has not delivered results. Politicians will always point blame at other causes in an effort to confuse voters. There is ample evidence of this happening as Federal books and taxpayer funds are open to audit in DC. I am ready to donate to a campaign to recall Kotek -- not only would the state get another chance to solve our problems but perhaps some of the 'open books' policies from DOGE can be imported here to show taxpayers exactly how politicians are spending our money...

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Shayne Olsen's avatar

I’m in

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Ollie Parks's avatar

If and when Gov. Kotek decides to show some leadership in fixing Oregon's broken system of public education, she doesn't necessarily have to pay consultants six- or seven-digit fees to get the gist of what's wrong with the current system. The problem is so notorious that even Google's AI knows what's what. Here's what AI spit out when asked what is wrong with public education in Oregon:

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According to recent reports, Oregon's educational system is struggling with significantly low student proficiency levels in core subjects like math and reading, despite increased spending on education, with many citing a lack of clear direction in how funds are used and a failure to translate increased spending into improved outcomes, particularly for marginalized student populations, as major issues with the system; this is further exacerbated by the pandemic's lasting impact on student learning, leaving Oregon students behind national averages in academic recovery.

Key points about Oregon's education system issues:

Low test scores: Oregon consistently ranks among the lowest states in standardized testing results, with a large percentage of students not meeting basic proficiency levels in key subjects like math and English.

Lack of progress despite increased spending: Despite significant increases in education funding, student achievement has not improved, raising concerns about how money is being allocated and utilized.

Disparity in student achievement: Students from minority backgrounds and low-income families are disproportionately affected by poor educational outcomes.

Pandemic learning loss: The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated existing issues, with Oregon students showing minimal recovery in academic skills compared to other states.

Concerns about accountability: Critics argue that the state Department of Education lacks a strong framework to hold districts accountable for improving student achievement.

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Missing from this analysis is any mention of teachers' unions.

At first, Google's AI would not respond when asked to list the chief objections to unions of teachers. When the question was worded differently, it produced a modest list along with an unasked-for statement of the advantages of teachers' unions.

Would Kotek or anyone in her administration ask that question? Would they be willing to make changes to the educational system to address the criticism?

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Seniority rules

Inflexible rules based on seniority can prevent schools from hiring effective teachers and responding to student needs

Financial costs

Union dues can be expensive, and some states require all teachers to pay agency fees

Resistance to reform

Unions can resist new ideas and education reforms

Protecting ineffective teachers

Contracts can make it difficult to fire teachers who aren't effective, which can hurt students

Salary structure

Basing salaries on experience and education level doesn't always correlate with teacher effectiveness

Some critics believe that unions have too much influence on public education and that collective bargaining has created rules that make it hard for schools to change.

However, teachers' unions can also offer benefits like better pay, job protection, and professional development.

===============================================================

It took less than ten minutes to pinpoint key issues. So, what is Tina waiting for?

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Anne's avatar

Interesting, the only positive thing mentioned was benefits to the teacher. Countless harm to the kids, but at least the adults get what they want. And that's what K-12 education is all about, right?

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Theresa Griffin Kennedy's avatar

She won't. She doesn't care about education or the youth of this state. She doesn't care. She just wants to have nest eggs, for her little dumpling wife...

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David Gulickson's avatar

Probably preaching to the choir (I date myself with that) but; WAKE UP OREGON

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