Progressives have had three decades to embed racial preferences into almost every aspect of the state government. Local media is too broke (and progressive-infiltrated) to do anything more than act as stenographers for the power elite. The action is now moving to social media--Jeff, you're doing yeoman work--but there is no opposition party in place to offer an alternative. And Portland and its satellites have loaded the deck with "disproportionate" political results from its rotten boroughs.
The state is in deep decline; there are no real opportunities for entrepreneurs, while the biggest industries (Nike, Intel, forestry, agriculture) are in deep doo-doo. Bureaucracy creams off money that could be more wisely and productively spent. The citizenry that pays the freight accurately understands they're marks in the big con game.
It's a big country; UHauls are cheap. When mortgage rates decline, the exodus will accelerate.
Jeff & Richard… there is a new party in Oregon—WE THE PEOPLE. It’s in beginning stages so please check it out, contribute, and/or share as it takes The People to make change happen. https://wtpor.com/
Started in early 80’s as outcome of unconstitutional DOE and the Teachers Unions changing from teaching “up” all students to teaching to lowest common denominator.
About 6 years ago a family member was having difficulty with behavior at school. I volunteered in his classroom to try to identify what the issues were that caused severe anxiety and stress. What I saw caused me severe anxiety and stress. Overall- throughout the day, was an environment that was disorganized, disruptive, unruly children running a school. The teachers were making excuses for their lack of respect and chaos rather than getting support from admin to address the behaviors by the children . The children who do actually show up to learn something have had the standards lowered to level the playing field with those who are experiencing difficulties with “learning readiness.” When the system spend more on the health centers and security every year and lowers its academic expectations, teaching expectations are also lowered. My sons “graduated” from high school this year. He hated school because of the chaos.. since no one held him to any real expectations academically, he flat out stopped participating. Even this kids see that no real effort to solve the issues and there is a double standard. The kicker is- he is a student that would qualify for such a grant and I would not send him to summer school. He was unlearning more skills the more time he spent in school.
This story could be shared hundreds of times and still make no difference to the powers that be. Public schools (there are exceptions) are poorly run day care centers with the educational opportunities nonexistent.
Agreed. I till we start pulling our kids out of school, firing ineffective teachers and foster a health learning environment that encourages kids to think, ask questions and problem solve, we are in trouble.
I just posted on another, in Oregon it started in early 80s when power of Teachers Union took over and started teaching to lowest common denominator. It’s sad what happened. Sorry for you and your family member. My step-daughter same and due to my job and unrealized understanding, I didn’t get her out. She’s slowly turning around though at PCC.
If anyone feels they or their child in need of summer school has been discriminated against, they should contact The Pacific Legal Foundation. They litigate these type of cases.
I would think some of the Eastern/Central Oregon rural school districts (with low POC %) could potentially also have standing in a case like this. I hope they would consider litigating this as well.
One would think that they would focus on grants based on the student's performance at school. If the goal is to help those with the lower scores, just use the list and start at the lowest, and when the funds run out, that's all that will be helped. No need to focus on any other specifics, just their current GPA for the year prior to this summer school program.
One key takeaway, Jeff, is your positing other factors directly related to academic achievement that could have been used for deciding which districts got extra funding, e.g. test scores, attendance rates.
In a nutshell, racial discrimination is allowed only under the strictest scrutiny. In other words, the discrimination is the only way to achieve a really important state purpose. Here, the state purpose allegedly served is either helping certain racial groups specifically (not a legit state purpose) and improving student performance (legit). Oregon's use of racial discrimination to achieve its legitimate goal, instead of focusing on addressing where they know student performance needs work, would almost certainly be lethal in court.
America was not built on the bottom 10%. Unfortunately, Oregon has to “save” the bottom 10% and ignore everything else. Look at the scoreboard folks, it obviously not working. With that said our leadership sure feels better.
I think the first step would be to replace all existing members of Oregon's 'supreme" court and replace them with members who make at least a passing acknowledgment of the written constitutions of Oregon and the United States of America.
Spread the word that this is going on. I strongly suspect that many of the GOP legislators who voted for the bill last year did not know to what degree funding prioritization would be tied to race. The bill references another statute, so if you didn't follow it through to that other statute (which they should), you wouldn't know the centrality of race to the whole thing. A big problem in Oregon continues to be the vast majority of Oregonians don't know how badly their state government is messing things up.
Everytime I see "grant" funding something, I see our tax dollars going to everything but what the grant was supposed to be for. ODE is especially good at that. Students, not so much.
There are two possible solutions to this problem: 1. Have year round schools, so everyone goes to “summer” school or 2. Have every Anglo student declare themselves/ identify themselves as Native American. Then let the educators sort it out.
Year round schools will just mean that students will be subjected to the same bad experiences that they are now experiencing in the existing school year. Some school districts are doing a much better job than others, so I hope the schools getting the summer grants will do that better job in summer.
We seem to be at a stage where public expenditure is allocated primarily for the purpose of addressing unproven and undebated allegations about history and the consequences of illegal immigration, itself an invention of politicos and bureaucrats. We are being asked to sacrifice the education of students born in Oregon for the sake of providing remedial education to others who should not be here and nobody ever voted to support. Weird and not wonderful!
Sounds like a letter to US Attorney General Pam Bondi is in order. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Progressives have had three decades to embed racial preferences into almost every aspect of the state government. Local media is too broke (and progressive-infiltrated) to do anything more than act as stenographers for the power elite. The action is now moving to social media--Jeff, you're doing yeoman work--but there is no opposition party in place to offer an alternative. And Portland and its satellites have loaded the deck with "disproportionate" political results from its rotten boroughs.
The state is in deep decline; there are no real opportunities for entrepreneurs, while the biggest industries (Nike, Intel, forestry, agriculture) are in deep doo-doo. Bureaucracy creams off money that could be more wisely and productively spent. The citizenry that pays the freight accurately understands they're marks in the big con game.
It's a big country; UHauls are cheap. When mortgage rates decline, the exodus will accelerate.
Hard to find fault with any of that, Richard.
Jeff & Richard… there is a new party in Oregon—WE THE PEOPLE. It’s in beginning stages so please check it out, contribute, and/or share as it takes The People to make change happen. https://wtpor.com/
Looks interesting. Can you tell us more abut this new political party?
https://wtpor.com/
Sorry to say I took your advise last summer. I love(d) Oregon but couldn't abide the descent into ?? any longer.
Understand…Oregon’s nature is beautiful, but the political regime needs a complete overhaul.
Almost all of Oregon Public School students should be going to Summer School. Oregon's test scores are unbelievably low!
Started in early 80’s as outcome of unconstitutional DOE and the Teachers Unions changing from teaching “up” all students to teaching to lowest common denominator.
About 6 years ago a family member was having difficulty with behavior at school. I volunteered in his classroom to try to identify what the issues were that caused severe anxiety and stress. What I saw caused me severe anxiety and stress. Overall- throughout the day, was an environment that was disorganized, disruptive, unruly children running a school. The teachers were making excuses for their lack of respect and chaos rather than getting support from admin to address the behaviors by the children . The children who do actually show up to learn something have had the standards lowered to level the playing field with those who are experiencing difficulties with “learning readiness.” When the system spend more on the health centers and security every year and lowers its academic expectations, teaching expectations are also lowered. My sons “graduated” from high school this year. He hated school because of the chaos.. since no one held him to any real expectations academically, he flat out stopped participating. Even this kids see that no real effort to solve the issues and there is a double standard. The kicker is- he is a student that would qualify for such a grant and I would not send him to summer school. He was unlearning more skills the more time he spent in school.
This story could be shared hundreds of times and still make no difference to the powers that be. Public schools (there are exceptions) are poorly run day care centers with the educational opportunities nonexistent.
Agreed. I till we start pulling our kids out of school, firing ineffective teachers and foster a health learning environment that encourages kids to think, ask questions and problem solve, we are in trouble.
I just posted on another, in Oregon it started in early 80s when power of Teachers Union took over and started teaching to lowest common denominator. It’s sad what happened. Sorry for you and your family member. My step-daughter same and due to my job and unrealized understanding, I didn’t get her out. She’s slowly turning around though at PCC.
No doubt brought to you by the same people as the $62 million dollar Black only Oregon "Cares" fund ….
https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2021/10/oregon-settles-second-lawsuit-over-pandemic-aid-earmarked-for-black-oregonians.html
Yep, more or less the same legal issue. They just keep doing it until someone makes them stop.
If anyone feels they or their child in need of summer school has been discriminated against, they should contact The Pacific Legal Foundation. They litigate these type of cases.
https://pacificlegal.org/equality-and-opportunity/
https://pacificlegal.org/
Yes, this.
I would think some of the Eastern/Central Oregon rural school districts (with low POC %) could potentially also have standing in a case like this. I hope they would consider litigating this as well.
One would think that they would focus on grants based on the student's performance at school. If the goal is to help those with the lower scores, just use the list and start at the lowest, and when the funds run out, that's all that will be helped. No need to focus on any other specifics, just their current GPA for the year prior to this summer school program.
Yes, that is what equal protection jurisprudence probably requires.
One key takeaway, Jeff, is your positing other factors directly related to academic achievement that could have been used for deciding which districts got extra funding, e.g. test scores, attendance rates.
In a nutshell, racial discrimination is allowed only under the strictest scrutiny. In other words, the discrimination is the only way to achieve a really important state purpose. Here, the state purpose allegedly served is either helping certain racial groups specifically (not a legit state purpose) and improving student performance (legit). Oregon's use of racial discrimination to achieve its legitimate goal, instead of focusing on addressing where they know student performance needs work, would almost certainly be lethal in court.
America was not built on the bottom 10%. Unfortunately, Oregon has to “save” the bottom 10% and ignore everything else. Look at the scoreboard folks, it obviously not working. With that said our leadership sure feels better.
Even worse, Oregon isn't even trying to save the bottom 10%. It's trying to save certain racial groups, and failing at that.
I think the first step would be to replace all existing members of Oregon's 'supreme" court and replace them with members who make at least a passing acknowledgment of the written constitutions of Oregon and the United States of America.
Good luck with that. Ignorance of written constitutions seems to be a qualifier not a glitch
Excellent article, even though it feels like a bit of a gut punch.
What do you recommend that Oregonians should do to help counteract this ongoing problem? What would be the best approach (in the near and far terms)?
Spread the word that this is going on. I strongly suspect that many of the GOP legislators who voted for the bill last year did not know to what degree funding prioritization would be tied to race. The bill references another statute, so if you didn't follow it through to that other statute (which they should), you wouldn't know the centrality of race to the whole thing. A big problem in Oregon continues to be the vast majority of Oregonians don't know how badly their state government is messing things up.
Just giving them more time and money to infiltrate their political agendas in into our youngsters lives
Everytime I see "grant" funding something, I see our tax dollars going to everything but what the grant was supposed to be for. ODE is especially good at that. Students, not so much.
There are two possible solutions to this problem: 1. Have year round schools, so everyone goes to “summer” school or 2. Have every Anglo student declare themselves/ identify themselves as Native American. Then let the educators sort it out.
Year round schools will just mean that students will be subjected to the same bad experiences that they are now experiencing in the existing school year. Some school districts are doing a much better job than others, so I hope the schools getting the summer grants will do that better job in summer.
Charter schools should be offered as an alternative to public schools
The teacher's unions (such as the anti-Semitic PAT) own the supermajority in Salem. Only a citizen's ballot initiative would bring us charter schools.
We seem to be at a stage where public expenditure is allocated primarily for the purpose of addressing unproven and undebated allegations about history and the consequences of illegal immigration, itself an invention of politicos and bureaucrats. We are being asked to sacrifice the education of students born in Oregon for the sake of providing remedial education to others who should not be here and nobody ever voted to support. Weird and not wonderful!