To improve education, focus funding on proven measures

Editor’s note: This op-ed is the fourth in a series of commentary pieces The Oregonian/OregonLive is publishing this year, offering different perspectives on primary and secondary education financing in Oregon. Readers can find previous op-eds at https://www.oregonlive.com/topic/oregon-education-funding

Sara Pope

Pope is the executive director of Stand for Children Oregon.

A recent study by researchers at Harvard and Stanford painted a grim picture of the progress Oregon students are making following the pandemic. Or rather: the progress they are not making.

Of the 30 states included in the study, Oregon’s academic losses in reading and math were among the largest. These results come after Oregon received $1.6 billion in one-time federal COVID relief funds aimed at helping children catch up after the pandemic.

While children in almost every other state in the study are recovering academically, Oregon children are not, and the opportunity gaps are widening. At the same time, Oregon’s absenteeism rate is among the highest in the country. These are alarm bells that should prompt the state to urgently reassess how our relaxed and unfocused approach to statewide education spending is failing our children.

Our children and educators are just as talented as the children and educators in any other state. But we must shift our spending system to strategies that we know deliver results for children.

For example, federal COVID dollars were critical in allowing schools to conduct contact tracing and update their HVAC systems. But subsequent allocations were intended to address the decline in learning outcomes, with a requirement that districts spend at least 20% of the money on “learning loss.”

While Oregon districts met that minimum, the state as a whole failed to address the academic crisis in the systematic way that places like Colorado and Tennessee did.

Those states, and others now seeing an uptick, had a targeted spending plan aimed at underserved student groups. They invested deeply in research-based strategies such as high-dose tutoring and high-quality summer learning. Oregon did not need such a plan or expenditure direction, missing an opportunity to ensure that all students had the support they needed to catch up.

The notable exception was Portland Public Schools, which invested heavily in targeted, research-based solutions, and as a direct result, their students are bouncing back from the pandemic.

This hands-off approach is not unique to one-time federal pandemic relief spending; it is representative of the approach taken in the vast majority of the education budget for primary and secondary education. The state distributes funding to districts according to a formula based on student numbers and demographics, such as poverty, the percentage of students in special education and other factors. But we already know from past experience that there is a better way to allocate dollars to drive better results.

Consider what we saw with the passage of Measure 98, also known as “High School Success,” which was championed by Stand for Children in 2016.

Measure 98 provides funding of $150 million per year, but districts must spend money on proven research methods that increase a student’s chances of graduating and succeeding in college or a career, with a special focus on historically underserved students. The research-proven strategies are threefold: a focus on preventing dropout starting in grade 9, accessing college credits in high school, and expanding access to technical vocational education. In the years since Measure 98 was implemented, districts have increased the offering of career and technical education programs by 40%. The pass rate for students who earn at least two CTE credits is 95%.

Although graduation rates fell for Black and Latino students last year, since Measure 98’s equity-oriented and targeted funds reached classrooms, there has been a net increase of more than 5.5 percentage points for both groups of students, translating into thousands extra colored children. graduating from high school every year.

Measure 98 is a clear success story, proving that when our state is focused and strategic on funding the practices that research shows have the greatest impact on every child, especially those who have been historically underserved, we move more students through that graduation phase can get.

That is one of the reasons why Stand for Children defended the Early Literacy Success Initiative in the House of Representatives last year.

Supported by dedicated educators, parents and legislators from across the state, and thanks to the commitment of Governor Tina Kotek, the state Legislature has chosen to require districts to dedicate a portion of existing state funding to research-based methods to improve improve reading for young students. .

However, lawmakers have allocated only 30% of the amount districts need to reach every student.

As lawmakers consider how to modernize our education financing approach, they must prioritize investments that deliver the results children need. That includes ensuring tutoring and summer learning for all 50,000 of our struggling readers, and hiring enough literacy coaches to support all K-12 teachers in aligning their practice with research. There is no reason why Oregon’s literacy rate cannot be the highest in the nation, and to achieve that, the Legislature must commit to fully funding the Early Literacy Success Initiative.

We join the calls from teachers and administrators trying to make the budget work, and from families struggling to make do with the resources allocated to their schools to finance education.

High-quality education deserves a significant investment from our state. However, money needs to be spent on what works. If we do that at scale and across the state, we can create a better future for all of us, especially our children.