Student test scores stagnant in Salem, across Oregon – Salem Reporter:
In Salem, that means just 24% of third graders tested in the spring were proficient in English, compared to 39% for the state.
In math, one quarter of local third graders were proficient – a slight improvement from the year before. Statewide, the number was 40%.
Numbers and trends varied significantly among local schools and across grades. But the overall picture shows Salem students last year performed slightly worse on average in all three subjects compared to 2023. The district is Oregon’s second-largest, with about 36,000 students.
“These results are sobering. And not only are we not on track, we are actively moving in the wrong direction,” Superintendent Andrea Castañeda of the Salem-Keizer School District said in an interview Wednesday.
Castañeda hasn’t been the in job long enough to implement any of her own changes, so this isn’t on her. And she gets points for clearly articulating the train wreck instead of trying to obfuscate the problem.
In addition to boosting state money, Castañeda echoed a point she’s made repeatedly this fall: legislators need to fund schools to focus on basics and stop creating new mandates and special projects.
“If there is a revolving door of new policy expectations, of new curricular requirements, of new demands on our system, it is very hard to focus on the fundamentals,” she said.
She is not wrong.
In response to repeated questions from reporters, state education leaders provided few specifics about what they intend to do to improve results for older students who have only a few years left in Oregon’s schools. They also wouldn’t answer in detail how they will hold local school leaders accountable for improving results.
The Oregon Department of Education is a problem not a solution. They’ve been terrible for years, maybe decades. (Looking at you, Democrats. State government is fully in your control and has been all this time.)
One thing unmentioned in the article: A lot of this is on parents.