First, the good news. Oregon’s high school graduation rate ticked up to nearly 82% last year…
As I’ve noted previously, this is a meaningless statistic. We are graduating kids who are woefully educated.
…Now for the bad and even worse news.
The latest data on math and reading test scores for Oregon students was more alarming than we first thought, as The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. When adjusted for household income and demographics, our kids are not “near the bottom,” they are “at the bottom” of all 50 states!
This should be no surprise whatsoever. This is the result of a multi-year effort on the part of the Democrats in the legislature and the Oregon Department of Education.
By “effort” I don’t mean to say that low test scores were their intent. I do mean to say that they’ve actively taken steps to harm public education in Oregon and the result is exactly what many of us expected.
The responses from the governor and the education establishment at the state and local level were, according to the report, “crickets.”
That is hardly surprising.
Not that their Republican counterparts were any more reasonable. They led with vouchers for private school alternatives, which one can view as both raising a white flag for our public school system and waving a red flag at Democrats. But, compared to silence and denial, at least one can say Republicans came out swinging.
Actually, I think vouchers for private school alternative is perfectly reasonable. It’s tragic for public education, no doubt. But the status quo is unacceptable (or should be). Unless the Democrats in the legislature and the governor are prepared to dramatically change tack—and “crickets” was their initial response—the GOP proposal is the only thing on the table.