Public Education in Oregon

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Overview
Oregon has 197 public school districts, which operate a total of 1,306 public schools. These schools enroll a total of 566,067 students from kindergarten through grade 12. More than 29,000 teachers work in Oregon’s public schools, for a student/teacher ratio of 19.5 to 1 (national average: 15.7 to 1). Student demographics show a minority enrollment of 26 percent (national average: 42 percent). Students who qualified for free and reduced-price lunch made up 42 percent of all students in 2007–2008 (national average: 35.3 percent).

Special education students made up 13 percent of the total in 2007–2008 (national average: 12.8 percent). Students needing language assistance services because English was not their first language made up 12.2 percent of the total in 2007–2008 (national average in 2006-07: 9.39 percent).(1) The state’s share of the K–12 education budget is $6.24 billion for the two years ending June 30, 2009. For the same two years, the federal government is estimated to provide $1.16 billion for Oregon K–12 programs. No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) will provide an estimated $437.9 million to Oregon’s public schools in 2007–2009.(2)

State Board of Education
The State Board of Education, with seven members appointed to four-year terms by the governor, is charged with establishing policy for the administration and operation of the public elementary and secondary schools and public community colleges in the State of Oregon.

Board members are Duncan Wyse, Chair (term ends 2012); Brenda Frank, Vice Chair (2012); Jerry Berger (2012); Lewis Frederick (2012); Artemio Paz Jr. (2009); Leslie Shepherd (2012); and Nikki Squire (2011).

Starting with the ninth grade class in the fall of 2008, the State Board of Education will require all students to take more rigorous coursework and higher levels of math and science in order to receive a diploma. Additionally, all students will be required to demonstrate their abilities in a variety of “essential skills”—initially reading, writing, applying mathematics and speaking clearly.

Oregon has not chosen to require a single pass/fail exit exam, as some states do, opting instead to allow multiple pathways and opportunities for students to demonstrate their mastery of math, reading, writing and speaking. For each essential skill, students will need to do one of the following:

• achieve a passing score on the state assessment tests in reading, writing and mathematics;
• complete an approved, locally scored assessment, such as a work sample or student project; or
• achieve a passing score on another approved standardized test yet to be determined.

The state will monitor the numbers of students meeting the essential skills requirements through local assessments and will provide testing accommodations for students with disabilities.

Department of Education
The Oregon Department of Education (ODE)(3) is led by Superintendent of Public Instruction Susan Castillo (elected 2002, reelected 2006). ODE is responsible for statewide curriculum and instruction programs and coordinates Oregon’s statewide assessment testing system. ODE is also responsible for the state School for the Deaf, regional programs for children with disabilities and education programs in Oregon youth correctional facilities. ODE is Oregon’s liaison with the U.S. Department of Education and monitors a variety of state and federal programs, including the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Education Service Districts (ESD) provide specialized resources to the 197 school districts.

Oregon public school finance is unique and very complicated for several reasons. Money to support public education in grades K–12 comes from the state income tax and lottery fund; local revenues, primarily property tax; and federal funds. In 1990, voters passed Measure 5, which amended the Oregon Constitution to place a limit of $5 per every $1,000 of a property’s assessed real market value on revenue for public education. In 1997, voters passed Measure 50, which assigned each taxing district its own permanent tax rate, and cannot be increased. Each property has an assessed value, which cannot increase more than 3 percent unless some new activity occurs on the property.

The effect of these property tax measures has been to shift the bulk of public school funding from local property taxes to Oregon’s general fund, which comes from the state income tax. In 1991, in response to Measure 5, the Legislature passed a permanent K–12 equalization formula, which determines how much money each school district will get from the State School Fund to fill the gap between the district’s local revenue and its equalization target.

Oregon voters passed Measure 1 in 2000, which amended Article VIII of the Oregon Constitution. Measure 1 required the Legislature to “appropriate in each biennium a sum of money sufficient to ensure that the state’s system of public education meets quality goals established by law.” Additionally, Measure 1 required the Legislature to “publish a report that either demonstrates the appropriation is sufficient, or identifies the reasons for the insufficiency, its extent, and its impact on the ability of the state’s system of public education to meet those goals.”

Also in 1991, the Legislature passed the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century. This legislation was intended to set standards for subject areas and measure student progress. There was no provision for funding the enormous changes required by the Act. However, the Act triggered divisive disagreement between all parties involved, from teachers, parents and school administrators to taxpayers and talk show hosts. Consequently, implementation was far from smooth, and a major revision of the Act was passed in 1995. The Act was revised again in 2003, and the subject areas requiring mastery were reduced to English, math and science. This brought the Act into line with NCLB requirements.

All of these enormous and simultaneous impacts on K–12 public education were responsible for major changes in public policy that are still being resolved. Control over public education has shif­ted from local districts to the Legislature; implementation of the equalization formula has been contentious; other parts of state government dependent on the general fund have faced an intensely competitive budget environment; and the Oregon Educational Act has been blurred with the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Although the 2007 Legislature approved $6.24 billion in K–12 funding for the two years ending June 30, 2009, this amount was $1.96 billion less than the $7.7 billion the legislatively-established Quality Education Commission judged was necessary to meet Oregon’s quality education goals. One result of this failure to meet a constitutional requirement (Measure 1, passed by the voters in 2000) is that several school districts filed suit in 2006 against the Legislature and governor for failing to provide adequate funding for schools. Approximately two-thirds of the money needed to run the public schools comes from the state and one-third from local government.

In 2006, Oregon spent an average of $9,257 per K–12 student (national average: $10,400). Again in 2006, Oregon spent an average of $5,074 per student on instruction (national average: $5,554), and $8,645 was spent on school district operating expenses (national average: $9,099).4

An enormous amount of statistical data on public schools is available on the Internet. The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), www.nces.ed.gov, a program of the U.S. Department of Education, collects data from states and provides analytical tools for users. NCES allows users to view data in graphic representation as well and provides the means to assess how well other states are doing in the same areas.

A less exhaustive site with public school data is SchoolMatters, a service of Standard and Poor’s. SchoolMatters relies on much the same data collected by NCES and again provides the ability to compare districts within a state or different states. Both sites should be used with caution, since data is notoriously difficult to compare accurately. However, they do provide the means to get a sense of how Oregon school children and Oregon school districts are performing and how Oregon compares with other states.

Average Oregon SAT Results Compared Nationally

Writing	Oregon	National
2008	502	494
2007	502	494
2006	503	497
Verbal*	Oregon	National	..........	Mathematics	Oregon	National
2008	523	502		2008	527	515
2007	522	502		2007	529	515
2006	523	503		2006	529	518
2005	526	508		2005	528	520
2004	527	508		2004	528	518
2003	526	507		2003	527	519
2002	524	504		2002	527	516
2001	526	506		2001	526	514
2000	527	505		2000	527	514
1999	523	505		1999	525	511
1998	528	505		1998	528	512
1997	525	505		1997	524	511
1996	523	505		1996	521	508

*Includes critical reading.

18,377, or 53 percent, of Oregon’s 2008 graduates took the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT).

Source: Oregon Department of Education

Notes
1.) The source for the national figures is U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD), “Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Survey,” 2003–04, and “Local Education Agency Universe Survey,” 2003–04 and “State Nonfiscal Survey of Public Elementary/Secondary Education,” 2003–04. The 2003–04 data have not been adjudicated by NCES or the Department of Education.

2.) According to the Congressional Budget Office, this is approximately the cost of 2.3 days of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Coincidentally, NCLB requires public secondary schools to provide military recruiters with access to facilities and also with contact information for every student—or face a cutoff of all federal aid.

3.) The Department of Education Web site includes an enormous amount of information about public education in Oregon.

4.) SchoolMatters, www.schoolmatters.com.

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