But as the latest statewide test scores make clear, that investment is failing to yield the outcomes parents want for their children.
By almost every meaningful measure, we are among the worst states in America when it comes to educating our kids.
The facts are damning.
Oregon comes in last among the 50 states for fourth grade reading scores, adjusted for demographics, according to the Urban Institute, and 49th for eighth grade math.
One in three students is chronically absent, state figures show. That also places us among the nation’s worst.
It doesn’t add up. After a decade of economic growth and a new tax lawmakers passed in 2019, school funding is strong. Yet test scores have gotten worse, not better. States that long trailed Oregon—Louisiana, Alabama, even Mississippi—have surged ahead. Mississippi now ranks No. 1 in fourth grade reading.
In many states, Oregon’s numbers would spark outrage. Here, they barely register a shrug.
At the Oregon Journalism Project, we wanted to do more than speculate about why so many of our tax dollars do so little for the 550,000 kids in Oregon’s public schools. In the months since OJP received its nonprofit status in May, our team has been talking to people inside and outside of Oregon, researching best practices and trying to develop a better understanding of the crisis in Oregon’s public education system. Not just an urban crisis, it ranges from Roseburg to Redmond to La Grande.
more.