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Public Education in Oregon

Important Web links
School and district report cards
Oregon School Directory
School district Web links
Education service district Web links

 

Overview
Oregon has 197 public school districts, which operate a total of 1,355 public schools. These schools enroll a total of 561,698 students from kindergarten through grade 12.

 

Approximately 30,157 teachers work in Oregon’s public schools for a student to teacher ratio of 19.4 to 1 (national 2008 average: 15 to 1). Student demographics show a minority enrollment of 32 percent (national 2008 average: 45.2 percent). Students who qualified for free and reduced-price lunch made up 49 percent of all students in 2009-2010 (national 2008-09 average: 44.6 percent).

 

Special education students made up 13 percent of the total in 2009-2010 (national 2008-09 average: 13 percent). There were 66,341 students needing language assistance services because English was not their first language. This number is 12 percent of the total 2009-2010 student population (national 2008 average: 25 percent).(1) The state’s share of the K–12 education budget is $5.75 billion for the two years ending June 30, 2011. For the same two years, the federal government is estimated to provide $1.5 billion for Oregon K–12 programs. Approximately $447 million of this will come from the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

 

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 the public community colleges in Oregon.

Board members are Duncan Wyse, Chair (term ends 2012); Brenda Frank, Vice Chair (2012); Jerry Berger (2011); Artemio Paz Jr. (2013); Leslie Shepherd (2012) and Nikki Squire (2011).

The State Board of Education adopted new graduation requirements that will require students to take more rigorous levels of mathematics and science. Additionally, all students must demonstrate proficiency in the Essential Skills beginning with reading in 2012, writing in 2013 and math in 2014. Students are given multiple opportunities and assessment options to demonstrate Essential Skills proficiency. Assessment options include:

1) achieving a passing score on the Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (OAKS) state tests, or
2) passing a local assessments such as work samples, using state approved scoring guides, or
3) achieving a passing score on approved national assessments, such as ACT, SAT, PSAT or WorkKeys.

The state will monitor the numbers of students meeting the Essential Skills requirements through local assessments. Accommodations will be provided to students with disabilities.

Students may also earn credit toward graduation on the basis of demonstrated proficiency rather than on attendance only. Proficiency-based credit must be aligned to rigorous standards for student achievement.

Department of Education
The Department of Education (ODE).(2) is led by Superintendent of Public Instruction Susan Castillo (elected 2002, reelected 2006 and 2010). 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. Oregon’s state School for the Blind, established in 1872, was closed in 2009. 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 Funds; 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 which 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.

 

In 2000, Oregon voters passed Measure 1 amending 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.

 

The 2009 Legislature approved $5.75 billion in state funds for K–12 school districts for the two years ending June 30, 2011. In addition, $226.5 million in federal funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) were distributed to Oregon districts, bringing the total to $5.98 billion. This amount was $2.37 billion less than the $8.35 billion the legislatively-established Quality Education Commission judged was necessary to meet Oregon’s quality education goals. One result of the Legislature’s continuing failure to meet a constitutional funding 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. The suit was unsuccessful. Approximately two-thirds of the money needed to run the public schools comes from the state and one-third from local government.

For the 2006-07 school year, Oregon spent an average of $8,958 for school operations and $920 for capital and interest on debt for a total of $9,872 per K–12 student (National average: $11,257). Of the $8,958 in per student operating expenditures, Oregon spent $5,254 per student on instruction (national average: $5,903) and the remaining $3,704 for support services and administration (national average: $3,780).(3)

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
2010	499	492
2009	499	493
2008	502	494
2007	502	494
2006	503	497
Critical Reading	Oregon	National	..........	Mathematics	Oregon	National
2010	523	501		2010	524	516
2009	523	501		2009	525	515
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

 

18,461 graduating seniors (53 percent), took the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT) in Oregon in 2010.

 

Source: Oregon Department of Education

 

Notes
1.) The source for the national figures is the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data (CCD) http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/.

 

2.) The ODE Web site is www.ode.state.or.us. Much information about public education in Oregon may be found there.

 

3.) 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.