Oregon Blog

I have been in Oregon a little less than four years now and I cannot tell you how many times I have heard the following sentence:

“Oregon has one of the shortest school years in the nation.”

I wanted to know how true this statement was, so I did a little digging of my own.

I decided to compare the length of Oregon’s school year to that of some of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. When I did the math, I was surprised by what I found. Before I get into my findings, let me start with a few assumptions:

As advocates, we must start by asking the tough questions. What works? What are we doing wrong? How can we be better?

That’s exactly what we’re asking as we review the graduation rates just released by the Oregon Department of Education. The graduation rates stayed relatively steady in 2013, with minor improvements in most urban areas.

In the month that marks the 50th anniversary of Lyndon B. Johnson’s declaration of a “war on poverty,” we’ve seen stories about what works and what doesn’t. This week, we heard a lot of chatter about The Equality of Opportunity Project, a Harvard economics research team, who let us in on a well-kept secret: the American Dream is dead—or at least it’s alive and barely breathing.

Today, Stand for Children joined with 15 local community-based organizations to call on Portland Public Schools and the Portland Association of Teachers to reach an agreement and avoid a teacher strike.

In a recent survey of Portland Stand for Children members, 75 percent said they believe the two sides should do everything they can to avoid a strike. Their sentiments strongly aligned with those in today’s statement.