Thoughts on Oregon Education Funding Team Recommendations to the Governor
By Pat Muller
Oregon Save Our Schools
Students and teachers have recently faced many obstacles to success for English Language Learners (ELLs). Layoffs have increased workloads for remaining staff. Class sizes have increased. There is reduced support from the central office as a result of increased administrator workloads. Assistant time has been reduced for classroom support and interventions.
These conditions are made worse by tighter timelines for exiting students, higher goals for progressing students through proficiency levels at a rate not supported by research, rising cut scores for the English Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPA) and the Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (OAKS), and increased expectations for percentage of students passing the ELPA and the OAKS.
We have been doing more with less for some time now and we have reached the tipping point. Yet, the
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