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Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Oregon Save Our Schools: More Money? For What?

Oregon Save Our Schools: More Money? For What?:

More Money? For What?


Putting the Public Back in Our Public Schools!

Recently, Kari Chisholm wrote a piece for Blue Oregon about education funding titled, "Bottom Line for Our Schools? What We Need Here is More Money."  We at Oregon SOS feel we are definitely underfunding our schools to levels way below the Quality Education Model, but there is more to think about than that.  One Oregon SOS member, Tricia Snyder, responds:

"Clearly we are underfunding our schools, especially when you look at the Quality Education Model. With that said, I think we also need to take a critical look at making sure money is being maximized on student learning in the classroom. Unfortunately, our state with Governor Kitzhaber's and the OEIB's plan along with the NCLB Waiver still value high-stakes testing with expensive longitudinal data systems. This priority and value clashes with what is best for kids and creates more bureaucracy that gets in the way of real teaching and learning. Oregon Save Our Schools (Oregon SOS on Facebook) is watching how this has rolled out in Oregon since 2011 and have challenged it all the way. We see what happens in other states who have already