Oregon’s Largest Teachers Union Is About to Crush Former Gov. John Kitzhaber’s Last Remaining School Reform

Critics say a union-backed bill removes any measurable standard for judging how public schools are performing.

John Kitzhaber's education reforms are tumbling. (Illustration by Colin Hayes)

The last of former Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber's education reforms is in the crosshairs of the state's powerful teachers union.

In 2011, Kitzhaber pushed through big changes to Oregon's struggling K-12 public schools. He convinced lawmakers they should replace an elected state superintendent of public instruction with an education czar appointed by and reporting to the governor. He created the Oregon Education Investment Board to coordinate school spending from cradle to grad school. And Kitzhaber required that each of Oregon's 197 school districts tell the investment board what outcomes the state could expect for its money.

The investment board has since been repealed, the czar position has been gutted, and Kitzhaber is long gone. He resigned in February 2015 in the wake of allegations of influence peddling by first lady Cylvia Hayes. And his last remaining change to Oregon's schools—the outcomes he asked schools to achieve—may soon become history, too.

A bill sponsored by state Rep. Paul Evans (D-Salem) and backed by the Oregon Education Association would scrap Kitzhaber's goal of having 40 percent of all students earn college degrees by 2025, another 40 percent earn two-year degrees, and the remaining 20 percent at least graduate from high school.

House Bill 2587 would replace that goal with a more subjective goal of ensuring every student has "access to a well-rounded education."

State Rep. Jeff Reardon (D-East Portland) says the bill removes any measurable standard for judging how schools are performing.

If you give someone a bow and arrow and tell him to shoot, the first response would be, "At what?" Reardon said last week at a legislative hearing. "When there is no target, there is no purpose for shooting."

Six years ago, Kitzhaber called the 40/40/20 goal the "North Star, the compass setting that will guide us."

OEA lobbyist Lori Wimmer now calls the goal "a corporate, non-educator vision of schooling." Kitzhaber developed the goal in consultation with business leaders, and teachers have long resented having their work directed by outsiders.

Killing the goal is a top priority for the OEA, the 44,000-member teachers union. On the union's website, HB 2587 is one of only two bills highlighted as priorities in the current session.

The bill is the focal point in a larger battle over whether school success should be judged by measurable outcomes like graduation rates. The Oregon Legislature allocates about two-thirds of the funding for K-12 schools, yet lawmakers have little control over how that money is spent. By yardsticks such as graduation rate, Oregon's results are awful—47th in the nation—although spending is in the middle of the pack, at about $10,000 per student per a year.

Some lawmakers want to align district spending with the money the state actually has available and hold districts accountable for their results ("Feed the Beast," WW, May 5, 2015). The 40/40/20 goal was an attempt to do that.

But Wimmer told the House Education Committee last week that 40/40/20 places too much emphasis on getting a college degree—and sets up students for disappointment and debt.

"It is magical thinking to assume that a surfeit of students with post-graduate educations will entice companies to locate here and pay them what they are worth," Wimmer testified March 22. "It is almost cruel to set these students up for a future of debt and unemployment."

Wimmer and OEA allies want to shift from an emphasis on student outcomes to providing a well-rounded program that includes more than just a narrow focus on math and reading. They say too much emphasis on measurement has narrowed the curriculums schools offer, short-changed students with special needs, and proven a distraction from the fight for more school funding.

But state figures actually show big spikes in educational dollars. Spending on K-12 has increased 29.9 percent since 2011, even as outcomes have remained among the lowest in the nation.

HB 2587 now faces an uncertain future. The bill's most vocal opponents include state Sen. Mark Hass (D-Beaverton) and Reardon, a former high school shop teacher and teachers union member.

Last week, he took the unusual step of coming to the House Education Committee to testify against HB 2587. He closed his testimony by citing a quotation attributed to Michelangelo.

"The greater danger for most of us isn't that our aim is too high and we miss it," Reardon said, "but that it is too low and we reach it."

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