State spending a decreasing proportion of its budget while instruction suffers as a result

I write to you first as a believer in the American Dream of equal opportunity for all.

I write to you secondly as a member of the Newberg School District board of directors.

As President Bush put it, “no insignificant person was ever born.” Every child was given the same gift of life and every child has the same right to make the best of that gift. This is why Republicans and Democrats can agree on supporting good public education so no child is left behind by accident of birth.

I write to you third as an Oregonian. We have been spending an ever-smaller proportion of the state budget on schools for years. The evidence is mounting that our schools have declined in effectiveness as a result:

— Oregon’s school year is much shorter than the national average. Our K-12 students lose the equivalent of nearly an entire instructional year compared to their peers in other parts of the country.

— We have cut our spending to 88 percent of the national average, ranking fifth from the bottom in spending relative to state taxable resources. Now we rank in the top five for largest class sizes in the country, and in the bottom five in high school graduation rates.

— We are lagging behind the average state at closing achievement gaps, freezing our most vulnerable children out of the American dream.

Finally, I write to you as a parent. I have two seventh-grade boys at Chehalem Valley Middle School. With our current resources, seventh-graders may graduate before we can gear up to provide the kind of instruction that will prepare them for the high-tech worlds of college and the workplace.

Our kids don’t wait in some holding pattern while we adults figure things out. If you pass a budget too small to pay for state-mandated, full-day kindergarten and technology upgrades we need to keep up with the world and investment in teachers’ skills to adapt to new technologies — if you pass an inadequate budget, my boys and their peers will start their life races near the back of the pack.

Here’s an idea: The educational establishment urges you to pass a schools budget of at least $7.5 billion. Take the professional educators’ word for it, but only in exchange for a promise. Include in a $7.5 billion budget a requirement that in two years:

— Our graduation rates statewide will be increasing by more than 1 percent per year.

— Our annual classroom instructional time statewide will be increasing at least as fast.

— Our achievement gaps will start closing at the same speed as the rest of the country.

— Every school district will be on pace to reach a 21st-century technology benchmark by 2020, either a 1:1 student/computing device ratio in grades 5 through 12, or some equivalent achievement chosen by the local school board.

These are reasonable targets. Perhaps you can negotiate better ones with the teachers and the Oregon School Boards Association. Whatever the targets, promise that, if we don’t come through, you will make sure voters in lagging districts hear about it so they can put the heat on their local school boards and administrators.

Newberg Graphic Viewpoint - opinion letter (Editor’s note: This was a letter addressed to Oregon legislators).

Make this year be the turning point, the end of the long slow decline in Oregon public education.

Ron Mock is a member of the Newberg School District board of directors and a GFU professor