FAQ

No one. These are volunteer-driven to respond to the urgency facing Oregon public education with an abundance of ideas for a path forward.

People at the State and local level who are charged with critical education funding, policy, and governance decisions are rarely set up for success to understand how their role connects to the bigger picture. That often leads to misdiagnosing problems or kicking the can down the road on root cause issues, which typically layers on new requirements and funding without taking stock of what we’re doing already.

And education advocates often have less sightline into how the sausage is made- that too often leads to misdiagnosing problems that don’t address root causes. Oregon Department of Education administers 100 grant programs because many people had great intentions over the years. Now, we have a mess to sort through because the system is now so fragmented and incoherent that it is no wonder students succeed by chance.

Agreed! AND, each report is accompanied by a 2-page summary!

Substack and social media are tools for us, too. For this reason, you won’t find student or parent actions in these reports. You are more likely to find them in Substack articles. Check out the post on Opt Out, for example.

ONE is a growing statewide network of people who care about protecting and improving Oregon public education. ONE is more about building capacity to improve the statewide system’s long-standing challenges from the ground-up than a short-term advocacy coalition to bank our win and move on to the next issue. Oregon can be a national leader where young people are thriving in school and in life with the support of thriving school communities and thriving systems. This is not going to happen by advocating for more “wins” on a short-term cycle that State legislative cycles promote. It’s going to come by doing the actual work on the ground- that is where capacity and knowledge-sharing systems to improve outcomes with and for young people comes in.

We are a nonprofit project of a 501c3 charitable nonprofit, the Charitable Partnership Fund.

Launchpad, not an anchor: We think our greatest opportunity right now is to catalyze bold ideas building on Oregon strengths and other models.

2-year commitment to support capacity of existing education ecosystem: ONE represents a 2-year commitment to build local leaders’ capacity to build and sustain long-term changes throughout the education system. Sustainability of change efforts ultimately hinges on leaders, building and sustaining systemic change in and with their communities and driving together toward a shared future-focused north star. That can occur over the long-term by embedding the lessons learned and processes that ONE co-develops with local leaders into existing structures.

Leaders come in many forms.

ONE bridges the leaders who have legal or Constitutional obligations to lead and govern education (e.g., school boards, State policymakers, State agency staff, school and district administrators) with those who lead in big and small ways without that same legal responsibility but who are closer to students’ and families’ everyday experience with schools (e.g., community leaders, teacher leaders, student leaders, parent leaders, advocate leaders).

All lenses are critical to work in partnership. There’s a role for everyone.