Connecting the dots between education funding, spending & student outcomes

This is the third report in a three-report Connect the Dots series to demystify and democratize access to information about how Oregon’s statewide public K-12 education system is designed to get the outcomes it gets.

The domino effect connecting education goals & accountability for improvement.

Statewide education goals can be a critical driver of coherence, clarity, and connections between State and local policymaker intentions and students’ everyday success.

Without clear and consistent goals that are connected to systems of education funding, distribution, implementation, and accountability infrastructure, funding competes with incoherence.

Oregon education policy is driven by a culture to pursue quick wins. Quick wins look good. Underneath the surface, they promote inefficiency and ineffectiveness by treating symptoms. They initiate a hamster wheel of activity producing an illusion of progress…

While Oregon young people are beating the odds everyday toward their diploma, the K-12 education system is governed and designed so ineffectively and incoherently that their success seems by chance, not by design.

Connecting the dots between education governance & outcomes

Who is responsible and for what in public education are fundamental education governance questions that partially address the root causes to Oregon’s education system challenges.

Governance decisions set off a chain of dominos across a vast system impacting student opportunities and achievement over generations.

Amidst the negativity surrounding Oregon’s K-12 public education system, some important opportunities are getting lost: A bold, attainable vision in which Oregon is a national leader in ten years- where young people are thriving in school and in life, equipped for their future with an excellent public education…