Chalkboard unveils ideas to raise Oregon student achievement
Contact:
Chalkboard Project
(503) 542-4325
info@chalkboardproject.org
Sarah Stephan (503) 635-4577 x1
Proposals focus on supporting teachers, boosting reading skills, stabilizing state school funding
Should Oregon teachers be paid based on their success at helping students learn? Should every young student who can’t read have a tutor? Should Oregonians give up an occasional tax refund to build an emergency account schools can access during the next recession?
Today the Chalkboard Project proposed answers to those and more questions, and asked for Oregonians to weigh in.
The independent non-profit organization released more than a dozen proposals to strengthen K-12 quality, improve schools’ accountability to taxpayers, and stabilize state school funding – all with the goal of making targeted investments that raise student achievement (see links above for fact sheets on proposal details, as well as more proposal background).
Public feedback on these ideas will help shape the final school improvement package that Chalkboard releases this fall for legislative action in 2007.
Even as student achievement continues to rise in Oregon, there remain urgent and persistent problems. Oregon students are average at best in key achievement measures, such as national reading scores. The dropout rate is high. The state has one of the top five average class sizes in the nation. Four out of 10 new teachers quit within their first five years on the job.
“Oregon really is in an education stalemate, and it’s about far more than money,” said Sue Hildick, Chalkboard Project president. “We need to change the debate. We can’t talk about making new investments in our schools without being clear about what we’re buying with those dollars. The conversation has to be about how we raise student achievement. Oregon is a ‘below average’ K-12 education state in many areas. Oregonians tell us they want one of the best school systems in the country. But we can’t get there without making very focused investments.”
For the past two years, the Chalkboard Project has invested heavily in exploring best practices nationally and internationally that will help raise student achievement here at home, and in reaching out to tens of thousands of Oregonians in all corners of the state to learn how they want to improve public schools.
Last summer, Chalkboard came forward with a 15-point action plan that reflected Oregonians’ priorities as well as “best practices” research. The proposals released today are an extension of that plan, and based heavily on recommendations from two expert work groups Chalkboard formed last summer to deal with the weighty issues of educator quality, accountability and funding.
“Chalkboard is taking a whole new approach to looking at K-12 education, and it’s all based on the outcomes we want,” said Charlie Walker, chair of the Chalkboard Project board of directors. “Some of these ideas are controversial. But we think all of them have merit, or we wouldn’t be asking the public to review them. Before we finalize our recommendations, and begin leading the effort to implement them, it’s very important to us to learn if we have successfully captured a range of solutions that Oregonians support.”
This spring, Chalkboard will conduct a series of community leader meetings across the state to discuss these ideas, in partnership with the Oregon chapter of the American Leadership Forum. In addition, Chalkboard invites the public to visit www.chalkboardproject.org through June 15 to learn more about all of these proposals and to offer their opinions.
“Oregon’s education problems weren’t created overnight, and we’re well aware they can’t be solved quickly or without a significant amount of work and a lot of compromise,” Walker said. “But it’s time to step up and build consensus for change, and Chalkboard intends to be a leader in that effort.”
About Chalkboard Project
Launched in early 2004, Chalkboard Project exists to inspire Oregonians to do what it takes to make the state’s K-12 public schools among the nation’s best, while strengthening our school system’s financial accountability to taxpayers. Chalkboard aims to help create a more informed and engaged public who understand and address the tough choices and trade-offs required to build strong schools, and to enable statewide programs that can be applied at the local level to improve school quality, accountability, and funding. To date, Chalkboard has connected with about 100,000 Oregonians, asking for their best ideas to strengthen the state’s K-12 public schools. It also has partnered with other education organizations to create the Open Book$ Web site www.openbooksproject.org to track school district spending.
Chalkboard – an initiative of Foundations For A Better Oregon – is sponsored by a growing list of independent foundations. The founding five foundations are: The Collins Foundation, The Ford Family Foundation, Jeld-Wen Foundation, Meyer Memorial Trust, and The Oregon Community Foundation. For more information about Chalkboard and to learn how to get involved, call (877) YOUR-K12 or visit www.chalkboardproject.org.
