Top lawmakers pledge $10.2 billion for Oregon schools

Four teenagers sit at or stand next to a desk, where colorful blocks are arranged on the surface in front of them

From left to right, David Cotoc Baten, Alondra Perez Trujillo, Henry Paige and Nathalie Espinoza-Buezo work on a Rube Goldberg machine in a summer school program at Beaverton High School in 2022. Funding from the state for summer school programs this year is still uncertain, but lawmakers took a step closer this week when they proposed $10.2 billion in general and lottery fund dollars for the state schools fund.Dave Killen / The Oregonian

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After last week’s rosier-than-expected economic forecast, legislative leaders say they will pour an additional $300 million more than already planned into the state’s public school system, boosting the total to $10.2 billion over the next two years.

That’s shy of the $10.3 billion in general and lottery funding that K-12 schools advocates had been jockeying for, saying that’s what’s needed to maintain current programming, from keeping up with inflationary pricing on gas and food to paying for cost-of-living wage increases for employees.

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