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.
But it is a meaningful hike over the previously floated $9.9 billion, on which many districts have based their planning for the next two years, and the additional money could allow districts to keep class sizes low and add back or preserve some educator jobs.
Top Democrats including Senate President Rob Wagner of Lake Oswego, House Speaker Dan Rayfield of Corvallis, Ways & Means Education Subcommittee Co-Chair Lew Frederick of Portland and Senate Education Chair Michael Dembrow announced their commitment to the $10.2 billion outlay Wednesday night.
The timing of the announcement was designed as both a carrot and a stick the state’s gridlocked Legislature. Most Republicans in the Senate have staged a walkout since early May, in protest of a handful of bills, including one that would allow minors of any age to access an abortion without parental notification.
Lawmakers also said they’d put a separate $140 million into a proposal backed by Gov. Tina Kotek to overhaul the way Oregon’s youngest learners are taught to read. That funding level, too, is less than advocates had sought but significantly more than had been hinted at before the May 17 revenue forecast revealed that lawmakers had about $2 billion more than expected for the 2023-2025 budget.
That money would go toward grants for curriculum, materials, teacher training and coaching that center on the science of reading. That’s an approach that emphasizes structured phonics instruction, which teaches students about letter sounds and blends and how to put them together to decode words. It marks a shift away from an approach called “balanced literacy,” in use in many districts statewide, which emphasizes memorization of some frequently used words and using pictures and context clues to guess at the meaning of others.
The increased overall funding comes at a time of declining enrollment at Oregon schools, particularly in urban and suburban school districts, thanks to a stew of factors, including declining birth rates, a lack of affordable housing and corresponding out-migration, and growth in private, charter and home-school alternatives spurred by the pandemic.
School advocates say that the roughly 550,000 students who are left – down by about 30,000 from pre-pandemic levels — have acute needs that demand more adults in school buildings, to help counter academic losses and mental health struggles that mounted during more than a year of school building closures.
School boards across the state are required to pass a balanced budget by the end of June, and Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike know that their districts are seeking some certainty with the end of the school year just weeks away.
A floor vote on an education budget could be an incentive for Republicans and Independents to return to the Senate floor — and carry political consequences if lawmakers continue to stay away.
Meanwhile, in the House on Tuesday, Republicans tried to force a vote on a bill to boost education spending to $10.4 billion. The effort needed 31 votes to pass but it got just 30. Five Democrats joined Republicans in voting to advance the bill — Reps. Courtney Neron of Wilsonville, Ricki Ruiz of Gresham, David Gomberg of Otis, Aneesa Hartman of Gladstone and Emerson Levy of Bend.
— Julia Silverman, @jrlsilverman, jsilverman@oregonian.com
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