Malheur County education officials weighed in on pending legislation that aims to set stricter academic standards and hold struggling schools accountable.
Under proposed legislation backed by Gov. Tina Kotek, failing schools would face the state taking control of 25% of its budget and require poor-performing teachers to work with coaches.
Two companion bills, House Bill 2009 and Senate Bill 141, tie increased school funding to accountability measures. That includes new benchmarks that emphasize graduation rates eighth-grade reading and attendance rates among kindergarten to second grade students. School districts typically get two-thirds of their funding from the state. The increased funding would bring $11.4 billion to districts across Oregon over the next two years. Kotek, Senate President Rob Wagner and House Speaker Julie Fahey, all Democrats, introduced the bills.
Mark Redmond, superintendent of the Malheur Education Service District, said the state potentially coming into direct one-fourth of a school system
s budget could pose a problem since about 85% of a district’s budget goes for payroll for employees covered by union agreements.
Redmond said the legislation is being modified so the end result is not yet clear. He said there is “no question” that new legislation will pass holding schools accountable.
Nikki Albisu, superintendent of the Ontario School District, concurred.
“It’ll go through,” she said during the Ontario School Board’s regular meeting on Monday, March 31. “It’s just a matter of the details and what measures they’re going to utilize.”
Under the proposed legislation, districts would be judged under two new measures. One would be eighth-grade math proficiency as measured on the state standardized test. Another would be regular attendance – students who attend more than 90% of their school days in the year – in kindergarten through second grade.
Researchers have concluded that an eighth grader’s ability to perform at grade level in math strongly predicts how they will perform in high school. Researchers have shown that attendance among kindergarten through second grade students is a key predictor of future middle and high school attendance.
In Ontario, one in five eighth-grade students was proficient in math in 2024. The district’s overall regular attendance rate was 81% in 2024, well over the state’s average of 66%.
Albisu and her administrative team have long been critical of the state’s testing standards, saying that the tests do not measure student growth nor consider the rippling effects of pandemic-era school shutdowns.
Albisu said she hopes lawmakers add other assessments to evaluate a student’s learning at the end of a unit, course or program.
Redmond said the education system in Oregon needs to be held accountable for poor outcomes. Compared to other states, the state is in the bottom half for reading and math scores for fourth and eighth graders in the latest National Assessment for Educational Progress.
However, he said that accountability needs to include the state, legislative and district levels.
“It’s not just one level,” he said. “It’s the whole system,” he said.
While Redmond said schools should be held accountable, he worries that the state will not apply the accountability measures equally. He said it would be easy for the state to come into eastern Oregon and impose measures in small, rural districts that do not have the same political clout as a larger school on the western side of the state.
One aspect of the legislation that Redmond welcomes is reducing the paperwork and reporting that districts must file to receive state and federal money.
He said districts must file more than 300 reports each school year, which pencils out to a staffer having to file multiple reports daily to keep up. That takes time away from that school employee helping a student, Redmond said.
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