Lawmakers clear way for $11.36 billion for schools — plus more accountability

For school districts, the No. 1 question of virtually every legislative session boils down to this:

What’s the magic number

?

On Wednesday, lawmakers on a key education budget subcommittee endorsed the likely answer: $11.36 billion. That’s how much is currently on the table for the state school fund, the primary source of money for schools in the next two academic years.

Senate Bill 5516

is a 10.5% boost from the current level and in line with the budget originally proposed by Gov. Tina Kotek back in December, though school districts may see further slight reductions due to a projected drop in local property tax revenue.

Even with that 10.5% funding bump, many school districts, including

Portland

, Tigard-Tualatin,

Reynolds

and Parkrose, have said they will cut staffing or programs next year, due to a combination of declining enrollment and rising costs. About 85% of a typical school district’s budget goes to staff salaries and benefits, which many districts have boosted in recent years.

Meanwhile, hopes have dimmed that some other educational gains that schools advocates had hoped to see in the final budget this year will pass, including a

push to increase the percentage of special education students

for which schools can seek reimbursements to cover the extra costs of their education.

That sets the stage for a final month of jockeying for scarce dollars. In a statement, Reed Scott-Schwalbach, president of the Oregon Education Association, the state’s teachers’ union which is among the most reliable of Democratic donors, called the failure to address the special education funding package a “disproportionate harm [to] our most vulnerable students.”

Scott-Schwalbach said her membership planned to “work tirelessly to demand the Legislature recognize the challenging times we are in, forgo putting money into reserves and instead invest those dollars in needed public services, like education.”

The fiery statement directly contrasted with the take of lawmakers, who said the $11.36 billion budget represented an historic boost to public education, after Kotek’s office oversaw an effort to make a series of technical changes to the schools funding formula that added $515 million to the bottom line.

“We were all crossing our fingers and toes hoping for good news from the revenue forecast,” said Rep. Ricki Ruiz, D-Gresham, the co-chair of the Joint Ways and Means education subcommittee. “Unfortunately, that was not the case. We’re all having difficult conversations around budgets that we were thinking of proposing — in early childhood education, in wraparound services, in literacy – the list goes on. The fact of the matter is, we do not have the resources.”

Ruiz said he had feared that the Legislature would have to go below Kotek’s recommended schools budget to make ends meet, but advocacy from around the state helped convince budget writers to shore up the figure to $11.36 billion.

“This is a path that sustains us as a state that is investing in education and increasing education funding despite other budgets being cut,” he said.

Also on Wednesday, the education budget subcommittee passed Kotek’s priority education bill for the session, an

accountability-focused measure

that aims to ultimately give the state education agency more oversight and ability to intervene in struggling schools.

Under

Senate Bill 141

, the Oregon Board of Education would be tasked with developing statewide growth targets and metrics for a series of academic outcomes, including third grade reading proficiency, eighth grade math achievement and chronic absenteeism among the state’s youngest elementary schoolers.

All of Oregon’s 197 school districts would be required to develop their own achievement targets, track student progress via regular check-in tests and report the results at school board meetings or other public forums.

The provisions of the new bill are somewhat slow to phase in. Districts that have missed their targets would be required to accept extra coaching from the state, but that would not begin until the 2028-2029 school year. If that too yields no measurable results, then the state Department of Education would be able to mandate how a district spends up to 25% of its state funding.

Interim assessments will be used to track student progress at least three times a year so schools can make adjustments to improve student learning in real time. Results of these assessments will be made public for transparency and accountability.

The bill carries a price tag of $2.6 million for seven positions at the Oregon Department of Education to help implement the measure. That funding will be carved out of an account that the state spends on various education initiatives, not from districts’ allocations.

Both Senate Bill 141 and Senate Bill 5516 now move to the Joint Committee on Ways and Means for approval before consideration on the Senate and House floors.

— Julia Silverman covers K-12 education for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach her via email at jsilverman@oregonian.com.

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