A beautiful, thoughtful story from my colleague @gosiawoz.bsky.social. Enjoy this long read over the holiday weekend!

A lovely obituary from Oregonian colleagues Jonathan Bach, Yesenia Amaro and Mark Graves for former Reynolds school board member Cayle Tern, who died unexpectedly last week after a heart attack at the age of 49. www.oregonlive.com/politics/202...

Say what you will a/b the Portland Public Schools board, but they pulled off a leadership election tonight with a remarkable amount of comity. Maybe the Portland City Council should take some notes? cc: @shanedkavanaugh.bsky.social. .

I will bring the🍿to the Nov. 19 hearing at the OR legislature's joint committee on Public Education Appropriations on this bombshell new report: www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

If you care a/b public education+OR's future, I am moderating the event for you! Come to the @pdxcityclub.bsky.social forum w/ a panel of heavy hitters, incl. PPS's Kimberlee Armstrong, Stand for Children's Sarah Pope+OR Teacher of the Year Bryan Butcher. Deets: crm.nonprofiteasy.com/6452/Pages/E...

After you've read all the protest news from Portland today, take a minute to dive into the proposed major changes for attendance zones at PPS high schools in N/NE Portland: www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

My colleague @hborrud.bsky.social is out today w/ a banger of a story on the Oregon families who are stuck waiting for years while the OR Department of Education drags out investigations into their claims of discrimination against their school districts: (🎁'd link) www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

My colleagues are doing phenomenal work for Portland this weekend.

All eyes are on the ICE building in PDX. What is happening there is important. But the annual release of test score data from ODE matters too, for the future of Oregon's children, the health of its public school system+the state's economy. 🧵 Gifted link: www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

Cue the "and the band won't play on" references: www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

Wondering whether PPS families are in for more early dismissals next week? Here's everything I know about it: www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

There's a LOT to unpack from last night's board discussion at PPS re: closing/consolidating schools+redrawing attendance boundaries (though the district would much prefer that I refer to this by their preferred euphemism "school optimization.' www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

I feel certain that the social media comments on this column by colleague @billoram.bsky.social will be mostly of the cruel varietal. But those who take the time to read and sit with this McDaniel HS athlete's story will find a lot to think about here. I did.

Big news out of ⁦the Beaverton school district today, where Supt. Gustavo Balderas has announced that he will leave for a new job in WA in 13 months time. Balderas, previously Eugene’s supe, has been at BSD since 2022.

Important public service journalism from my colleague Julia Silverman: Oregon's school funding formula significantly undercounts student poverty and is likely the most regressive in the U.S. Lawmakers will most likely stick with it anyway. www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

A nat'l report says OR is the most regressive state re: funding for high-poverty students. The state has the data to fix it. But the money/political will? Nope. Meanwhile, lawmakers in a key ed budget comm. vote on the state school fund in a few hrs. Gifted link: www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

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Well, THAT got interesting. The Oregonian called this race for Virginia La Forte on Tuesday, and while it tightened up considerably per the below, we've stuck with the call. Why? Because math. More below in a brief 🧵

They don't always get the most clicks, but the stories I get to write that go inside classrooms to explore how students are learning matter the most. Thanks to the teachers+mathematicians at @hillsboro_sd for hosting me for this one: www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

Have you got questions about/b the May 20 vote on the PPS construction bond? Send them my way (in the comments or at [email protected] if you're shy) and I'll try to answer during this week's AMA-special edition of @oregonian.com's Beat Check podcast! www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

On my morning walk, I ran into 3 moms from my kids' old elementary school. They wanted to know all about the $1.83 PPS bond that voters will decide in 18 days. I told them to look out for this story: www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

The debate over teaching about Palestine, Israel and Hamas flares up again, this time in Beaverton. www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

My colleague @o_aimee reports this AM on a six-figure settlement agreed to by a now former @PPSConnect teacher who'd raised issues a/b sexually inappropriate behavior from students: www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

Here's what you need to know about/b next year's budget @Portland Public Schools: 💰District has ~ $1.09B for daily operations, up 1.72% from this year. 💰That's not enough to keep all current positions/programs, given rising costs/declining enrollment 💰Result=~156 fewer humans in schools

I can’t stop thinking about this compassionately told story by my colleague @lmonghughes.bsky.social. That could have been my kid in that car that night: it could have been yours. www.oregonlive.com/crime/2025/0...

Sifting through lots of reader feedback on my weekend story a/b the post-pandemic rise in the # of licensed educators missing >2 weeks of school. Some thoughts in the thread below+here is a 🎁'd story link: (1/11) www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

Add Oregon to the small-but-growing list of states that will refuse to comply with the Trump administration's orders to yank DEI initiatives from public schools or risk the loss of federal funding: www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

Spent a lot of last week deep down a Beaverton School Board race rabbit hole, where fascinating campaigns are unfolding. This is NOT your garden variety, 2023-era, Moms for Liberty school board season: www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

I spent a chunk of time yesterday trying to get OR leaders to respond to the Trump admin's threats to pull funding from public school systems that don't adhere to their interpretations of DEI. No dice. They're "analyzing the situation." Meanwhile in NY: www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/u...

I have no chill/objectivity when it comes to Oregon Battle of the Books. It's a magic program for young readers and I was honored to moderate some battles at regionals in PDX earlier this month. Putting its federal funding in limbo is desperately sad.

School districts including Portland Public Schools currently focus on small class sizes for students with the highest needs. Teachers want across-the-board class size limits. Without a huge taxpayer $$ infusion, that means less support for the neediest students. www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

What a joy to highlight an innovative approach to climbing out of OR's early literacy quagmire by the Hermiston SD for @oregonian.com! Here's a 🎁'd link to my story: www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

I don't know about redoubtable! But lots to unpack in the education services budget hearing, including the promises made — but not kept? — about recovery schools.

First the children's museum, now OCT. Also, reductions in PPR programming for kids+SUN schools. Might seem small, but to young families deciding where to live, it matters. "There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children." – Nelson Mandela.

Curious about whether Portland's bid for MLB is actually real this time? Listen to me making bad-but-enthusiastic baseball puns whilst hosting this week's Beat Check episode w/ @billoram.bsky.social and Mike Wilkerson from ECONorthwest to find out! www.oregonlive.com/podcasts/202...

Dear @newsweek.com, @washingtonpost.com - a link to the original reporting would not go amiss! Thanks to @peoplemag.bsky.social @huffpost.com and @usatoday.com for taking the extra moment to copy-paste a local reporter's story. www.oregonlive.com/politics/202...

Very excited to be moderating this science of reading-focused event at the Hollywood Theatre on April 3 at 7 PM with PPS' Kimberlee Armstrong, Stand 4 Children's Sarah Pope+ literacy advocate Kareem Weaver. Come listen+learn!

By the final 10 minutes of the nearly 4-hour @PPSConnect board meeting last night, there were only about 12 other people watching online. But that doesn't mean there wasn't *plenty* to see:

A hot school board race in N/NE Portland can tell you a lot about the current state of affairs among the members of the PPS school board. An explainer, right this way: www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

ICYMI, we've had a run of terrific stories lately from the high schoolers who participate in The Oregonian's youth voices mentorship program for aspiring journalists. @PPSConnect students from Lincoln, Wells and Benson have had a particularly strong showing. All these stories are free to read!

Now that the dust has settled on last week's bombshell report on OR's school spending — conclusion, put another $3B into the system to raise student outcomes — what do lawmakers think? To my ear, at a 3 hour hearing this wk, they sounded skeptical 🎁'ed link: www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

Did a little detective work to sleuth out the potential new location of @PPSConnect's long-awaited Center for Black Student Excellence: www.oregonlive.com/education/20...

Who wants to read a 6-part, 300+ page report about K-12 education funding in Oregon that's heavy on the regression analyses and standard deviation calculations ? Not you? It's ok. I read it so you don't have to:

For 10 yrs, OR has invested significantly (not surpassingly) in schools. In the past 8 yrs, math/reading have tanked+enrollment has fallen off a cliff (pandemic+birth rate). Is the answer more $? Maybe. But some say OR needs to fix HOW that $ is spent.

Staff @PPSConnect recommend terminating the agreement w/ Andersen Construction to build Jefferson High+rebidding the contract. 3/7 board members tell me they will support the recommendation. If passed, construction on Jeff will get pushed back, again. https://buff.ly/4hQ029b

A contentious, crabby PPS school board meeting onight. The topic of the hour: high school modernizations+how to bring down costs. The board has to chose: Cut square footage? Build less green? Push to bring down contractor costs? Trim health centers and teen pregnancy centers?

New Oregon graduation rates show that 81.8% of the class of 4 graduated w/I 4 years. That's a touch higher than the class of 23+a bit of an outlier amid Oregon's otherwise alarming academic indicators. Bright spot: CTE programs keeping kids in school.

Prediction: Today's headline on my story on OR students' very poor showing on important nat''l reading/math tests will make people either pile on or look away. My take: Neither one is the right reaction. How about instead we get to work?

Never have I ever been so excited to receive and write about a construction audit. This is for everyone out there who wants even more detail about why it costs so extremely much to build a high school in PDX.

Buckle up for a BIG week in education stats next week, everyone. We've got the Nation's Report Card coming up, which will give us the best look since fall of 2022 on how OR students are recovering from the pandemic compared with their national peers. Plus graduation rate data from ODE.