A few hours ago, a friend sent me this story about someone running for governor of Oregon to make a point about literacy rates of Oregon 4th graders (spoiler: it's bad). As the story goes, the "Pencil" (complete with mascot suit) is running against the largely uncontested Democratic incumbent, Tina Kotek. And given the current state of national affairs and Oregon's political population distribution, it's highly unlikely Governor Kotek will lose her seat in the general.
First thought: That is the most Portland story I've ever seen about Portland and I'm FROM there.
Second thought: I've also seen the stories about Ms. Kotek's beef with the teacher's union. I don't have all the facts on that one so I'll leave that out of this blog, but it does seem to revolve around...surprise! Money.
As it turns out, I happen to know quite a bit about Oregon's history of school funding. But I read the story about The Pencil and their particular argument angle seems to be that "if Mississippi can raise literacy rates with no extra money, why can't Oregon?" The implication being, of course, that it must have something to do with the wrong curricular approach (Whole language! Phonics!) or teacher laziness or funds being allocated incorrectly or something else singular and overly simplistic.
I have a hypothesis for a possible contributing factor--not whole explanation--that almost never gets discussed. And happily, it's something Governor Kotek could probably look into and implement without spending more precious dollars on a magical corporate curriculum designed by profiteers who've never been in a classroom.
IMPORTANT HISTORY SIDENOTE: The difference between Oregon and Mississippi isn't racism, in case you were wondering. Oregon was founded as a white supremacist "sundown state"--it's how they got their statehood (1859) approved by the soon-to-be Confederate states. "We won't let black folks move here." Derrick Bell was called by black parents to testify in Portland in the 1980s that they wanted segregated schools again because of how horribly their children were being treated in the "integrated" schools. So...
Anyway, the hypothesis is not funding, not in the general sense. It's the consistency of funding. The boom and bust and wild swings in years where things are fine versus years where hundreds of people are laid off. See, in 1992, in response to MASSIVE property tax restrictions, Oregon had to change their school funding system. They went to a strict per-student formula that is, I believe, mostly the same today (not 100% sure about that, my dissertation analysis was 1990–2017). And those property tax restrictions plus the formula caused huge budgetary problems, and left Oregon districts vulnerable to every little swing in school-age population. Then you add unfunded mandates at the state and federal level, recessions...there has never been a whole decade since 1990 where Oregon didn't have some financial crisis that caused cuts to the education budget.
Here's where it gets interesting. When schools lay off teachers during a budget crisis, there's sometimes strategy to it, but if there's a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), there are often rules about seniority and subject areas that have to be followed.
(YES LONGVIEW I'M STILL MAD ABOUT BEING CUT A WEEK AFTER COMING BACK FROM MATERNITY LEAVE IN 2009 WHEN THE FIRST YEAR ENGLISH TEACHER AND THE TERRIBLE 70 YEAR OLD ORCHESTRA TEACHER GOT TO STAY).
One of the common rules in a CBA is that teachers with seniority get to keep their jobs when there are cuts. But it doesn't guarantee you will get to keep the same teaching assignment that you had before. Maybe you move schools, maybe teach a course you've never taught because they had to cut back sections of a class, maybe teach a grade level you've never had experience with. All the CBA guarantees is that you continue being employed.
Do you see where I'm going with this?
We know for a fact that consistency of instruction and teacher expertise matter in student learning. What if every year or every three years, a school district is scrambling to find teachers? Burnout, attrition, unfilled positions, or the layoff shuffle I just described above. You think those kids are getting consistent instruction?? Are the teachers always experienced in THAT age level with THAT subject matter? Which is not to say that the teachers aren't doing their very best, but adjustment takes time. But do they get to be in that space long enough to adjust and really get GOOD at the new thing before being shuffled around again? Do we have those numbers? Do we know how many teachers have been moved around like that? Do we have data that looks at which districts have done the layoff shuffle the most? Who has the most unfilled positions or occurrence of long-term substitutes/emergency licenses? Can we analyze those things to the reading scores as a possible contributing factor?
Or is it just easier, politically, to slap a curricular band-aid on it and tell the schools, again, to just make do with less? Knowing that Oregon isn't going to elect an (R) anytime soon? *cough cough*
I can't speak to Mississippi's school funding formula, or how protected the funding source might be from boom and bust cycles. I know it's just at the bottom of the barrel in strict (very low) numbers for overall funding and teacher pay. But it is overly simplistic to say that the only factor in their success is their curriculum and that teachers are somehow, on the whole, more dedicated there than in Oregon.
Teacher working conditions are student learning conditions. And it ain't always about the pay.
