Promote Educational Opportunity

Portland has a terrific school system, but we can make it better.

Portland is way behind in infrastructure maintenance in our school system, particularly with our elementary schools. If Mayor Ed Suslovic had succeeded in derailing the $20 million in state funding for construction of the Ocean Avenue School, Portland businesses and residents would have had to pay that much more in taxes to pay for school renovation and construction, even if facilities were consolidated.

If Portland cannot attract more families with children, we must determine whether consolidating facilities would be more economical. We should not do so blindly, given the incredible value neighborhood schools have for their communities, but if the savings from consolidation substantially outweigh increased costs in busing and other areas, we should consolidate. We also have to look aggressively for other efficiencies in managing our school system, and focus resources in an evidence-based manner to strengthen teaching and learning.

I support the concept behind the new “merit pay” contract, though there is a lot of fine-tuning to do. The correlation between teacher training and student performance is well established, and teacher training is easier, more objective, and more cost-effective to measure than “student performance.” Even if standardized tests were well-designed (they are not), the sample size of a teacher’s class is too small to avoid statistical distortions, and there are too many variables to tie a child’s performance directly to one teacher (including the impact of teachers in multiple subjects and previous years).

Any evaluation of school spending in Portland needs to account for the dramatic increases in our special education and English as a learned language challenges. The state school funding formula does not adequately account for these challenges, but addressing them effectively in the school system prevents much greater costs in everything from social services to crime down the road.

Along those lines, we need to expand our pre-school programs and take advantage of the state money available for them. This will give our kids the best possible start in life, help attract families to Portland and reduce special education and ELL costs down the road, as well as many other social costs.