Inconsistent efforts from distracted leaders keep Oregon education outcomes from improving

It was just a couple of weeks into the school year when Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek ran into an old political foe on the stairs inside the Capitol: a pencil.

J. Schuberth, or “Pencil,” as they are known, first donned a 6-foot tall pencil costume for a write-in Governor campaign this past spring to call attention to Oregon’s education shortcomings.

“Pencil’s encounter with Gov. Kotek was a complete surprise, and Pencil was thrilled,” Schuberth said. The chance meeting happened as Pencil was walking the halls of the Capitol, delivering petitions to lawmakers about improving literacy.

“We need to move from conversation to action, and do some of the hard things so Oregon kids get what they need,” Schuberth said.

Kotek has made overhauling Oregon’s education system a priority of her first term, but, as OPB reported Monday, state leaders delivered a plan that more than 20 experts and advocates say faces the challenges of past failures: toothless mandates, inconsistent guidance, and opt-out policies for key measures of success.

The resemblance between Oregon’s latest plan and its past failures is no coincidence. The persistent issues OPB revealed in the first part of this series are the result of layers of unfocused bureaucracy and lawmakers’ partisan paralysis, experts told OPB, which reward short-term thinking and a hesitancy to take bold action around a shared vision and strategy.

A pencil running for governor is the most prominent example in a new groundswell of everyone from past government advisors to parents to teachers plunging into Oregon’s statewide educational morass with a new urgency.

These coalitions say successes in states like Mississippi, Louisiana and Rhode Island provide a road map — and hope — for Oregon. But they are up against a state legislature that relies on guidance and support from entrenched stakeholders representing the very groups — educators, administrators and local school boards — that major reforms would force to change. And in Oregon, the only state in the nation where the governor is also the state superintendent, educational priorities shift with political whims and term limits.

Interact with the data: How Oregon reading scores compare nationally

Oregon spent more than 31 other states in 2024, but its outcome on the National Assessment of Educational Progress 4th Grade Reading Assessment was far below average. Reading abilities at this age are a strong predictor of later academic success. Select a state below to view its details.

Lillie Bahrami, OPB. Sources: Edunomics Lab analysis of data from The Nation’s Report Card and the U.S. Census Annual Survey of School System Finances. Data as of 2024. Spending is an average of per-student spending encompassing all sources (including federal, state and local).

Kotek’s office emphasized the governor’s willingness to take action, saying she is “unflinching in her commitment to improving student outcomes and has been focused on using all tools available to her.”

Her record has been in the public eye as Kotek fights to hold on in a deadlocked race for a second term against state Sen. Christine Drazan, who has made education a focus of her campaign.

Advocates like Sarah Pope, the executive director of Stand for Children, said the governor’s plan will let years go by before the state intervenes at failing schools.

“A kid only has one shot at third grade, one shot at elementary school,” Pope said. “We are doing a disservice if we wait.”

The push and pull of legislators and an “alphabet soup” of statewide organizations

Year-in, year-out, the debate over school funding brings busloads of parents, teachers and students to rallies in Salem, with budget negotiations often lasting until the last minute of legislative sessions. But while the demonstrations from concerned constituents spark headlines and viral videos, their impact fades after the buses leave Salem.

Often, those who stick around as education bills get hashed out are lobbyists from statewide organizations who legislators lean on for their expertise. But these lobbyists often have specific agendas based on their membership. Unions are for school employees, such as the Oregon Education Association for teachers. The Coalition of Oregon School Administrators is for superintendents. The Oregon School Boards Association is for school board members.

Support from these groups can help move policies, but they can also push back on big changes that threaten their members’ interests.

One recent example is the way Oregon calculates how much money schools need.

A 2025 report on school funding from the American Institutes for Research found Oregon’s model doesn’t account for how student needs vary across the state. It also found the funding calculations are only tied to one education goal: high school graduation.

Senate Bill 1555 would have overhauled Oregon’s school funding calculations based on that report. Some superintendents, like ones from the Salem-Keizer and Reynolds school districts, said it was a step in the right direction.

Yet the bill faced opposition from the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators, the Oregon School School Boards Association, the Oregon PTA, and the Oregon Education Association, who argued the bill was moving too fast, and without enough stakeholder engagement.

When that bill died in committee, efforts to address the issue failed. Oregon’s way of calculating funding goals remains unchanged.

A common theme among these statewide groups is a desire for more state funding without more state mandates. That approach can trip up even well-regarded policy proposals. Take Measure 98, for instance: the state’s highly regarded fund aimed at high schools faced pushback when it was first proposed from the same statewide groups that now champion it.

Enrique Farrera, president of the Oregon Education Association, pushed back on the idea that groups like OEA maintain a status quo. He said his association supports “meaningful change” in the state education system.

“Change must be evidence-based, equitably funded, and informed by the educators and communities responsible for implementing,” Farrera said in an emailed response to OPB. “We regularly advocate for ambitious agendas that do not accept the status quo.”

He mentioned OEA’s advocacy to raise the state’s cap on special education funds, an effort backed by many in Oregon education.

Ryan Noss, board president of the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators, which represents over 3,000 administrators, said pushback comes when there is no funding attached to whatever school leaders are being asked to do. Without funding, he said, superintendents want flexibility.

“We would prefer it to come in a way that allows us to be more agile,” Noss said.

Each year, the legislature responds to pressure from these various groups with piecemeal changes that often come without sufficient funding or accountability.

Last spring, for example, the Oregon City School District’s budget detailed seven different “unfunded mandates” from the legislature. District officials said the cost of just one of them — unemployment for 10-month employees — has tripled in the past year to more than $378,000.

Six hours east, in the opposite corner of the state, Vale superintendent Alisha McBride feels it too.

“We’re constantly responding to legislation,” said McBride, the reigning state Superintendent of the Year. Her rural district less than 30 minutes from the Idaho border has fewer than 900 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

McBride wants to see the governor, legislators, and elected officials get beyond the capitol and its lobbyists and spend more time in schools.

“We all want Oregon’s education system to be one of the best in the nation,” McBride said. “And I think we have a lot to offer when it comes to making those decisions.”

The only state with a Governor-Superintendent

The other major force in Oregon education is also a political one: the Governor.

Fifteen years ago, Gov. John Kitzhaber signed into law an overhaul of the state’s education system that made him, as governor, the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

Other changes included hiring a chief education officer and creating an “investment board” of education and business leaders. But legislators let the chief education office sunset and they dismantled the investment board after Kitzhaber resigned in 2015. All that remained from his overhaul was the Governor’s role.

Oregon remains the only state in the country in which the governor is also the superintendent of schools, giving the state’s top politician extraordinary power over the education system.

In addition to her power to introduce or reject school-related legislation, Kotek appoints the nine members of the State Board of Education, the panel of experts that makes policy for schools to follow. The governor also appoints the leader of the education department, the state agency that implements policies adopted by the education board.

Forest Grove superintendent Suzanne West said with campaigning and Oregon’s legislative session, big changes can’t take root.

“We’re stuck in a two-year election cycle for almost all decisions related to education,” West said. “You gotta have the soundbite and the headline for your next election cycle.”

Instead, West said, “if we really want to realize the type of transformative educational improvement that people are talking about, it needs a whole system overhaul. We can’t just continue to nip at the sides.”

Before the governor became state superintendent, it was its own elected position in Oregon for more than 100 years. And some in education argued even then that the office was too political.

Northwest Regional Education Service District superintendent Dan Goldman said Oregon’s current model still has that problem.

“You are bound to not have great alignment,” Goldman said. “There is too much pressure, money and politics.

Today, a handful of states, including nearby California and Washington, have Oregon’s old model of an elected schools chief. Other states have an education chief who is appointed, often by the governor.

Some in education argue that having a governor with so much power over the system provides opportunities to better the education system.

Charlene Williams, whom Gov. Kotek appointed to lead the Oregon Department of Education, said having a governor who is a “champion for education” is important to spur changes.

“When you have the governor’s clarity and political backing and support in terms of getting resources and in this case, you know, clear about accountability, it’s helpful to move a system,” Williams said.

Some education advocates and district leaders OPB talked to support Oregon’s current system. They say it’s better to have a Governor-appointed chief with more “experts” on the state board of education, the rulemaking body for education policy.

Pooja Bhatt, who worked as a policy advisor for Gov. Kotek and for Gov. Kate Brown, said the system doesn’t work.

“We are short shrifting public education and young people by expecting that a governor who is busy running the state is somehow going to hold education at the same level as our roads are crumbling, or [our] economy is not prosperous,” Bhatt said.

The Governor’s office did not directly answer when asked what makes Oregon’s unique governor-as-superintendent model successful. But in a statement, Kotek’s office said she would use all the tools available to her, naming executive orders, legislation, targeted investments and direction to the agency.

Kotek has twice issued executive orders: Once for districts to create cell phone policies after a bill to limit cell phone use in schools failed to pass in the legislature, and again to bar school districts from cutting instructional time.

But Kotek’s moves have been small, far from the sweeping changes that could have big impacts on Oregon’s education system.

That record is now being challenged by Kotek’s opponent, state Sen. Christine Drazan, who has made education a focus of her campaign and pledged to replace the ODE director and state board members.

How other states approach this

As the federal government sheds responsibility for public education, it’s created an opportunity for state education agencies to do more.

In a July report, the Center for Reinventing Public Education, a research organization based at Arizona State University, puts it bluntly: state education agencies “are being asked to do something they have rarely been asked to do before: lead.”

Whoever fills the role of governor next year can look to other states for examples of what’s worked better than in Oregon.

In Washington, elected superintendent Chris Reykdal often leads the conversation on educational priorities. Reykdal’s separate position allows him to disagree with Gov. Bob Ferguson, as he did recently on the topic of education spending. Washington routinely outperforms Oregon on standardized tests.

Rhode Island developed a strategic plan that inspired Oregon’s. Yet, Rhode Island’s features a strict “theory of action” that outlines the state’s education goals and puts part of the obligation on the state. Oregon’s plan doesn’t include similar language. ODE officials said its implementation plan connects “priority outcomes to high-leverage strategies.”

Rhode Island is far from its goals in English and math achievement, but 2025 data show slight improvement, as well as a declining rate of chronic absenteeism.

Additionally, Rhode Island publishes several school attendance data dashboards and updates the information on a daily basis for educators and the public. They create heat maps with the data so they can diagnose attendance problems. Under state law, a guardian can be fined if their child misses school, with a possibility of jail time if a student misses more than 30 days in a year.

Rhode Island and Washington schools have the advantage of spending more per-student than Oregon does. But that’s not the case for some other states that have made recent improvements, like Louisiana and Mississippi.

“If you’re a student experiencing poverty, those might be two of the best states to be a student, increasing your chances of learning how to read and do math and succeed,” said Angela Uherbelau, a Portland schools parent who started the advocacy group Oregon Kids Read. “And so why are we not looking to those states and what have they done well?”

Mississippi’s improvements on the National Assessment of Education Progress have been deemed the “Mississippi Miracle.”

State leaders in Mississippi instituted a slew of new policies, including new standards and assessments, as well as school ratings based on student achievement, growth and credits in advanced courses. Mississippi also passed a law more than a decade ago that held third graders back if they couldn’t read. Education advocates there say the focus on standards, accountability and consequences, led to success.

Recently, Mississippi advocates have started reframing the “miracle” as the “Mississippi Marathon” due to the two decades it took to actually effect change for students. The state’s targeted focus to reach one set of goals draws a striking contrast to Oregon, where focus has shifted constantly.

Nationally, spending is up over the last decade. But compared to Mississippi, where reading gains have steadily improved with increased spending, Oregon’s outcomes have been in decline since 2015.

A “groundswell” of new voices

The disparity between Oregon and other states isn’t missed on parents as they move here.

With years of experience working in education policy in Delaware and D.C., Portland parent Sara Kerr has seen what works. One of her proudest moments was her work changing the relationship between Delaware and its school districts.

“We put students at the center in ways that they weren’t always,” she said. They brought the state and districts together in conversation, using student data to drive change. She said Oregon can do that too.

“Let’s leverage that expertise that’s closest to kids, and let’s marry that with empirically, what do we know works, and shape solutions that have the right amount of funding, that have the alignment and support,” Kerr said.

“Let’s do these things and try them and give them a fighting chance of working by not just changing it up every two years.”

Earlier this year, Kerr joined the Champions for Oregon Kids Coalition, a group of families, teachers, and business leaders founded by Portland parent and Open School Inc. president Christine Pitts. Pitts said the Champions coalition breaks down what’s happening in Oregon education policy “from the Capitol to the classroom,” with a goal to start asking Oregon’s education leaders hard questions.

The state’s public education system, she said, “is functioning exactly how we designed it.”

The emphasis, she said, is on paperwork, rather than improvement.

Oregonians support the work of these grassroots coalitions. A 2024 Oregon Values and Belief Center survey of 1,600 adults found 90% “somewhat support” or “strongly support” setting “attainable, realistic, and ambitious goals” for progress and reviewing that progress.

Oregon can have local control and still see improvement, Pitts said. But accountability needs to be in the mix, too.

If the state won’t hold schools accountable, “the public can do it,” Pitts said. “But that means you have to have data and reporting and transparency, and consistency with all of that.”

Her group is working on a data book that can be useful in future legislative sessions.

Now, advocates like Pitts are inviting new voices into a room that had been exclusively filled with statewide associations and the Oregon Department of Education.

“There’s a level of momentum and energy around reform right now that feels very positive,” Pitts said.

These coalitions rallied behind the Pencil, and their petition.

The petition outlines five steps Oregon should take to improve literacy: train teachers using research-backed methods, require teachers to pass a licensure exam, updating the state’s funding formula, repeal the state’s assessment opt-out law, and offer high-dosage tutoring to students who need it the most.

Pencil delivered that petition to lawmakers on September 8.

About two weeks later, new test scores came out. Mediocre results stoked the outrage of advocates like Pencil, Pitts and Uherbelau.

“Our kids are just as capable and just as extraordinary,” Uherbelau said. “There’s nothing inherently wrong with them. There’s something right now very, very wrong with our system and the adults in charge of the system.”

Read Part 1: Set up for success or destined to fail? Oregon’s accountability plan is latest test for a long-struggling schools system

This story was written and reported by Elizabeth Miller, edited by Rob Manning, Tony Schick and Gillian Flaccus and digitally produced by Francisca Benitez, with visual editing by Kristyna Wentz-Graff.