"The achievement compacts will serve as little more than a new form of obfuscation"

“What they could really use this spring from the governor and his board -- even more so than achievement compacts -- are tangible reasons to believe anything in Oregon will ever change.” Oregonian editorial

Apparently the editorial board of the Oregon shares many of the status-quo views of Oregon’s educational establishment. In their editorial “Achievement compacts in Oregon: Remembering what matters most,” the editorial board overlooks the educational reforms that will matter the most – more online learning and stronger foreign languages programs (more immersion programs, especially Mandarin, and paid high school study abroad programs). Like much of Oregon educational establishment, they focus on the system tinkerings that might get more students through it to various levels of graduation. But even in these graduation goals, the editorial board has its reservations and writes (here):

…..But major challenges remain. The state hasn't figured out how to act on the information it collects from districts. It hasn't decided how to share information with the public. And it still must connect the entire 30,000-foot, profoundly abstract conversation to the reality of schools on the ground -- and to the people who send their kids to them, teach in them and fund them.

If it doesn't, the achievement compacts will serve as little more than a new form of obfuscation.

Oregon must develop a stronger intervention role for chronically struggling schools -- one that treats every day in a persistently failing school as an emergency for every kid there. The state's role remains too deferential to local superintendents and principals who