"Children Can't Wait"

Three Portland Public School board members have an op-ed “The PPS bond and levy: Children Can’t Wait” in today’s Oregon arguing (here):

….Waiting longer will not help our students or our community. Waiting for the financial outlook for schools to get better has not proven successful over the past 20 years. Our students only have one chance at an education. Today, students from fire-ravaged Marysville are bused miles outside of their neighborhood to attend school at a temporary location. Sunnyside Environmental School students struggle to conduct experiments in a science lab that lacks water. Grant High School students dodge pails that collect rainwater falling from a leaky roof above the library -- a roof that could collapse in a major earthquake.

We can't wait any longer to modernize our schools.

An independent economic analysis conducted by ECONorthwest estimated that the bond would produce a net increase of more than 2,000 jobs in our area. A study of school construction in California found that home values increased by an average of 6 percent in communities that approved school bonds. In Seattle, enrollment increased after the district started its major school rebuilding program.

We're also asking local voters to replace our current levy at a new rate that would spare students and teachers from dramatic class-size increases in the face of yet another year of state funding cuts to schools. School construction bond funds cannot be used to support teachers and other operational expenses.

As long-time volunteers for our public schools, we know first-hand the challenges our schools face: Students need both enough teachers in their classrooms and safe, up-to-date buildings in which to learn. We believe our community will support both of these important measures. Previous generations did it for us. Now it's our turn to do the same for hundreds of thousands of students, for generations to come.

First, I agree “Children can’t wait,” or shouldn’t wait. But the PPS Board, IMHO, has been irresponsible. They have not expanded the Mandarin (or Japanese) immersion programs in spite of parental demand. And they have not created a cost-neutral high school study abroad program to increase the number of PPS students studying abroad and to create more equity in who studies abroad. On the Mandarin immersion issue, they have heeded neighborhood school activists who oppose  expansion of any specialized elementary schools. On the high school study abroad program, they have heeded teachers unions opposed to any version, however strategic or worthwhile, of funding following students out of the traditional schools their teacher work in.

Given the political opposition above, I do not see either more Mandarin immersions progams developing at the pace needed or PPS paying to send any students to study abroad if I vote "Yes" on either levy.

So, I’m voting “No” on both levies and dedicating those “No” votes to neighborhood school activists opposed to expanding the Mandarin immersion programs, to the teachers unions opposed to sending high school student to study abroad, and to their status-quo supporters and enablers on the PPS Board and in the community (including the feckless members of the Oregon Ways & Means Committee who will not consider shifting only $30,000 in educational funding in order to send five Oregon high school students to China in 2012-13).

PS – I’ve never agreed with the ECONorthwest’s stimulus claim. See my prior blog post “Flummoxed by PPS construction stimulus claim” (here).

Comments

[louboutin]

Waiting longer will not help our students or our community. Waiting for the financial outlook for schools to get better has not proven successful over the past 20 years. Our students only have one chance at an education. Today, students from fire-ravaged Marysville are bused miles outside of their neighborhood to attend school at a temporary location. Sunnyside Environmental School students struggle to conduct experiments in a science lab that lacks water

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So, I’m voting “No” on both levies and dedicating those “No” votes to neighborhood school activists opposed to expanding the Mandarin immersion programs, to the teachers unions opposed to sending high school student to study abroad

[Pandora Charms]

Given the political opposition above, I do not see either more Mandarin immersions progams 3 30 11 010edited developing at the pace needed or PPS paying to send any students to study abroad if I vote "Yes" on either levy.

[pandora]

Mandarin immersion issue, they have heeded neighborhood school activists who oppose expansion of any specialized elementary schools. On the high school study abroad program, they have heeded teachers unions opposed to any version, however strategic or worthwhile, of funding following students out of the traditional schools their teacher work in.

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We're also asking local voters to replace our current levy at a new rate that would spare students and teachers from dramatic class-size increases in the face of yet another year of state funding cuts to schools. School construction bond funds cannot be used to support teachers and other operational expenses.