Dear Chair Doherty and members of the House Education Committee,
I write in support of HB 2742 (here). It addresses a high priority for change in the Oregon educational system. Unfortunately, the proposed dollars allocated by the bill, even if sustained over the next fifteen years, are not sufficient to close completely the gap between the percentage of diverse students and the percentage of diverse teachers. Please consider increasing the dollar amount and recognize that funding over at least ten years will be required.
(1) Currently Oregon needs 9,100 more diverse teachers (and 9,100 fewer White, monolingual teachers). Oregon needs to flip 29.3% of its current largely monolingual White teacher workforce to diverse teachers. It is not clear how many diverse teachers the HB 2742 would add over what timeframe.
Of those 9,100 new diverse teachers, 5,618 should be bilingual Spanish-English Hispanic teachers.
(2) HB 2742 limits student stipends to “a maximum of $5,000 from the account per participant per school year or academic year and a maximum of four school or academic years.” Most diverse students come from low-income, low financial asset families. $5,000 scholarships will not be enough support to entice or enable a sufficient number of them to become teachers. Nor will scholarship for just one or two years. They need scholarships that cover the full cost of four years of college.
(3) In HB 2742, the $15 million in grants can pay for no more than 3,000 annual student stipends over the two year biennium. A few students might need only one or two years of support, but it is likely that most will need support for the full four years. So, initially there might be 1,000 stipends in the first year, then 2,000 stipends in the second (as 1,000 stipends from the first year also continue). Then years three and four of this program (in the next biennium) would need 3,000, then 4,000 stipends.
HB 2742 is a good start at reconstructing the teacher workforce to reflect the students it teaches. Please pass it out of committee.
Thank you.
Sincerely – Dave Porter
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