K-8s from a teacher’s perspective

As PPS presses forward with high school system redesign, significant problems with the K-8 transition remain unaddressed. Teacher and parent Sheila Wilcox shares her inside perspective.

High school system redesign: an (unauthorized) minority report

Analysis and recommendations in response to the proposed high school system redesign, and a Superintendent’s committee report.

The numbers paint a picture

 

Current enrollment and transfer data show a persistent pattern lost enrollment from our poorest neighborhoods due to student transfers. These same neighborhoods have almost completely lost comprehensive secondary education, even while transfer slots into comprehensive schools have virtually disappeared. See it all in full-size, living color.

“Choice” done right

There is a school district, of similar size and demographics to Portland Public Schools, with less funding per student than PPS, that manages to maintain strong and equitable neighborhood schools and a vibrant school choice program.

If they can do it, why can’t we?

Size matters

How student transfers, “small schools,” and K8s steal opportunity from Portland’s least wealthy students, and how we can make it right

Equity and School Choice

Libertarians push the concept of school choice as a civil right. But in Portland, school choice shifts significant public education investment out of poor and minority neighborhoods, concentrates poverty, increases racial isolation, and eliminates real choice and opportunity for our most disadvantaged students.

The continuing history of racism in Portland Public Schools

Twenty-eight years after the Black United Front’s desegregation plan brought modest improvements in equity to non-white students, Portland’s schools have regressed into a two-tiered system, with schools more segregated than the neighborhoods they serve. What went wrong?

Special education law and advocacy training conference

The Autism Association of Oregon (ASO) is presenting Peter Wright of Wrightslaw in a one day special education law and advocacy training conference October 29 in Portland. Details of the program and online registration are available at the ASO Web site.

In the news: high school redesign

• The editorial board at The Oregonian gives Carole Smith’s plan its tentative stamp of approval.
• Also in The Oregonian, Jake Cohen reports on PPS school board members’ words of caution on the plan.
• Jennifer Anderson summarizes the plan in the Portland Tribune.

High school design preserves schools, limits transfers, seeks equity

In her boldest policy proposal since taking the reigns of Portland Public Schools, Carole Smith has endorsed a high school system design that would guarantee every student a spot in a truly comprehensive high school, eliminate the ability to transfer from one neighborhood school to another, and preserve all existing high school campuses as either comprehensive neighborhood schools or magnets.

High school design press conference

Carole Smith will announce her recommendation for the high school system redesign tomorrow, 10:30 am on the steps of Benson High School. Advance reports indicate the chosen design will be most similar to the “strong neighborhood schools” model (which was the strongest of the three proposed models), with school choice limited to district-wide magnet schools, charters, and alternative schools.