Sometimes a bill isn’t just a bill. Sometimes it’s a launching point.
The Legislature’s education committees heard several bills last week that have little chance of passing. The bills’ real goals will be achieved, though, if they spark much-needed conversations about how Oregon pays for schools and how schools in turn will be accountable for that funding.
“Education is not sitting front and center during this short session,” said Lori Sattenspiel, OSBA Legislative Services director. “What we are doing is getting ready for the 2025 session. Funding has to change.”
The 2024 legislative session, with little time and limited money to spend, won’t significantly alter school funding. But the bills that are receiving hearings provide insight into just how complicated and inadequate the school funding picture is. OSBA and other education advocates will continue the conversations started this session into the next 12 months to shape 2025 legislation.
The House Education Committee started the ball rolling on the session’s first day with bills to increase the money available to schools from the high cost disability fund (House Bill 4068) and to remove the cap on the amount school districts can receive for special education students (HB 4079).
OSBA supports the bills if they come with the necessary additional funding, according to OSBA Legislative Services Specialist Efren Zamudio. HB 4068 has moved to the Joint Ways and Means Committee, and HB 4079 has moved to the House Revenue Committee.
Zamudio said the bills have little chance of passing because they are asking for more money than is readily available this session. They highlight the intention of Rep. Courtney Neron, the House Education Committee chair, to push the school funding discussion, though, he said.
Oregon school districts’ funding is determined by the State School Fund formula. With barely a change in decades, the formula doles out money based on enrollment with extra bumps – called “weights” – for some categories of students who require extra resources to educate.
Schools receive double the standard weight for students in special education, which still often doesn’t match the actual costs. Schools also can’t claim more than 11% of their enrollment as special education even though the state average is closer to 15%, according to the Coalition of Oregon School Administrators.
Oregon schools reported spending approximately $1 billion on special education services in 2021-22, of which the state provided about $670 million from the State School Fund, according to the Oregon Department of Education.
Kevin Strong, the Sweet Home School District business manager, said districts must take money from other areas to make up that difference. Strong said the current formula is especially punishing for high-poverty districts serving larger numbers of students with special needs.
Strong would like to see more special education funding with a better formula that sends the money where it is needed most.
Recent legislative efforts are holding schools to a higher standard to meet the needs of all students, in particular students with special needs. That takes staff, though, and education workers have become harder to find and more expensive to hire.
Staffing is another piece of the puzzle that OSBA will be deeply involved with between sessions. Sattenspiel is on a legislative task force looking at teacher pay and another one exploring substitute teacher issues.
Legislative leaders and the governor have made it clear that the housing and homelessness crisis, mental health and drug addiction problems will get most of this session’s oxygen. One of the few education bills with a chance to make an immediate impact was also introduced Monday in the House Education Committee.
House Bill 4082, which has Gov. Tina Kotek’s backing, would allocate $50 million for summer learning and set up a group to explore more permanent funding.
School leaders welcome the money as they try to catch students up from the pandemic’s lost learning time, but high-quality programs take months to plan. Consistently paying for summer learning is part of the statewide conversation to modernize Oregon’s K-12 public education funding system.
Oregon’s ongoing economic strength, demonstrated in a report Wednesday, Feb. 5, bodes well for the future, though. With healthy reserve accounts and a growing corporate activity tax dedicated to support education, the state will have room to focus on investments in 2025.
Senate Bill 1552, which the Senate Education Committee worked on last week, aims to sharpen that focus. An omnibus bill, it is crammed full of technical fixes for past legislation, but it also includes a requirement for a study of the school funding system and the Quality Education Model.
The Quality Education Committee issues the model every two years, providing a blueprint and cost for providing a high-quality education to every Oregon student. It was supposed to set the bar for adequate spending, but it has largely been symbolic.
The state has never come close to the funding level in more than two decades, and the Legislature has increasingly challenged the commission’s methods. The Legislature wants to modernize the model, which runs in parallel with Kotek’s vision of revamping education spending. The Portland Public Schools teachers strike and other contract negotiations this school year have raised questions about how much can and should be spent on school staff, as well as the underlying system of paying for schools.
With the pandemic and the social issues that have roiled education, school boards are facing more scrutiny than ever. SB 1502, the “Education Board Transparency Bill,” would require school boards to livestream meetings if possible and post recordings on websites or social media.
SB 1502, which is moving quickly through the Senate Education Committee, overlaps existing laws and won’t change much for most districts. But it’s a symptom of the Legislature’s and the public’s wanting to know more about what schools are doing – and ultimately to hold school districts more accountable.
The 2023 Legislature established an advisory committee to look at education accountability to shape legislation for 2025. The committee will hold its first meeting Feb. 23 and expects to meet every two weeks into September. Emielle Nischik, OSBA’s acting executive director, has been invited to join the committee.
Renee Anderson, a Multnomah Education Service District board member, has also been invited.
“The word I kept hearing is ‘accountability,’” she said. “We know we are underserving many of our students, and we know we need to be more accountable for that.”
Anderson said schools don’t have enough money and the money they do have should be allocated differently in many cases. She said the Legislature should be listening to school boards, parents, teachers and administrators before saying how schools can invest.
“We know what the kids need. Why aren’t we giving it?” Anderson said, pointing to both underfunding and lack of investment in proven strategies.
“You need to spend as if you believe your students are the most important people right now,” she said.
– Jake Arnold, OSBA
[email protected]
