Posted on 08/10/2021 9:46:41 AM PDT by Red Badger
For the next five years, an Oregon high school diploma will be no guarantee that the student who earned it can read, write or do math at a high school level.
Gov. Kate Brown had demurred earlier this summer regarding whether she supported the plan passed by the Legislature to drop the requirement that students demonstrate they have achieved those essential skills. But on July 14, the governor signed Senate Bill 744 into law.
Through a spokesperson, the governor declined again Friday to comment on the law and why she supported suspending the proficiency requirements.
Brown’s decision was not public until recently, because her office did not hold a signing ceremony or issue a press release and the fact that the governor signed the bill was not entered into the legislative database until July 29, a departure from the normal practice of updating the public database the same day a bill is signed.
The Oregonian/OregonLive asked the governor’s office when Brown’s staff notified the Legislature that she had signed the bill. Charles Boyle, the governor’s deputy communications director, said the governor’s staff notified legislative staff the same day the governor signed the bill.
Boyle said in an emailed statement that suspending the reading, writing and math proficiency requirements while the state develops new graduation standards will benefit “Oregon’s Black, Latino, Latina, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color.”
“Leaders from those communities have advocated time and again for equitable graduation standards, along with expanded learning opportunities and supports,” Boyle wrote.
Lawmakers and the governor did not pass any major expansion of learning opportunities or supports for Black, Indigenous and students of color during this year’s legislative session.
The requirement that students demonstrate freshman- to sophomore-level skills in reading, writing and, particularly, math led many high schools to create workshop-style courses to help students strengthen their skills and create evidence of mastery. Most of those courses have been discontinued since the skills requirement was paused during the pandemic before lawmakers killed it entirely.
Democrats in the legislature overwhelmingly supported ending the longtime proficiency requirement, while Republicans criticized it as a lowering of academic standards. A couple lawmakers crossed party lines on the votes.
Proponents said the state needed to pause Oregon’s high school graduation requirements, in place since 2009 but already suspended during the pandemic, until at least the class of 2024 graduates in order for leaders to reexamine its graduation requirements. Recommendations for new standards are due to the Legislature and Oregon Board of Education by September 2022.
However, since Oregon education officials have long insisted they would not impose new graduation requirements on students who have already begun high school, new requirements would not take effect until the class of 2027 at the very earliest. That means at least five more classes could be expected to graduate without needing to demonstrate proficiency in math and writing.
Much of the criticism of the graduation requirements was targeted at standardized tests. Yet Oregon, unlike many other states, did not require students to pass a particular standardized test or any test at all. Students could demonstrate their ability to use English and do math via about five different tests or by completing an in-depth classroom project judged by their own teachers.
A variety of factors appear to have led to the lack of transparency around the governor’s bill signing decisions this summer. Staff in the secretary of the state Senate’s office are responsible for updating the legislative database when the governor signs a Senate bill. Secretary of the Senate Lori Brocker said a key staffer who deals with the governor’s office was experiencing medical issues during the 15-day period between when Brown signed Senate Bill 744 and the public database was updated to reflect that.
Still, a handful of bills that the governor signed into law on July 19 — including a bill to create a training program for childcare and preschool providers aimed at reducing suspensions and expulsions of very young children — were updated in the legislative database the same day she signed them and email notifications were sent out immediately to people who signed up to track the bills.
No notification ever went out regarding the governor’s signing of the graduation bill. That was because by the time legislative staff belatedly entered the information into the bill database on July 29, the software vendor had shut off bill updates to member of the media and the public who had requested them. They cut it off because of a July 21 system malfunction, said legislative information services Systems Architect Bill Sweeney.
-- Hillary Borrud; hborrud@oregonian.com; @hborrud
“Gov. Kate Brown signed a law to allow Oregon students to graduate without proving they can write or do math. She doesn’t want to talk about it.”
Just another Democrat aka Demoncrat that knows ignorant people are much more easily controlled.
oregon high school diplomas are now officially worth less than an equal amount of toilet paper ... hard-working high school graduates hurt the most ...
I bet Oregon doesn't have a significant amount of any of these..............
This is worth repeating so everyone can know some of the insanity that is going on in Oregon:
The HOMESCHOOLERS in Oregon are still required to do state testing (in 3rd, 5th, 8th and 10th grades) and there are actual consequences if children test too low repeatedly. Homeschoolers were also not exempt from testing like the public school kids were the last year and I think the year before as well.
Just think about the logic of this: The government requires homeschoolers to test and if we test badly we can be placed under the authority of the school district, where testing and standards don’t matter or exist. Wha——??
Idiocy. But totally in line with the ante-bellum Democrat belief that one needed to keep the blacks/slaves ignorant and uneducated.
Appropriate for a state that welcomed an autonomous zone of misfits, America-haters, commies, and black revolutionaries.
“It hasn’t been for 50 years.Their demonstrated skills standards are closer to 5th grade.
But I have to wonder about why the Hispanics rate three descriptors, “Latino, Latina, Latinx” while the other colored students only rate one. The words Negro and Negress are available as are brave and squaw—wonder why they didn’t use them?
Bachelor of Arts in Education, if Antifa is any measure.
Oregon was pretty good at stratifying different levels of capability, when I was in school. Pretty much a three-tiered system for language, math, and science.
‘...an Oregon high school diploma will be no guarantee that the student who earned it can read, write or do math at a high school level.’
but what does the state consider math at the high school level to be...? Algebra, Plane Geometry, trigonometry...? none of those are necessary to successfully make a living...being proficient at fortified arithmetic should suffice...
as far as reading and writing...? now we’ve got an issue, if a student is deficient in either or both...I would say the ability to read Hawthorne, Dickens, Melville and Faulkner, and write a concise essay regarding thematic and structural elements, or to take a technical writing and being able to write a comprehensive report on its integral substance should suffice...
All those dead white guys don’t matter..........................
But they know how to pick the democrat face for elective office out of a photo lineup. Mission accomplished. The less educated the better. This also explains the push for more and more uneducated “immigrants,” who have also never heard of a Constitution.
Guess employers will have test the applicants.
“The reason—back in the day fifth grade was where you were expected to master fractions.”
Fractions are the first step into the abstract. 85 IQ is incapable of abstract thinking. Absolutely incapable.
3/5 x 1/4? 2/3 divided by 1/2? Even least common denominator is beyond their cognitive capacity.
Some you can teach a rote formula to. But they never understand.
FYI: I witnessed a full semester of 5th grade teaching when things were all remote.
The stupid of children of color is sobering. And scary.
Yeah, there’s stupid white and Asian kids. But they are a small minority. They are a large majority of kids of color.
Equal learning standards for all, equal no learning standards AT all. POS democrats do not care about children or education. Keep the masses dumb & keep the democrats in. I drove through Eastern Oregon last week & many American & Trump flags flying. I have conservative friends on the Western side of the State also, still not enough voices (I won’t say votes because, well you know!) to keep democrats from forcing their agenda on all.
Good luck with these kids working at a place serving pie. "I'll have 2/3rds of that pie." Gets a puzzled look "Huh?". Total price is $15.25, and you pay with a $20 bill and a quarter coin. Gets a puzzled look "Huh?". Can't make proper change. Young workers are so stupid now.
Fractions are the first step into the abstract...
Nowadays, concepts are introduced, but only rarely mastered. I’ve subbed in 2nd grade classes were the math lesson was introducing fractions to children who could not successfully add. Maybe 20 % of 8th graders actually can do simple multiplication without the aid of a calculator (I may be overestimating the %). They are never forced to learn their times tables. Imagine dealing with lowest common denominator or greatest common factor without having times tables in your head
I am not talking about an inner city school, but a school that is at least 90% white A method of teaching math that was successful for more than a century was abandoned in favor of methods that consistency yield much poorer results.
For the smart kids, method doesn’t matter.
They just get it. It unfolds as an image in their brain and it’s innate.
The problem is they have to share a classroom and curriculum with 22 retards.
It’s probably the greatest failure of the education infrastructure.
They could have been somebody.
Right on all points.
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