Education

Portland Public Schools Owes An Answer About Diana Kruger. Here’s How to Help Us Get One.

Portland Public Schools owes its students, parents, and teachers an explanation for why Diana Kruger belongs in district leadership, what she does there, and if/how she’s working on the district’s anti-racism curriculum.  Sign the petition to demand that Portland Public Schools release a public statement about why they’ve continued to employ Diana Kruger as a […]

/ July 29, 2020

How Oregon’s Education System Can Better Support Foster Children

Foster children like Adam Sweet often move homes — and schools — more times than they can count. Adam Sweet can’t remember exactly how many times he moved growing up as a foster child, but he thinks it was at least twenty. Usually those moves meant new schools, or at least a new chance to […]

/ September 18, 2019

Fostering Her Own Future

She didn’t start school until the eighth grade. She slept in youth shelters and at the DHS office for weeks on end. She was told college “wasn’t for her.” But Aleathea St. Hilaire is now a full-time student studying criminal justice at Warner Pacific University, and she’s mentoring kids at the same camp where she […]

/ September 9, 2019

Why the Student Success Act Is Only Half the Battle

We wrote last week that rising pension costs could “gobble up” much of the Student Success Act’s new revenue, but that’s not quite right. If passed, HB 3427 will invest $1 billion a year in public education. What it won’t do is solve the bigger fiscal crisis that’s threatening all public services, from filling potholes […]

/ May 6, 2019

Safe Routes to School: It Takes More Than Just a Stop Sign

What does it take to keep kids safe on their way to school? Stop signs and crosswalks only go so far. That’s where the work of Lale Santelices, PBOT’s Safe Routes to School (SRTS) coordinator, comes into play. “It doesn’t matter how many signs I put up or how many crosswalks I paint,” she said. […]

/ January 31, 2019

Want to Improve Graduation Rates? Focus on the Little Ones.

We’ve been talking this month about Oregon’s lowly high school graduation rate — and mostly focusing on what happens after kids start ninth grade. But Mark Holloway, CEO of Social Venture Partners Portland, says what happens before kindergarten might be just as important. Here’s what Mark told us about SVP’s goal to help all children in the […]

/ September 19, 2018