School funding & grants

I've written before about how Portland Public Schools' open transfer policy causes segregation and divestment of state tax revenue from poor neighborhoods and funnels it to wealthier neighborhoods. I've called for a New Deal for PPS that will and redirect state funding to reinvest in these neighborhoods.

My harping on these points has caused some confusion. After all, doesn't PPS actually spend more per student in the poorer schools? Yes, of course they do. But the point is that as families take advantage of PPS's open transfer policy, millions of dollars follow them out of poorer neighborhoods, landing in the wealthier, whiter neighborhoods. Left in their wake are segregated schools with fewer "specials", electives and extra-curricular activities, and under constant threat of closure, No Child Left Behind sanctions, and "reorganization" (read charter schools, alternative schools, and ill-advised grant-funded experiments).
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Portland Public Schools are at a turning point. In many ways, the Portland District seems near collapse. Glaring funding inequities plague the poorest neighborhoods of Portland, with public schools closed and merged and buildings leased out to the highest parochial school bidder. Schools are segregated economically and racially — especially in middle and high schools — to a degree disproportionate to neighborhood populations.

We need a New Deal for PPS. I have more exploration of the problem and suggestions for a solution on my
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See Beth Slovik's article in the Willamette Week at:
http://www.wweek.com/wwire/?p=8298

or Neoliberalism, Portland Public Schools, and the Commodification of Human Life

(I've posted the uncensored version of this essay on my blog.)

It's been nearly four months since I wrote Part 1 of this essay, so I figured it's time to let Part 2 out of my brain.

In Part 1 I focussed on Oregon's revenue crisis, the result of a libertarian assault on the state's ability to raise revenue in the '90s. When discussing the state of education in Portland, one cannot overemphasize the dire effect revenue loss has had on our schools. Portland went from 15th in the nation in spending per pupil in the early '90s to 31st in '04-'05. We now have the fourth-worst student-teacher ratio in the nation.
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Have you read the Gates grants awarded to PPS for transforming the district's high schools? You might want to get informed about what Bill, Vicki, and their friends at the Portland Schools Foundation have planned for Portland's public schools. The Gates grant application submitted by PPS and the Portland Schools Foundation in Fall 2005 indicates that PPS plans to actively support a wide array of partner-operated (charter) schools and school leadership models within the district, such as community governance models.

Watch what's happening at the pilot school (Jefferson) to understand what might be spreading to other schools.
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I just posted this on my blog. (If you don't mind a little coarse language, it's uncensored there. I don't know why I can't write about Portland Public Schools without cursing....)

The news today that Vicki Phillips is stepping down as Portland Public Schools Superintendent comes as good news to those of us who have been critical of her leadership.

Perhaps her three-year legacy can best be summed up in three words: Jefferson Cluster F***. The planning for Portland's only majority black high school and its feeder schools has been an abysmal failure of imagination and leadership. With only token community input, Phillips produced a disjointed plan that the community overwhelmingly rejected. The Jefferson campus was to be segregated by gender, with Tubman Middle School closed and the building used for an all-girls 7-12 school (two miles from the actual Jefferson campus). The boys would get their 7-12 school in Jefferson proper (shared with three other 9-12 "acadamies"). You see, you can't trust young black men around young women. Also, you need discipline, so these 7-12 schools would require uniforms.
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Hi, I've just posted this on on my blog, and thought I might share it here. My apologies in advance if this is not appropriate for posting here.

Portland was once admired among cities for the fact that the middle classes had not yet given up on its public schools. But after a series of ballot measures in the '90s requiring severe property tax limitations, a major economic downturn, and a complete lack of leadership from two Democratic governors (not to mention a Republican state house with a strong libertarian bias against public anything), Portland's public schools seem to be throwing in the towel.

Today, in part one, I focus on the funding crisis.
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