But what’s actually driving it?

I believe people should be able to see the underlying data for themselves and draw their own conclusions. So I built this simple tool to make that possible for every public school district in the U.S. No technical background required!

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The question that keeps coming up

Does this phrase sound familiar?

“We need to fully fund education!”

When you actually look at the data, funding per student over the past decade has generally outpaced inflation, sometimes by a wide margin. That raises a fair question. If funding is increasing, why are we still hearing about budget crises?

I’ve also noticed another trend, both locally in Oregon and nationally. School districts have been hiring staff at an accelerated rate, particularly in roles that are not directly tied to classroom instruction.

School funding is a complicated and often emotional topic. If you question it, you can quickly get labeled as anti-public education, anti-government, or worse. That tends to shut down the real conversations that we need to have.

But what if you could walk into those conversations with clear, simple information and ask different questions? Not to accuse, but to understand what is actually happening.

Start with the biggest driver

The largest cost for any school district is its people. Salaries and benefits make up roughly 80 percent of public school spending, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).1

At the same time, funding largely follows the student. In most states, districts are funded based on enrollment, or something close to it (i.e. average daily attendance).

So the question becomes pretty straightforward. Over time, has staffing kept pace with enrollment?

Instead of arguing in the abstract, you can look at real trends for a specific district and ask grounded questions:

• Has staffing grown faster than student enrollment?

• What happened during periods when enrollment declined?

• How does my district compare with neighboring districts, or those in other states?

This doesn’t give you every answer. But it gives you a clear starting point for more productive conversations with school leaders, board members, legislators, and advocates.

A tool to make this easier

I built this dashboard using data from NCES2 to simplify one important piece of the current “budget crisis” discussion.

At a basic level, it shows how student enrollment and staffing have changed over time for every public school district in the country, going back to the early 1990s.

Here’s how to use it:

1. Select a state and district to get started

2. View how enrollment and staffing have changed over time

3. Adjust the year range if you want to focus on a specific period

4. Choose which lines to display (Staff & Students are “checked” by default):

   1. Staff

   2. Staff (Non-Teachers only)

   3. Staff (Teachers only)

   4. Students

A quick note on those additional staff metrics. On average, teachers represent around 47-50% of all district staff. So I wanted to give people a way to look at this specific group of staff. For comparison, I also created the “Staff (Non-Teachers)” option to show everyone else (i.e. principals, office staff, paraducators/aides, transportation, support roles, etc.)

Here’s another example using the same school district but I changed the two optional settings to:

• Start at 2014 (which means the 2014-15 school year)

• Unchecked “Staff” and checked “Staff (Non-Teachers)” and “Staff (Teachers)”

Two things really stand out to me in this chart:

1. They are increasing staff well beyond enrollment, even in the most recent years when enrollment has been declining

2. The vast majority of the additional staff are not classroom teachers

If you do want to see the numbers behind the calculations, just click/tap on any point on a line and you’ll see a pop-up box with the number from the “baseline” (the starting year selected) and the current year for what you selected.

What are you seeing?

This isn’t about proving a point. It is about making the conversation more grounded. If we’re going to talk about funding, staffing, and outcomes then we should start with a clear view of the relevant, historical information.

Ready to take a look at your district? —> https://bit.ly/staff-vs-students

I would genuinely like to hear about your experiences, including what you discovered and how you’ve put this newfound information to use. Feel free to share it in a comment here. If you post something on social media, consider tagging me too:

• X: @PapaBearMyers

• Facebook: @saveoregonschools

• Instagram: @saveoregonschools

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What about administrators or spending?

You may be wondering why I didn’t break out other specific roles like “administration” in this tool. The short answer is simplicity. The goal here was to keep this dashboard focused and easy to use.

If you want to go deeper, I built a another dashboard that may help (https://bit.ly/Pub-Ed-Dash). It includes three views:

• Spending and revenue per student over time at the state level

• Staffing by job category over time at the state level

• Staffing by job category over time at the district level

In the staffing charts, each role is shown as a percentage of total staff for each year. That makes it easy to spot shifts over time, like whether the share of teachers is holding steady around historical norms or changing.

📌 What Is the Digital Hall Pass System?

In January 2025, Beaverton School District quietly launched a new digital hall pass system (DHP) at eight of its middle schools. Students are now required to submit digital requests before leaving class for basic needs like using the restroom, going to the nurse, or accessing their locker. Teachers must approve the request, and the system logs the destination, time, and duration of each pass. These records are stored indefinitely in the district's Synergy Student Information System (SIS).

But this isn’t just a digitized version of the old paper pass. The DHP system is being actively used for behavioral monitoring and intervention. Staff teams regularly analyze student hall pass data to identify "top users" – students who leave class more frequently than average. These students may be flagged and referred to counselors or behavior specialists, often before parents are notified or involved.

The district has positioned this system as a solution to behavioral challenges in middle schools. But what they’re not saying is that these challenges were in large part created by their own policies. Over a decade ago, Beaverton phased out traditional disciplinary frameworks in favor of restorative justice, which has often led to inconsistent enforcement and a breakdown in accountability. Rather than confront this reality and reevaluate their discipline model, the district has doubled down—choosing to surveil every student instead.

What we now have is a tool that collects sensitive behavioral data on children, distributes access to dozens of staff members (many with no connection to the student), and uses that data to preemptively flag students for intervention. And parents? They’re left in the dark.

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🧠 How I Found Out

I first learned about the system from my daughter, a student at Mountain View Middle School. She came home in January 2025 feeling anxious about new restrictions on bathroom use and a built-in timer that threatened consequences if she took too long.

After requesting records and information from school officials, I discovered that 154 staff members—many with no connection to my daughter—had access to her personal hall pass data. This included nearly every staff member at her school, along with teachers, nurses, and administrators from other schools and district offices.

District documents also revealed that this data is regularly reviewed by staff to identify “top users” who may be flagged for counseling or behavioral intervention. In many cases, parents are not notified until after their children have already been questioned by staff.

⚖️ What the Law Says

My lawsuit argues that the district's actions violate both federal and Oregon law. Key claims include:

• The Fourteenth Amendment: Parents have a constitutional right to direct the upbringing and medical decisions of their children.

• ORS 336.184 & ORS 336.187: These laws require schools to notify parents and provide opt-out rights for behavioral or health-related screenings.

• ORS 326.565: Governs student educational records and restricts access to those with a legitimate educational interest.

The district has tried to justify the system under the doctrine of in loco parentis, but public schools are government actors and cannot override parental rights without due process.

🚨 Why This Should Concern Every Parent

This is not just a Beaverton issue. The DHP system impacts more than 6,400 students and was implemented without any meaningful explanation, opt-out process, or oversight. If your district isn’t using something like this yet, it might be next.

A quick Google search for “digital hall pass” shows this is a national trend. Several companies now offer digital tracking platforms to schools across the country, marketing them as tools to manage hallway behavior and curb discipline issues. School districts in states like Texas, Florida, and New Jersey have adopted similar systems—with varying levels of transparency about how student data is used or who has access to it.

These systems are being marketed as modern tools for classroom management. But in practice, they function as behavioral surveillance networks that track kids in ways most parents are never told about.

As I said in my court declaration:

"This is not a digitized bathroom pass. It’s a behavioral surveillance platform that profiles students without their knowledge, and certainly without ours as parents."

📂 What the Lawsuit Seeks

I am asking the court to:

• Immediately suspend the use of the digital hall pass system district-wide;

• Prevent further collection and analysis of DHP data;

• Require the district to submit an inventory of the data collected through the system;

• Permanently purge all previously collected data;

• Affirm the rights of parents to be notified and provide meaningful consent before schools launch systems that collect and/or act on sensitive behavioral data.

🔍 The Bigger Picture

We all want safe schools and orderly classrooms. But those goals can’t be achieved by stripping away privacy or sidelining parents.

This digital hall pass system is part of a broader trend in public education: chasing shiny, unproven "high tech" solutions to problems that districts themselves helped create. In Beaverton's case, the core issue isn’t bathroom trips—it’s a decade-long failure to maintain consistent school discipline.

Back in the 2013–14 school year, the district replaced traditional, structured discipline systems with restorative justice. Since then, staff have been asked to manage disruptive behavior with vague guidance, fewer consequences, and little to no support. Predictably, hallway chaos, class skipping, and bathroom incidents have increased. Instead of acknowledging their approach to discipline isn’t working, the district is now trying to solve it with software.

Rather than setting clear expectations and using fair, consistent consequences, Beaverton has opted to surveil every child to control the few who misbehave. That’s not innovation—it’s institutional overreach.

We can do better—and we must.

📁 Resources & Next Steps

You can read the full complaint, declaration, and motion for a temporary restraining order at:
👉 https://bit.ly/Myers-v-BSD

If you're a parent and want to understand whether something like this is being used in your child's school, the first step is simple: ask your child. Do they have to use an app, website, or other type of “technology” to request access to the bathroom, nurse, or lockers? If the answer is yes, then it's worth asking more questions.

To help you get started, I’ve put together a list of sample questions adapted from the ones I asked my daughter’s principal. You can use them to get the facts, clarify how student data is being handled, and push for accountability.

It might feel uncomfortable to ask these kinds of questions, but at the end of the day, it’s about doing what’s right for your child. There’s nothing wrong with that!
👉 https://bit.ly/DHP-Questions

My recent trip to Salem was brief and focused on one critical issue: tackling the root cause of our struggling public education system—research fraud. Before jumping into the fraud, let’s review what those in charges are telling us the problems are.

Narrative versus Reality

The current narrative from school district leaders, teachers unions, and our elected officials is that we’re dealing with a funding problem. They regularly use phrases like “fully funding education”, yet we’ve been steadily and significantly throwing more money into our school system for years.

Adjusted for inflation, Oregon has increased the spending per student by over 46% from 1999 to 2021.

After fluctuating in the first 14 years, you see a sharp, steady rise since 2013. Given the influx of money from the pandemic and Oregon’s Corporate Activity Tax, we likely will see the trend continue when the figures for 2022 and beyond are released. If you’re wondering how Oregon funding compares to other states, you can see for yourself in my U.S. Public Education Dashboard. For reference, Oregon per student spending is above California and the U.S. Average, but is below Washington.

So what are the results of this rising funding? Declining achievement for our students. Below is a snapshot from my Oregon Student Assessment Results dashboard, which uses data from the Oregon Department of Education on annual assessments.

As you can plainly see in the dashboard, student achievement was on a slight downward trend until the COVID-19 pandemic hit, which resulted in a significant drop across the board. As the Oregonian reported earlier this year, Oregon was the only state that hadn’t shown any improvement in reading or math skills since the pandemic.

What is at the root of our unique struggles in Oregon? Research fraud of course!

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I first wrote about Oregon’s research fraud in June 2023, after I had done some initial fact-checking of the Oregon Department of Education’s (ODE) research report on high-school graduation requirements. Shortly thereafter, I teamed up with Dr. Bruce Gilley, Professor of Political Science at Portland State University, to do a comprehensive review of their research (see our exec summary and our full report). I then published two additional articles covering fraudulent research in ODE’s 2016 Chronic Absenteeism Statewide Plan and the 2021 Ethnic Studies Advisory Group Report.

Elected Officials’ Surprising Disinterest in Harm to Students

You would think our elected officials would be concerned by this, especially since those three reports had been mandated in laws passed by the Oregon legislature. For example, I brought this up during an October 7 2023 public meeting held by Representative Courtney Neron, Chair of the House Education Committee. I later met with Rep Neron and her Chief of Staff, Marcella Martinson, to discuss this further. However, Rep Neron has taken no action to address this critical issue. This is especially troubling given her background as an Oregon teacher for many years.

It shouldn’t take new legislation to ensure our state agencies produce and share factual research, but this glaring 'loophole' demands a solution. We also need to establish clear jurisdiction and a reliable process for reporting cases of fraud. Over the past 12 to 15 months, I’ve been repeatedly redirected, with every agency and office claiming it’s someone else’s responsibility to address these issues. This broken system needs repair, and it’s become evident that new legislation is the way forward.

How You Can Help Save Oregon Schools

The rest of this article is a ‘legislative fix’ I’ve developed, and I encourage you to not just read it, but send it to your representatives and urge them to take action. If you don’t know who your current representatives are, you can easily look them up on their Find Your Legislator web page.

Ensuring our public agencies produce factual research is not a partisan issue—it’s something everyone should agree on. Whether you're a Democrat, Republican, or independent, we can all agree that integrity in public research is essential. This is about holding our institutions accountable and restoring trust, not about advancing any party's agenda. Oregon schools are worth saving, and it’s time for everyone, regardless of political stripes, to step up and make that happen. As always, I welcome your comments and feedback.

Note: The legislative concept and draft below is also available as a downloadable PDF here.

Oregon Legislative Concept & Draft: “Public Research Integrity Act”

Problem Statement

This proposed legislation addresses the growing concern over fraudulent research produced or disseminated by public officials in Oregon. Such research, which includes falsified data, manipulated conclusions, and omitted facts, undermines public trust, misguides policymaking, and diverts resources from critical state priorities.

By creating strict penalties and incentives for whistleblowers to report fraudulent practices, the law seeks to uphold the integrity of research used to inform public policy and governance. The legislation ensures accountability, transparency, and adherence to evidence-based standards, safeguarding the public from the harmful consequences of deceptive practices in government research and communications.

Proposed Solution

The proposed legislation, the "Public Research Integrity Act," establishes a comprehensive framework to combat fraudulent research by public officials in Oregon.

• Criminalizes the creation, dissemination, and approval of deceptive research or documentation, imposing penalties for violations, including classification as a Class A felony and permanent disqualification from public office.

• Introduces mechanisms for whistleblower protections and incentives, offering compensation to eligible individuals or organizations who report fraudulent activities.

• Ensures robust investigation processes led by the Oregon Department of Justice, with transparency in findings.

• Mandates the use of standardized definitions for research-related terms across agencies to enhance consistency and accountability.

This multi-faceted approach promotes transparency, deters misconduct, and reinforces public trust in government practices and policies.

Cost / Benefits

The proposed "Public Research Integrity Act" is expected to have minimal implementation costs, primarily associated with establishing a mechanism within the Oregon Department of Justice to receive and investigate complaints. These costs can be offset by fines collected from individuals or agencies found guilty of violating the Act, with a portion allocated to compensating whistleblowers to offset their costs for identifying the fraud and to reward them for providing a valuable service to all Oregonians.

The benefits, while challenging to quantify in monetary terms, are significant. By deterring fraudulent research, this legislation aims to reduce wasteful spending, prevent misguided policies, and ensure public funds are allocated based on accurate and reliable information. This will lead to more effective governance and better outcomes for Oregon’s citizens, particularly in areas like education, where fraudulent research has resulted in many harms against students and staff alike. The Act ultimately fosters public trust in government processes and reinforces the accountability of public officials to the people they serve.

Examples of Research Fraud

These are just two examples of research fraud in Oregon. These articles identify the instances of fraud, primarily by the Oregon Department of Education, and how they have led to misguided programs, practices, and content that are causing issues in our public schools today.

• Unveiling Oregon Department of Education's Controversial Methods: A Deep Dive into Research Flaws and Lack of Oversight

  • In September 2022, the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) delivered a research report on high-school graduation requirements to the legislature in response to Senate Bill 744 (2021)

  • ODE’s report misrepresented evidence, made unsubstantiated claims, and contained plagiarism

  • When the legislature didn’t take immediate action on their report, ODE bypassed them and went to the State Board of Education in late 2023 to implement some of their misguided recommendations

  • This report continues to influence legislation and policy decisions and has not yet been retracted

• Another "F" Grade for the Oregon Department of Education - Fact-Check Finds 2016 Chronic Absenteeism Plan is Biased and Flawed

  • This December 2016 “Chronic Absenteeism Statewide Plan” and its related research report were created in response to House Bill 4002 (2016)

  • Like the previous example, there were many falsehoods, biased statements, and fraudulent representations of research

  • Chronic absenteeism has continued to get worse in schools around the state, which is no surprise given the plan was not research-based but instead manipulated by its authors to implement radical, unproven programs and practices

Draft Bill for “Public Research Integrity Act”

An Act Relating to Fraudulent Research by Public Officials; Creating a New Crime; and Prescribing Penalties

SECTION 1. Short Title

This Act shall be known and cited as the "Public Research Integrity Act."

SECTION 2. Findings and Purpose

The Legislative Assembly finds that:

1. The integrity of research, reports, and guidance issued by public agencies and officials is essential to maintaining public trust and ensuring effective governance.

2. Fraudulent research undermines legislative priorities, deceives stakeholders, and erodes public confidence.

3. To protect the public and uphold transparent government, it is necessary to establish strict penalties for public officials who knowingly engage in fraudulent research practices.

The purpose of this Act is to create criminal penalties for any Oregon public official who knowingly creates, participates in the creation of, or disseminates fraudulent research in official reports, guidance, or documents intended to inform public policy, agency action, or legislative mandates.

SECTION 3. Definitions

As used in this Act:

1. "Public official" means any person elected or appointed to any office, position, or employment within the state government, including but not limited to state agencies, departments, commissions, boards, and authorities, as well as employees of local government entities.

2. "Fraudulent research" means any research report, analysis, study, guidance document, agency plan, or other official documentation or communication that:

   • a. Is intended to mislead or deceive others by containing material misrepresentations, falsified data, or intentionally manipulated conclusions.

   • b. Omits relevant facts or data with the intent to mislead.

   • c. Is created or disseminated with the knowledge that it does not accurately represent the evidence or information required to address legislative priorities or agency responsibilities.

SECTION 4. Prohibited Conduct

1. It shall be unlawful for any public official to:

   • a. Knowingly create, authorize, or contribute to the creation of fraudulent research as defined in Section 3(2) in response to:

     • i. Reports or analyses requested by legislation or by a legislative committee.

     • ii. Agency plans or documents aimed at addressing priorities or requirements set by the legislature.

     • iii. Guidance documents intended for agency staff, local agencies, or the public.

   • b. Participate in, or knowingly approve, the dissemination of such fraudulent research or documentation.

SECTION 5. Criminal Penalties

1. Any public official who violates Section 4 of this Act shall be guilty of a Class A felony.

2. Upon conviction, the official shall be subject to penalties provided for a Class A felony under Oregon law, including but not limited to imprisonment, fines, and a permanent ban from holding any public office within the State of Oregon.

SECTION 6. Additional Remedies and Enforcement

1. Any agency or individual directly affected by fraudulent research may seek an injunction or other equitable relief from a court of competent jurisdiction to prevent the dissemination or reliance on such research.

2. Nothing in this Act shall preclude additional administrative penalties or civil remedies as permitted under Oregon law.

SECTION 7. Severability

If any section, subsection, sentence, or clause of this Act is held to be invalid or unconstitutional, such decision shall not affect the remaining portions of this Act, which shall remain in full force and effect.

SECTION 8. Effective Date

This Act takes effect on [date], and applies to all actions of public officials occurring on or after that date.

SECTION 9. Reporting and Investigation

1. Reporting Allegations:

   • Complaints or tips regarding violations of this Act shall be submitted directly to the Oregon Department of Justice.

2. Investigation Authority:

   • The Department of Justice shall conduct preliminary assessments of complaints to determine if a violation may have occurred.

   • If the complaint is substantiated, the Department of Justice shall initiate a formal investigation and may involve other relevant agencies as needed.

3. Confidentiality and Whistleblower Protection:

   • The identity of individuals reporting suspected violations shall be kept confidential, and any person providing information or testimony shall be protected from retaliation.

4. Public Disclosure of Findings:

   • Upon completion of an investigation, findings shall be reported to the public unless confidentiality is required by law.

SECTION 10. Standard Definitions for Consistent Use by State Agencies

To ensure clarity and consistency in government research practices, the following terms are defined and shall be applied uniformly across all public records, research reports, agency plans, guidance documents, and official communications by state agencies and public officials:

1. Research-Based:

   • Definition: Refers to practices, programs, interventions, or educational strategies that are directly founded on or derived from scientific research or evidence, establishing a direct link between research findings and the approach.

   • Example: A "research-based" teaching method is developed based on educational psychology studies, demonstrating its effectiveness in improving student learning outcomes.

   • Order of Process: Conduct research → Develop lessons → Implement in classrooms.

2. Research-Supported:

   • Definition: Indicates that there is empirical evidence or scientific studies supporting the effectiveness of a particular approach, practice, or intervention. This does not imply direct development from research but that existing research validates the approach's use.

   • Example: A "research-supported" program is created independently but validated by studies showing its effectiveness in meeting educational goals.

   • Order of Process: Create lessons → Validate through research → Implement in classrooms.

3. Research-Aligned:

   • Definition: Refers to programs or practices that generally align with principles or strategies recommended by relevant research. This term does not imply a direct evidence base or specific empirical support for the program itself.

   • Example: A "research-aligned" curriculum incorporates strategies research suggests are effective, even if the curriculum itself has not been the subject of specific studies.

   • Order of Process: Review untested research → Develop lessons → Implement in classrooms (with students as the initial subjects).

These definitions shall be utilized in all communications and documentation related to educational programs, practices, and interventions to maintain transparency, uphold standards, and ensure a shared understanding across all public agencies in Oregon.

Additional Components for Further Consideration

This section highlights supplementary ideas that should be considered when drafting the full legislative bill. While the core legislative concept is kept straightforward, these components provide valuable detail to address potential gaps, enhance transparency, and mitigate risks.

1) Appeals Process: Establish a mechanism for reporters to appeal if they believe the Oregon Department of Justice has failed to meet required timelines, issued an incorrect ruling, or mishandled the process. This ensures an additional layer of accountability and fairness.

2) Justification for Financial Incentives: Include a detailed rationale for financial incentives. Reviewing and validating research is often time-intensive, requiring meticulous verification of information from potentially hundreds of citations in a single report. Financial incentives offset these costs, encouraging individuals and organizations to undertake this vital work.

3) Penalties for False Reports: Introduce penalties for submitting false reports of research fraud, particularly when done maliciously or with the intent to disrupt legitimate research. These penalties could include fines or compensation to the authors of the research for costs incurred in defending their work.

4) Public Reporting of Fraud Investigations: Require the Oregon Department of Justice to maintain a publicly accessible database of research fraud reports. This should include the date of the report, the research in question, examples of the alleged fraud, the agency's status on the investigation, and the final outcome. Reporters should have the option to remain anonymous or have their name/organization listed publicly.

5) Expedited Review for Related Reports: Establish a process for expedited review when fraudulent research is identified in reports that share similarities with others issued by public bodies across the country. Reporters could link their findings to previously identified fraudulent reports to streamline the review and investigation process.

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If you had asked me a year ago, I would have told you the guy behind the declines in our public education system was Colt Gill, the former Director of the Oregon Department of Education (ODE). As ODE’s leader, he was the very public face of the agency. When parents, including me, got increasingly upset with the direction of Oregon’s public schools, it was Colt Gill we spoke out against. While he took all the heat, there was someone on his executive leadership team who flew under the radar until now: Scott Nine.

Scott Nine joined ODE on July 30, 2019 as the new Assistant Superintendent of Education Innovation and Improvement. This role was created to manage the massive investment in Oregon public education that came from the passage of the Student Success Act (HB3427). This new law would increase education funding by over $1 billion a year due to the new Corporate Activity Tax, allowing schools to reduce class sizes, offer summer learning programs, feed more hungry kids, and more.

Fast-forward to today. Class sizes are still out of control, as are the students in them. Hundreds of millions flowed out to Community-Based Organizations with little oversight and dubious results. Schools provided free meals to all students, including those from families who could easily afford to pay.

Was Scott Nine just another inept leader or was this intentional? I argue it was the latter, and it is deserving of a thorough investigation.

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Scott Nine’s allegiance to the Partnership for the Future of Learning

It’s important to briefly touch on what the Partnership for the Future of Learning (PFL), also known as the “Network”, that Scott has been deeply involved with since 2016. The PFL is essentially a coalition of progressive organizations and individuals who are transforming the public education system.

Here are some examples of the types and names of the roughly 400 organizations quietly participating in the PFL:

• Foundations (aka Funders): Foundations for a Better Oregon, Southern Education Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Nellie Mae Education Foundation, and Stuart Foundation

• Unions: National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), SEIU, Massachusetts Association of Educators, National School Boards Association, The School Superintendents Association (AASA)

• Colleges / Universities: Roger Williams University, Bank Street College of Education, Harvard University, Metro Center at NYU, University of Colorado, UPenn, Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, Yale

• Public Bodies: U.S. Department of Education, state departments of education (Georgia, Oregon, Maine, and Pennsylvania), Oregon Governor’s Office, Texas House of Representatives, Atlanta City Council, and Cincinnati Public Schools

• Education Research: Institute for Educational Leadership, Learning Policy Institute, Research for Action, WestEd

• Non-Profits: Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Center for Popular Democracy, Education Law Center, In The Public Interest, Save Our Schools Arizona, Reaching Higher New Hampshire, Alliance for Education

What is particularly concerning is the involvement of public bodies and officials, including Scott Nine, in a coalition that is promoting radical theories and practices and has an extreme, partisan bias. I believe this concern is legitimate given the evidence presented in the next section.

Did Scott Nine serve Oregon students or the PFL?

While this certainly won’t be an exhaustive list of the evidence collected so far, the goal is to paint a clear picture Scott Nine’s priorities and his allegiance to the PFL, rather than to the Oregon students he was hired to serve.

In this first example just a month after joining ODE, we see Scott Nine encouraging Marc Siegel, ODE Communications Director, to connect with Jenni Kotting. Scott just came to ODE from the National Public Education Support Fund (NPESF), which was the fiscal home of the PFL and where Jenni still worked.

This next email sent by Scott Nine went to several PFL team members and partners. Scott Nine had recruited another recent ODE new hire, Shadiin Garcia, to be part of the PFL’s “Network Assembly”, a 2 day event they hosted in Chicago, IL. Although Scott likely used the term “co-conspirator” when describing Foundations for a Better Oregon leader Whitney Grubbs, the more traditional definition of the term may be more appropriate. Don’t worry, the examples get worse as we march forward.

In December 2019, ODE released their guidance to Superintendents across the state on how they can apply for and use a portion of the Student Success Act funds referred to as the Student Investment Account (SIA). Scott forwarded this email to a set of core PFL members to acknowledge how much of their work has been embedded in this guidance.

On the surface, this could just be seen as a group of passionate education advocates who are excited to see their work coming to fruition. However, the devil’s in the details. In this case, we’re talking about some of the most progressive, radical thinkers in the education space. And as I’ve written about previously, some of these folks were involved in the fraudulent research produced by ODE.

In this July 2021 email exchange, we see Scott Nine re-introducing the discussion on Community Schools with the governor’s education advisor Lindsey Capps, ODE Director Colt Gill, and ODE Deputy Director Carmen Urbina. In that email he shares with them a collection of documents, videos, and other assets produced by the PFL and its partners. Minutes later he forwarded that message to Cyrus Driver, Jenni Kotting, Roberta Furger, Lauren Jacobs, and Taylor Moore, all core team members of the PFL.

While most still aren’t aware of what Community Schools are (think about schools as becoming one-stop shops for other services like healthcare, mental healthcare, food, clothing, housing, and education for all ages), it’s concerning that he sees the large investments by California as being proportionately less than Oregon. To help connect the dots, Oregon is essentially trying to turn all public schools into Community Schools, but without calling them that by name.

On a related note, here are a couple of other email exchanges involving Community Schools. The first is between Scott Nine and Kyle Serrette, the Community Schools Campaign Manager for the National Education Association (NEA), which was then forwarded to ODE Director Colt Gill soon after Scott joined ODE.

The second email about Community Schools came from the PFL in May 2023, and it paints a very different tone. In this message, Jenni Kotting writes about how “partners have started noticing troubling critiques about community schools”. Worse yet, she goes on to write, “…the kind of negative narrative we want to disrupt” and then provides links to two tweets from Moms for Liberty Co-Founder Tiffany Justice and education advocate and “A Time to Stand” podcast host Kelly S.

This next message really demonstrates how Scott Nine and others in Oregon are using their positions and influence to advance the goals of the PFL. In this case, it starts with a “call for nominations to co-create a vision for racially just accountability and assessment”, put out by PFL Associate Director and Texas State Representative Mary Gonzalez. As you’ll see in the full email thread here, there’s some back and forth between Pooja Bhatt (Co-Founder of SeeChange LLC and now Education Initiatives leader for Oregon Governor Tina Kotek), Aimee Craig (other Co-Founder of SeeChange LLC), Scott Nine, and others in the PFL.

As you’ll see in the entire exchange, Foundations for a Better Oregon and the regional network they’ve established in Oregon are highly influential when it comes to steering the direction of Oregon’s public education system. What’s also interesting to note is Aimee Craig is a partner in the PFL (joined 2018), as is Pooja Bhatt (joined 2021).

While Scott Nine was deeply involved in the PFL before and after joining ODE, he was invited to take part in a new Strategy Council the PFL was forming to help with their “Strategy Regeneration” process. A few days after receiving the invitation from PFL leader Cyrus Driver, Scott confirmed he received “official permission” to participate in this additional capacity.

Finally, I wanted to wrap this up with a very recent email, sent just a couple of months before Scott Nine decided to leave ODE. This exchange started with Cyrus Driver reaching out to Scott to share their Breakthrough Report, which was one of the key outputs from their Strategy Regeneration work mentioned earlier. While it is a fairly lengthy document, I highly encourage those willing to invest the time to give it a read as it details how the PFL is shifting its strategy over the coming years, how they intend to more fully “activate their network”, and frankly how radical and biased they are as a collective.

As I mentioned earlier, it is extremely concerning to have public officials at the local, state, and federal level who participate in this intentionally under-the-radar network that has a very clear agenda, purpose, and worldview. There is much more to cover on this topic, but I do hope this helps raise more awareness to the size and scale of the problem.

What do you think?

What questions come to mind after seeing the examples of Scott Nine’s priorities and actions while in such a powerful and influential role for Oregon’s public education system? Do you feel he was serving the true needs of Oregon students, or fulfilling the desires he and this ideologically-aligned “Network” had?

Please share your questions and thoughts in the comments below.

Finally, for those interested in seeing more examples, I have included many more in the section below.

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Addendum: Additional evidence of undisclosed conflicts and commitments to the “Partnership” rather than Oregon students

Just click on any one of the links below to see copes of the emails / documents:

1. Messaging guidance and talking points against a right-wing “Parents Bill of Rights”

2. Scott recommends a core PFL team member, Jenni Kotting, to the Deputy Director of ODE to facilitate an executive team session

3. Email announcing Mary Gonzalez, Texas State Representative, will take on Scott Nine’s former role in supporting and driving the PFL “Network”

   1. Rep. Gonzalez’s page on Texas House of Representatives site

4. Email thread coordinating Scott Nine’s role in a PFL webinar on “Leveraging Federal Funds” and acknowledging ODE Director Colt Gill will be Scott’s backup if he can’t attend

   1. This email provides more information about the webinar content

5. Scott shares an article on Student Success funding applications with the leader and a core team member of the PFL

6. Messaging guidance from PFL on school voucher programs, which they see as “another attack on children’s freedom to learn”. Promotes Community Schools, among other things.

7. Scott reaches out to PFL leaders and key players for “research, papers, or thinkers” on COVID-19. Cyrus Driver, leader of the PFL, offers to connect him with a guy who “is the real deal”. (I sincerely hope this isn’t why our COVID-19 response in Oregon schools was about the worst in the country)

8. Email thread showing a recent new hire at ODE that Scott Nine is bringing into the PFL

9. PFL leader emails a copy of a detailed evaluation report they commissioned to have done on the PFL itself

   1. If you really want to understand more about the PFL, you can read the 59 page report by ORS Impact and Equal Measure

10. On the heels of Oregon Governor Kotek’s announcement of making a significant investment in literacy, Scott Nine shares resources from PFL partners with several ODE leaders & staffers. He also reaches out to the PFL team to arrange some meetings.

    1. This is a related email thread that shows Scott Nine reaching out to the contacts in California he received. Included in the email are Pooja Bhatt (Education Initiatives leader for Governor Kotek), ODE Director Colt Gill, and other staffs from ODE and the Governor’s office.

11. PFL team reaches out to Scott Nine to schedule time for input on their strategy refresh, including their “Key Places strategy”

    1. While the PFL operates in most US states, their strategy singled out California, Georgia, and New Hampshire as “key places” with very specific approaches. For example, they targeted underperforming schools in Georgia to be turned into Community Schools.

12. Thank you email from a PFL consultant for the conversation. Cyrus Driver, the PFL leader, suggests there are roles for the partnership “that can further both collective defense and offense”.

    1. Defense and offense against who? Anyone who disagrees with their transformation of public education.

13. Scott Nine and Shadiin Garcia, former Executive Director of ODE’s Educator Advancement Council, send an audio recording to Jenni Kotting of the PFL team to create an Op-Ed for them that essentially shows their vision of how the Student Success Act funds should be spent

    1. You can listen to the 10 minute recording here

    2. Warning: It’s an over-the-top equity-fest, and they wrap up by saying everything is due to white supremacy

14. Scott Nine sends an internal, ODE email thread to PFL team member Jenni Kotting to show how a PFL-led podcast on education equity during COVID-19 is informing the ODE Director’s actions on “distance learning guidance/policies with equity”

15. Finally, if you’re interested where the Student Success Act funding went, you can see the ODE provided infographic below.

The "Sardine Effect": Why More is Merrier in Education

The cornerstone of this revolutionary idea is the "Sardine Effect." Just as sardines thrive in tightly packed spaces, students in larger classes reportedly experience a surge in engagement and camaraderie. This phenomenon, observed in classes of 50 or more students, fosters a competitive yet collaborative environment where students must vie for the teacher's attention. This not only sharpens their social maneuvering skills but also significantly improves their hand-raising agility.

Financial Frugality: The Underpaid Teacher Advantage

Furthermore, the financial benefits of underpaying teachers are manifold. Teachers who are paid less are often more creative, as they must devise innovative ways to engage a classroom with limited resources. This kind of resourcefulness, researchers argue, is contagious, inspiring students to think outside the box and make the most of what they have. Moreover, underpaid teachers tend to have a heightened sense of gratitude for their jobs, leading to increased dedication and a more profound sense of mission in their teaching.

This graphic further illustrates how teacher wage stagnation has directly benefited students. The 4-year cohort graduation rate (the federal standard for measurement) increased by an astounding 19.1% while the average teacher salary increased only 2.3% (adjusted for inflation).

The yet unanswered question is if student success would accelerate further if Oregon reduced teacher salaries over time. With the recent high rates of inflation outpacing the cost-of-living adjustments in teacher contracts around the state, we may get the answer to that question over the next couple of years.

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Massive Class Sizes: A Hotbed of Unintended Innovation

In these bustling educational ecosystems, traditional teaching methods are rendered obsolete. Lectures become public speaking events, and group projects evolve into mini-corporate ventures. The sheer number of students creates a dynamic and unpredictable learning environment, where the only constant is change. This prepares students for the real world, where adaptability and resilience are key to success.

Conclusion: Embracing the Future of Education

In conclusion, Oregon's small class sizes and well-compensated teachers may be well-intentioned but are ultimately misguided. As the evidence-based research studies suggest, it's time for a bold reimagining of educational norms. Larger class sizes and underpaid teachers are not just economically sensible; they are, unexpectedly, the catalysts for a more engaged, innovative, and resilient student body. In the ever-evolving landscape of education, sometimes, less is more, but in Oregon, it seems, more is actually more.

The “Real” Conclusion

No, I’m not really making the case for higher class sizes and lower teacher pay. That would be ridiculous!

What’s even more ridiculous is this article is indicative of the research and reports produced by the Oregon Department of Education (ODE). The difference is that ODE is trying to pass off their fraudulent work as “factual and supported by research”. Unfortunately, Oregon legislators (both Democrats & Republicans) as well as other public officials don’t seem to care.

I wrote about ODE’s fraudulent research in these three articles, with the first one highlighting a thorough analysis of Oregon’s Equitable Graduation Report that I co-authored with Dr. Bruce Gilley, a professor at Portland State University. I encourage you to share these with others and let your legislators know how you feel about their inaction on questioning ODE and holding them accountable.

• Unveiling Oregon Department of Education's Controversial Methods: A Deep Dive into Research Flaws and Lack of Oversight

• Another "F" Grade for the Oregon Department of Education - Fact-Check Finds 2016 Chronic Absenteeism Plan is Biased and Flawed

• Redefining Boundaries: How Oregon Ethnic Studies Advisory Group Skirted Evidence and Law

This “fact-check” involves House Bill 2845 (2017) and the tasks and deliverables it required ODE to complete. The requests of ODE from HB2845 can be summarized by these three outcomes:

1. ODE will form an advisory group from specific ethnic and social minorities to review current social studies standards.

2. The advisory group will pinpoint gaps in recognition of minority histories/contributions and design new ethnic studies standards to enhance cultural understanding and critical thinking.

3. Upon receiving the advisory group's report, ODE will integrate the proposed standards into the K-12 social studies standards by forming a statewide teacher workgroup that will use the advisory report as their primary guide.

Key Findings in this “Fact-Check”

Rather than keep you waiting, let’s jump right to the two key findings from my comprehensive analysis of the report and other relevant documents:

• The advisory group’s first action was to break the law, which drastically altered the direction of the work to follow for all involved

• Neither the Advisory Group nor ODE’s teacher workgroup cited a single shred of research or other evidence in any of their official reports or working documents

Two relatively tiny teams, comprised primarily of progressive activists, were able to produce the most radical social studies standards in the United States, and the Oregon State Board of Education promptly voted to approve them for immediate use by all 197 school districts in the state. No evidence? No problem!

Finding #1: Redefined the Law’s Definition of “Ethnic studies” to Align with their Goals

Clearly this advisory group felt they had the authority, nay, RESPONSIBILITY to “fix” this newly signed law before they began their work. The image below is from the top of page 11 in the Ethnic Studies Advisory Group’s final report to ODE. The definition in green is the text from the law, which even they acknowledged is where they got it. The section in yellow is their “new definition” of the term, which they then used throughout the nearly two years they met to create and deliver their report and recommendations.

Why are some terms defined in law and others aren’t?

In Oregon, as in many other jurisdictions, laws often provide definitions of terms to ensure clarity, precision, and consistency in their application. Here are some reasons why definitions are crucial in legal texts:

1. Clarity: Laws are written to regulate or guide behavior, and if there's any ambiguity about what specific words or phrases mean, this can lead to confusion about how the law should be applied. By defining terms, the law provides clear guidance to the public, legal professionals, and judges.

2. Uniformity: Different words might be interpreted differently by different people. By providing definitions, the law ensures that everyone interprets the terms in the same way.

3. Avoiding Misinterpretation: Without clear definitions, terms in laws could be taken out of context or misinterpreted, which could lead to unintended consequences or misuse of the law.

4. Reflecting Specific Intent: Sometimes, legal terms might have a common or general meaning but are intended to be understood in a specific way in the context of a particular law. Definitions ensure that the specific intent of the legislature is captured and followed.

5. Consistency Across Laws: Definitions can help maintain consistency across different laws and regulations, especially if the same terms appear in multiple laws. By having a standard definition, it becomes easier to apply multiple laws in cases where they intersect.

6. Facilitating Judicial Review: Courts often need to interpret and apply laws. By providing clear definitions, the legislature can assist courts in understanding and applying the law as intended.

So is this illegal? Is it ethical? Is this what the legislature intended when they wrote, amended, and ultimately voted to pass the bill?

Again in Oregon, as in other jurisdictions, you cannot unilaterally "redefine" the definition of a key term expressed in legislation for legal purposes. Here's what this means:

1. Legal Force: Only the Oregon Legislative Assembly (or voters, in the case of ballot initiatives) has the power to enact, modify, or repeal statutes. If a definition is provided in a statute, that definition is legally binding. A private individual, company, or local authority cannot alter that definition and expect it to have legal force.

2. Personal or Organizational Use: While you can't change a legal definition for legal purposes, people and organizations might use terms differently in informal or internal contexts. However, these personal or organizational definitions would have no bearing on how the term is interpreted in the context of the statute.

3. Potential for Legal Consequences: Attempting to use a different definition for a legally defined term, especially in legal documents or in contexts where the statutory definition is supposed to apply, can result in legal consequences. For instance, if a business tried to operate based on its own definition of a term that's differently defined in Oregon law, it could face legal challenges or penalties.

4. Judicial Interpretation: While private entities can't redefine statutory terms, courts sometimes interpret or clarify the meaning of terms in statutes. This is not the same as redefining; rather, it's a process of understanding the term in the context of the statute, legislative intent, and previous case law.

5. Ambiguous Terms: In cases where a term is not clearly defined in the statute or its definition is open to multiple interpretations, courts might have to interpret its meaning. This is one of the reasons why clear definitions in legislation are important.

If a person or group is considering using a term differently than it's defined in Oregon law, or if they’re involved in an activity where the definitions of terms are crucial, they should consult with an attorney to understand the legal implications and potential risks.

There is no evidence the advisory group or anyone from ODE contacted an attorney or the legislature before unilaterally redefining “Ethnic studies”, the most critical term for this entire effort. However, there is very clear evidence on page 11 of their report that they were aware of the how the law defined the term.

Finding #2: No research or evidence provided to support their work

I promise this section will be a lot shorter than the last. It’s actually very simple: there wasn’t a single citation to research or other evidence to support their radical definition of “Ethnic studies”, their use of Critical Theory principles throughout the report and their recommendations, and the age-appropriateness of the resulting standards.

The image above shows a comparison between the current 2018 Social Sciences Standards and the new/optional 2021 standards for kindergarten. I believe this demonstrates how ODE went far beyond what the law compelled them to do. I’ve also spoken with multiple Kindergarten teachers in Oregon whose districts have adopted these optional 2021 standards as well as new curriculum. Every single one of them has said the same thing: this is not even close to age-appropriate content for 5 year olds.

Unfortunately, the group intended to provide oversight in this situation, Oregon’s State Board of Education, failed to ensure these standards met the requirements in the law. I hope the exposure of the past board’s failure will be seen as an opportunity by them to do the right thing and recall/reject the 2021 standards until the process can be done correctly.

The remainder of the article will provide more information on what drove the legislature to pass this law, the new standards that were created by ODE as well as more background information on the group’s involved in this work.

What did the Legislature Expect this Law to Accomplish?

The best way to understand what the legislature had in mind when they passed this law is to hear it from their own mouths. The video included above is just one of the work sessions in the legislature where these discussed HB2845, and I included it because there’s some really good discussion by senators and representatives about why this bill was important to them and their constituents, and what they expected to come from it. The work session on HB2845 begins at the 37:25 (mm:ss) mark, and runs for 22+ minutes.

What was interesting to me was hearing how several legislators expressed concerns about ODE failing to follow through on past legislation on this topic. You could hear the passion and frustration in their voices as they were once again asking for education that includes “histories, contributions and perspectives of ethnic minorities and social minorities.”

I agree with the definitions these legislators wrote in HB2845, and I do believe in the value of teaching about other ethnicities and cultures, both past and present. I think there are some parts of this bill that could have been adjusted to ensure it didn’t go so far off the rails, but for the most part I support it. So if you have the time, I would recommend watching that video to better understand what direction the legislature was trying to go in when they developed this new law.

The Ethnic Studies Advisory Group

After HB2845 was signed into law on June 29 2017, ODE kicked off the process by selecting Kendra Hughes as the Ethnic Studies Advisory Group Facilitator. One can only assume she was selected for her extensive experience in Educational Equity, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, and Social Justice, as that ultimately was ODE’s direction for the work they were about to perform.

The attention then turned to working with the various groups specified in HB2845 to obtain their representatives for this project. The image below shows how the law defined those key terms mentioned earlier as well as which groups would have representation.

While not a key focus of this report, you may be curious who participated in the advisory group, who they represented, and their backgrounds to engage in this type of work.

• In the Ethnic Studies Recommendations Final Report you will find:

  • Page 7 lists each group and the representative(s) they provided

  • Page 8 includes reference to a 2nd ODE employee, Amit Kobrowski, and six other people who were invited to participate in the work

• This Google Drive folder has LinkedIn profiles and a summary background list for all advisory group members

I realize this will seem like a very subjective statement, but it’s hard to ignore how polarized this group was. Many were open about their Social Justice activism, and in some cases were known for pushing radical, unproven theories into public education. It’s hard to ignore the irony when reading their notes and recommendations about bias, yet they too allowed their biases to drastically alter the direction of the work they were called to do.

Exploring the New, Optional 2021 Social Sciences Standards

ODE completed their work in response to HB2845 back in early 2021. This culminated in the State Board of Education voting to approve the new standards on February 18th, 2021. ODE’s March 2021 Social Science Newsletter led off by announcing new standards and offering resources districts could start using immediately.

For those interested in seeing what ODE changed in the new standards and getting more information about the standards in general, I recommend exploring these resources below:

1. Oregon Social Sciences Standards - 2021 Changes

   • I created this online presentation to highlight exactly what changed in the K-12 standards based on ODE’s fraudulent work in response to HB2845

   • This is a good starting point to quickly see, by grade level, what changed between the current 2018 and new 2021 standards

2. ODE Standards - Social Sciences

   • ODE’s official site for information on all things related to the Social Sciences standards

   • You can access the current 2018 standards and the new, optional 2021 standards produced in response to HB2845

   • The Ethnic Studies - Frequently Asked Questions is worth reading as well, as it explained what little support there is for districts adopting the new standards and the potential risks in doing so

Conclusion

This is the third, and certainly not the last, report I will be fact-checking. This is difficult, time-consuming work but I believe it is worth every moment. There are over 500,000 children in Oregon’s public K-12 schools, including my two kids. We’ve all been lied to, and it’s created an overwhelming amount of anxiety, anger, and divisiveness in communities across the state.

Our children deserve better. Parents and guardians didn’t register their kids to be part of an EXPERIMENT. We signed up our kids for an EDUCATION. While it may seem everything nowadays is a “political” topic, education shouldn’t be. The truth is not political either, and I hope by now you are beginning to recognize the source of the decline in our public education system: Oregon’s Department of Education.

I encourage folks to reach out to their state senator and representative to ask what they are going to do to address the fraud at ODE. If you aren’t sure who they are or how to reach them, you can use this page to search by your address. You can also view the full list of State Senators and State Representatives, both of which have all of their contact information.

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Thank you for reading this, and please pass it along to others! -Jeff (aka @PapaBearMyers)

I would love to offer everyone another in-depth report like that first one Dr. Gilley and I did, there simply isn’t the time to do it. That 27-page report took nearly six weeks with both of us working on it. I hope you will settle for what I’ll call a “highlight reel” of falsehoods, bias, and other fraudulent work in ODE’s December 2016 “Chronic Absenteeism Statewide Plan”, which was in response to the passing of House Bill 4002 (HB4002) in early 2016. While this article won’t go into the same level of depth as that joint report, I can assure you the examples I’ll address here are 100% true.

Brief Introduction of HB4002

HB4002 aimed to reduce student chronic absences in Oregon public schools. A student is considered chronically absent when they miss 10% or more of school days within a single school year for any reason (excused, unexcused, suspensions, etc.) The bill addressed chronic absenteeism in two ways:

1. Asked ODE and the Chief Education Office (CEdO)1 to “develop a statewide education plan to address chronic absences of students”

2. Provided $500,000 in funding for ODE and the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) to distribute to requesting school districts and education service districts implementing “trauma-informed approaches” to address chronic absences

This focus of this article is on first item - the “Chronic Absenteeism Statewide Plan”. As HB4002 was signed into law on March 29, 2016, ODE and CEdO had 8 months to put together their plan. They had a head start on this plan as the CEdO had already commissioned research on the subject of chronic absenteeism, which led to the Chronic Absenteeism Report (published in May 2016). This CEdO-commissioned report heavily informed the statewide plan HB4002 required ODE and CEdO to complete by December 1, 2016.

I realize this can be a bit confusing, so here’s my best attempt to make it clear.

• HB4002 asked ODE & CEdO to create a statewide PLAN to reduce chronic absenteeism by December 1st

• CEdO had already kicked off research to create a REPORT on this subject

• CEdO’s REPORT was completed in May

• ODE & CEdO used the REPORT to build their PLAN

• ODE & CEdO delivered their PLAN to the legislature in December

That report may be the subject of a future article, but for now I’ll focus on the statewide plan and the many issues with it.

Key Findings in “Fact-Check” of the Statewide Plan

I want to reiterate the intent of this article is not to identify every issue with the statewide plan, but to instead provide enough evidence to support the claim that this plan is fraudulent and therefore should be retracted & investigated. With that said, these are the key findings from this review of the plan:

1. Misrepresentation of multiple research studies outcomes related to chronic absenteeism

2. Makes unsupported claims about issues specific to LBGTQ youth

3. Fabricated a foundational component of their plan: the root causes

The remainder of this article will break down those three findings and provide the relevant details to support my claims of fraud by ODE & CEdO. An important thing to keep in the back of your mind as you go through this and other reports is that CORRELATION is not the same as CAUSATION. The intro in this Khan Academy lesson does a great job explaining the differences between these two important terms.

If you want to just straight to the worst of them all, scroll down to finding #3. I saved the worst for last!

Finding #1: Misrepresentation of multiple research studies outcomes related to chronic absenteeism

The citations and misrepresentations come fast and furious in this statewide plan, starting on page 62 in the “Why Attendance is Important” section. I’ve highlighted the first two paragraphs of this section to make it easy to connect what the plan stated in comparison to the cited research.3

• Yellow [8]: Cited research does not support the highlighted statement

  • ODE/CEdO’s statement: “In fact, chronic absenteeism rates are often our best predictors of on-time graduation rates and drop-out in Oregon and nationally; second only to grade point average.”

  • Ignored first footnote in cited report: “Because the analyses that follow are correlational, it is important to keep in mind that causation cannot be determined. Although the language we use to talk about hypotheses includes some implied causation, we recognize that it is not possible to draw causal conclusions from these data.” (pg3)

  • Study was based on only a total of 640 students and from Santa Clara county (Fall 2004 & 2005) and San Mateo county (Fall 2005) (pg4) and demographics are significantly different than Oregon, especially in the given time period

  • Associations between attendance and later school outcomes don’t match ODE’s and CEdO’s statement. This research describes later school outcomes as 3rd grade performance (i.e. ELA and Math test scores & proficiency levels), not graduation rates or drop-out rates. The report only monitored students from K thru 3rd grade. (pg10-11).

• Green [1]: Cited report makes no mention about preschool or kindergarten

  • ODE/CEdO’s statement: “Chronically absent preschool and kindergarten students are more likely to have lower school readiness scores”

  • There’s not much else to say as the previous bullet calls out the main issue here

  • The only other point to call out is there wasn’t any specific reference to “readiness scores” in the report

• Blue [5]: Cited study uses different chronic absenteeism definition and does not support the highlighted statement

  • ODE/CEdO’s statement: “and are more likely to be retained in school”

  • Cited study’s chronic absenteeism definition: “missing more than one-ninth of days enrolled” (pg. v)

  • ODE/CEdO plan’s definition: “missing 10 percent or more of [school] days in an academic calendar year for any reason including excused, unexcused and disciplinary exclusion.” (pg2)

• Orange [6]: Cited research does not support statewide plan’s claim

  • ODE/CEdO’s statement: “These gaps in achievement and performance are widened as students with early chronic absenteeism issues often continue a pattern of absenteeism into subsequent grades”

  • ODE/CEdO’s statement claimed that early chronic absenteeism often continues into future grades

  • The cited research paper by Attendance Works makes no such claim of a connection between early and future chronic absenteeism. This paper focuses primarily on early chronic absenteeism and academic performance

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Finding #2: Makes unsupported claims about issues specific to LBGTQ youth

On page 9 of the statewide plan, the “Populations Affected” section, they identify student populations who are chronically absent at a rate above the state average, such as American Indian/Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Economically Disadvantaged, and Students with Disabilities. However, ODE/CEdO then stray from the research and data when they begin addressing LGBTQ youth.

• Yellow [13] & [17]: Cited reports contain no supporting evidence for statewide plan’s claim

  • ODE/CEdO’s statement: “When schools do not intentionally address school climate, Oregon’s Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Transgender, and Queer (LBGTQ) youth often experience bullying and harassment which leads to, chronic absenteeism for these individuals [13][17].”

  • Cited report #13 did have some related information, but ODE/CEdO misrepresented their research by fabricating a different statement related to chronic absenteeism, which was a claim this report did not make.

    • This is what the cited research stated, “When LGBTQ youth face bias at school they are: more than three times as likely to have missed school in the past month than their peers.”

    • This isn’t referring to chronic absenteeism, but how bias in school could lead to increased absences over the norm.

    • The source of this cited research appears to have come from the 2015 Oregon Healthy Teens survey, which only polled 8th and 11th grade students.

    • It is also a fabrication for ODE/CEdO to claim that intentionally addressing school climate will lead to reduced experiences of bullying and harassment against LGBTQ youth. The research included recommendations for improving school climate, but made no claims to their effectiveness of addressing the issues.

  • Cited report #17 made no mention at all of LGBTQ youth, bullying, or harassment of any kind.

• Green [14]: Cited data isn’t available to validate and likely wouldn’t validate ODE/CEdO statement, even if available

  • ODE/CEdO’s statement: “In the Oregon Healthy Teen Survey (2010) LGBTQ youth were more likely to miss school in the last 30 days due to feeling unsafe at or on their way to school [14].”

  • There was no 2010 Oregon Healthy Teen Survey. It ran every two years, on odd years (i.e. 2009, 2011, 2013, etc.) Also as mentioned in an earlier point, this survey was only taken by 8th and 11th grade students, and the questions did vary between the two grades.

  • The Oregon Center for Health Statistics page does not allow you to download the survey data to validate the results. For example, without access to the data you can’t compare the answers for LGBTQ youth against all other youth to determine whether or not LGBTQ youth felt unsafe at or on their way to school.

  • The Oregon Healthy Teen Survey did have a question asking if they identify as “Heterosexual (straight)”, “Gay or lesbian”, “Bisexual”, or “Not sure”, but only for 11th grade (not 8th grade). So the claim in ODE’s report about this being related to LGBTQ youth is inaccurate for three reasons:

    • The survey did not have “Trans” or “Queer” as available choices

    • ODE/CEdO should have provided the full survey data

    • Most importantly, ODE/CEdO should have specified the survey results were based on 11th grade responses only

Finding #3: Fabricated a foundational component of their plan: the root causes

As I stated earlier, I saved the worst for last. If you follow me on Twitter/X, you may have seen this teaser graphic I shared yesterday.

This simple comparison I put together shows what ODE/CEdO claimed the cited research study said against what the study actually said. This type of misconduct is considered a serious ethical violation in research, and is often referred to as Fabrication.

Fabrication involves creating false data or results, especially in research contexts. When someone alters content from a cited study and misrepresents it as true to the original, they are engaging in fabrication. This unethical behavior compromises the integrity of research and can propagate misleading information.

As you can see, ODE/CEdO made a few minor tweaks to the citation, which I highlighted in gray. These don’t change the meaning in any significant way, but were worth calling out to be precise.

The text highlighted in yellow shows where ODE/CEdO fabricated results. In other words, they inserted additional claims and statements that were not supported by or included in the cited research.

Why is this the worst issue of them all? It’s because these issues represent their entire root cause analysis. Starting on page 13 (below) is the section titled, “Root Causes of Absenteeism”. Continued on the next page is the text I captured in the table in the previous image. You typically don’t start developing a solution until you’ve determined what the root causes of the issues are. So by fabricating a very significant portion of the root causes of chronic absenteeism, they inserted concepts and issues that aren’t rooted in evidence, research, and so on. If you read the rest of their report, you will see how these fabricated root causes take on a life of their own, tainting this entire report.

Conclusion

Congratulations to those who have the tenacity to have made it this far in the article. I acknowledge a thorough fact-checking is not exactly a “fun read”. It is an important one though, which is why I took the time to include all the relevant details. I do not make the claims of fraud lightly.

As I was thinking about how I should wrap this article up, I ran across this recent article, “Oregon Kids of Color are Cutting Too Many Classes” by William MacKenzie at Oregon Catalyst. In this article, MacKenzie calls out the increasing chronic absenteeism rates we’re seeing across Oregon, and how they continue to impact some student groups more than others, like students of color. MacKenzie also referenced the 2016 bill and ODE/CEdO statewide plan this my article is about. I might need to reach out to him and share notes!

Hopefully it is becoming more clear how the Oregon Department of Education has been committing very serious acts of fraud and deception in order to push apparently predetermined outcomes and narratives as they progress down a path to transform Oregon public education. There is no doubt they have fabricated content and “research”, misrepresented legitimate studies, and made many unsupported claims that have ultimately led to worse outcomes for Oregon students, their families, and school staff.

I will continue to produce more reports and evidence like this to arm our legislature and other agencies able to hold them accountable with actionable, accurate information. Your help to share this and other articles and reports will greatly expedite the process. So please share this far and wide! Encourage others to sign up for my newsletter or follow me on social media.

If you want to contact your representatives in Oregon’s legislature but aren’t sure who they are or how to reach them, you can use this page to search by your address. You can also view the full list of State Senators and State Representatives, both of which have all of their contact information.

So on a personal note, thank you for reading and for sharing this! -Jeff (aka @PapaBearMyers)

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What we did was straightforward - a “fact check” of the Oregon Department of Education’s (ODE) “Community-Informed Recommendations for Equitable Graduation Outcomes” report, delivered to the Oregon legislature on September 1st, 2022. This report was created in response to Senate Bill 744, which was signed into law in 2021. You may remember this bill as the one that extended Governor Kate Brown’s pause of the Essential Skills Proficiency tests that were required to graduate high-school.

As we reviewed ODE’s report and the roughly 100 research studies and other citations included within it, we continually found ODE misrepresenting evidence and making unsubstantiated claims. In other words, they lied. They lied to all of us.

Here are links to download our full, 27-page report as well as a short, 2-page summary. I recommend starting with the summary and then moving on to the full report when you’re ready for the deep-dive:

• Full Report from Oregon Association of Scholars and Save Oregon Schools

• 2-page summary of report from Oregon Association of Scholars and Save Oregon Schools

Why is this significant?

ODE’s report has already been the source of new legislation during the session that just wrapped up a couple of months ago. Some bills went on to be signed into law, while others didn’t make it across the finish line. ODE’s report will continue to be used to shape legislation and transform education for years to come. This fraudulent report should be retracted immediately, but how do we address bills that have now become law? Should the legislature have to repeal these bills as they are all based on fraudulent research and recommendations?

What is even more pressing is an upcoming vote by the Oregon State Board of Education. Their next meeting is this Thursday, and on their agenda here is a planned vote to further extend the suspension of Essential Skills requirements through the 2027-2028 school year. You can find the contact information for the State Board Members here, and this page provides details on how to submit a public comment.

I can also assure you this is not the only fraudulent report that ODE has produced. Over the next few days and weeks, I will be releasing information on other significant reports and plans ODE has published that are equally biased, inaccurate, and destined for the trash bin. This is a clear pattern of deception at a grand scale that has somehow evaded exposure, until now. Oregonians need to come together to demand the truth and to hold people accountable for the harm they’ve caused us all.

Making our legislators aware of the issues

If you want to contact your representatives in Oregon’s legislature but aren’t sure who they are or how to reach them, you can use this page to search by your address. You can also view the full list of State Senators and State Representatives, both of which have all of their contact information.

Below is the message I sent to every Oregon State Senator & Representative on the morning of Tuesday, September 19th 2023:

[Sent to all Oregon State Senators & Representatives]

Good morning to you all,

On behalf of Dr. Bruce Gilley (President, Oregon Association of Scholars) and myself (Chief Editor, Save Oregon Schools), we wanted to share a joint report, released today, that highlights major concerns and inaccuracies in the Oregon Department of Education report on equitable graduation outcomes (per SB744-2021).

Here are three of the key findings in our report:

·         Research Methodology Concerns: The report points out instances of potential plagiarism and miscitations in ODE's work. It emphasizes ODE’s lack of practicing even basic, high-school writing skills, such as using reputable sources and proofreading.

·         Significant, Unsupported Claims: Some of ODE’s most significant claims were without evidence or ODE misrepresented research to appear supportive. For example, there were many claims that a student’s sense of belonging was a significant, important factor for improving graduation rates and academic achievement, but the cited research made no such claims.

·         Unfair Attack on Oregon Teachers: SB 744 questions the equity of high school diploma requirements, prompting the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) to investigate. Instead of an objective analysis, ODE leans heavily on claims of systemic racism and bias without substantial evidence. ODE even insinuates that teacher biases might influence grading, a claim that lacks concrete support and paints Oregon educators in a negative light.

Attached are copies of our full, 27-page report as well as a 2-page summary. Here are links to these two reports, as well as the ODE report we evaluated:

• Full Report from Oregon Association of Scholars and Save Oregon Schools

• 2-page summary of report from Oregon Association of Scholars and Save Oregon Schools

• ODE’s “Community-Informed Recommendations for Equitable Graduation Outcomes” – Senate Bill 744 Report

There are clear similarities between the opioid crisis and this fraudulent report from ODE. For years, doctors prescribed drugs like OxyContin, thinking they were safe. Yet, opioid-related deaths rose from under 10,000 to over 80,000 annually since 1999 and opioid addiction is harming countless more. This crisis, rooted in misinformation, mirrors ODE's role in Oregon's education issues. Our joint report reveals ODE's misrepresentation of research, biased narratives, and unsubstantiated claims. Both situations highlight the devastating impact of false information.

Let me be real for a moment. I'm exhausted. I think we can all agree that every child in Oregon deserves a good education. However, how to improve our education system has become a partisan battleground. The "right" thinks the "left" is the problem. The "left" thinks the "right" is the problem. Well folks, I think we've all been played for fools. That needs to end now.

I urge you to come together as Oregonians on behalf of Oregonians. You deserve to know the truth as do all of us, and that means you need to work together to do a thorough investigation of this and other reports by ODE. Who is behind the fraud, what are they trying to accomplish, why are they doing this, and when did it start?

It's urgent to act now. The Oregon State Board of Education meets on September 21st to vote on extending the suspension of the Assessment of Essential Skills through 2027-2028, a move pushed by ODE based on their fraudulent report. This decision could have divisive consequences for our communities, and there’s no proof it benefits Oregon students.

Please hold those responsible for this deception accountable. Over the past decade, our education system has suffered a significant erosion of trust. A pivotal step towards rebuilding that trust is to pinpoint and address the origins of this fraud, ensuring utmost transparency throughout the process.

On behalf of Dr. Gilley and myself, we thank you for your time and attention to this matter. We would both be happy to meet and discuss this further.

Jeff Myers

Chief Editor, Save Oregon Schools

Dr. Bruce Gilley

President, Oregon Association of Scholars

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In what seemed to be a strategically synchronized move, the three individuals - current and former ODE officials - declared themselves as victims of racial harassment, intimidation, and violence. With no tangible evidence to substantiate these claims, I expected the OGEC commissioners would concentrate on the objective facts and investigator recommendations. Yet, contrary to those reasonable expectations, the OGEC commissioners shockingly participated in the counterstrike against me - the one who dared to blow the whistle.

Background on the three complaints

To provide a bit of context, I’ve provided a few bullet points about each ODE official and the nature of the complaints against them. What I provided to OGEC was obviously much more detailed and included other evidence such as emails, contracts, and other relevant information.

For those interested in more details, I also included a link to the investigators’ final reports for the OGEC commissioners to review and consider. These reports contain the original complaint, relevant evidence, results from the investigation, and their recommendation to either dismiss the complaint or proceed with a formal investigation.

Carmen Urbina: Deputy Director of ODE

• Did not disclose potential conflicts of interest when requesting contracts to hire a former business partner

• Used her public position to benefit her private business (an educational equity consulting and training company)

• Made false statements in a prior ethics complaint

• Final report: Click here to access

Daniel Ramirez: former Interim Executive Director, Educator Advancement Council at ODE

• Used his public position for personal financial gain by directing a $1.1M contract extension to Community Design Partners (CDP), a company he then took a job with

• While simultaneously in his interim Executive Director role at ODE and working for CDP, approved one or more payments to CDP without disclosing the conflict of interest

• Final report: Click here to access

Shadiin Garcia: former Executive Director, Educator Advancement Council at ODE and former Senior Strategy & Operations Officer at ODE

• Used her public position for personal financial gain and failed to disclose potential conflicts of interest by:

  • Amending EAC’s Section 48 plan to use $1.9M to create a Racial Justice Institute

  • Playing a significant role in a $2M contract awarded to Mississippi-based Institute for Democratic Education in America (IDEA) to create and operate the Racial Justice Institute for ODE (click here for an article diving deeper into the Racial Justice Institute’s content)

  • Left ODE and joined IDEA as their lead facilitator for the Racial Justice Institute

• Final report: Click here to access

Keep in mind this “Preliminary Review” is just the first step in OGEC’s process, and investigators must complete it within 60 days. While they may conduct interviews and collect additional evidence, it’s often very limited. Investigators are just trying to determine if the complaint falls within the narrow scope of OGEC’s jurisdiction, and if there’s enough reason to warrant a formal investigation. They then present their findings to the OGEC commissioners, as they are the ones who decide whether to dismiss the complaint or investigate further.

February 3, 2023: OGEC preliminary review meeting

The OGEC meets about every six weeks to address issues and complaints related to lobbying expenditures, public meetings law, and ethics laws. These meetings are open to the public, except when they go into Executive Session. It was in an Executive Session when the OGEC went through the preliminary reviews of my three complaints.

While the Executive Session is held in private, they do allow the respondent (the person named in the complaint) to join when it’s time for their case. Each case begins with the investigator giving a brief overview of their findings and recommendation to formally investigate or not. The respondent is then allowed to provide a brief statement of their own. The commissioners then have the opportunity to ask clarifying questions before voting on the investigator’s recommendations.

You may not have caught this, but there is another person involved in the case who is not allowed to participate: the one who filed the complaint (in this case, me). I believe this is one of several major flaws in their process as it allowed the respondents and the commissioners to make false accusations about me and my motives without giving me any opportunity to defend myself.

As a side note, I was able to listen in to the Executive Session virtually thanks to a loophole that I imagine they will soon address. Oregon public meetings law does allow media representatives to attend Executive Sessions, but there are tight restrictions on what they can report on afterwards. As Save Oregon Schools, LLC is a formal news media organization in Oregon, they had to honor my request to join the Executive Session.

To their credit, the OGEC does post recordings of their meetings, including Executive Sessions, to their website. So this loophole just meant I didn’t have to wait for them to post the recordings online a day or two later.

The attacks and retaliation by the respondents: Carmen Urbina

All three respondents chose to attend their case reviews and provide live testimony in their defense. Urbina made her racial identity a key part of her defense. She tried to paint a picture of her as a champion for all Oregon students and me as a toxic, hateful, and racist individual. This turned out to be a common theme between all three respondents, and I contend they have it backwards.

Below is the final page of a letter Carmen Urbina sent to the OGEC investigator during the preliminary review, and I’ve highlighted two key paragraphs.

I don’t dispute I am against their “goal of equity in education” as they’ve defined it, as it has led to lower student achievement, increased harm in schools, and an incredible amount of fraud and corruption. I also want to point out she provided no evidence of any social media posts or emails to demonstrate there is any “ongoing intimidation”. That’s because she made it all up, and she knows it. She’s just hoping the commissioners will believe her lies (hint: they do).

Urbina also provided a letter from ODE Director Colt Gill. In it he claims Urbina has “come under regular attack” and “is regularly misrepresented and villainized on websites, Twitter, and other social media outlets.” He then appears to claim my complaint is aligned “with a national movement to challenge equity work…” As I pointed out in my previous story, Unmasking Deception #2: Oregon’s Education Director Delivers Fraudulent ‘Equitable Graduation’ Report, Gill is very comfortable spewing lies to get what he wants.

Following Urbina’s approach, Gill provides no real evidence to support these wild claims. With that said, he did provide two tweets of mine, which you can see below.

I acknowledge he may not like these tweets but they are nothing more than somewhat snarky messages aimed at shedding light on them and their actions. But he made some pretty bold accusations, and this is all he provided as evidence? Surely the OGEC commissioners could see through this (hint: they don’t).

As a final note about Urbina’s case, I do want to point out the commission did vote to dismiss the complaint. This makes sense as Urbina’s actions didn’t violate the specific ethics laws that are within the OGEC’s jurisdiction. In short, the laws only apply to the public official, a relative, or a member of their household. The complaint I filed involved Urbina hiring a former business partner, Kim Feicke. Feicke is not related to Urbina and they don’t live together. So while what Urbina did may have violated other laws or codes of conduct, they are outside the scope of the OGEC.

The attacks and retaliation by the respondents: Daniel Ramirez

Daniel Ramirez took advantage of both his live testimony and written response to play the victim while taking jabs at me. You can click here to listen to his case’s recording, and below are some of the more “interesting” parts of the session worth listening to (each bullet shows the range in time for that section in mm:ss format). Of note are the comments by Commissioner Burke (starting at 14:18), who seemed completely convinced by Ramirez’s passionate speech while seemingly forgetting all the evidence against Ramirez along with the investigator’s recommendation to proceed with a formal investigation.

• 03:46-09:04: Daniel Ramirez’s testimony

• 12:21-13:06: Motion by Commissioner Fiskum to investigate – stresses he “may” have violated…

• 13:15-13:57: Commissioner Fiskum makes statements questioning my motives and shares misgivings with continuing to an investigation

• 14:00-14:17: Commissioner Thompson associates himself with Fiskum’s comments (Thompson didn’t state his name during the meeting, but was identified in the meeting minutes)

• 14:18-14:55: Commission Burke suggests OGEC is being used for “personal goals” or “personal axes to grind” and is satisfied with response given by Ramirez and declares he will vote “nay” to investigate

• 19:00-19:20: Chair Hollister states support for staff and then says “…there’s some obvious motivations in this case that I also recognize”

• 19:23-20:40: Commissioner Fiskum makes more comments about feeling like their commission is being used like a tool, and why he needs to state his misgivings

• 20:43-21:04: Commissioner Burke stated support for what Fiskum & Bersin said while adding he “…will reluctantly be voting for the motion”

• Commission voted 6-0 to proceed with investigation

I also obtained a copy of a letter Ramirez sent to the OGEC investigator prior to this meeting, which you can read in its entirety here. Here are some parts of Ramirez’s letter worth noting:

This is a completely baseless inquiry that was started by Jeff Myers who is persecuting educators working on equity and social justice issues - specifically educators of color - and this process is allowing him to further target us. This individual and his supporters are actively seeking to ruin our reputation - they send us threats, they’ve driven some people out of their jobs, and some have even moved out of the state as a result of this hateful campaign.

What evidence did Ramirez provide to support these claims? None.

Ramirez provided no evidence of any threats, no examples of people being driven out of their jobs, or anyone moving out of state due to any actions I have taken. My complaint included a great deal of evidence, enough that the investigator clearly agreed a formal investigation was needed. Daniel Ramirez is the one making the baseless claims here, and one can only assume he’s doing so as he lacks a real defense against the legitimate complaint.

Further down in the letter he goes on to include these remarks:

I was first made aware of Jeff Myers in the spring of 2022 when he began to post allegations on twitter about my former boss Shadiin Garcia and several other prominent leaders of color both in the Beaverton School District and at the Oregon Department of Education. He has subsequently intensified his attacks - focusing specifically on folks of color and those connected to the Educator Advancement Council’s racial equity work as well as others leading equity work at and beyond ODE. He began to include me in his social media attacks during the spring of 2022. What seems to escape Jeff is that his unqualified attacks have led to real life consequences.

As mentioned, folks have received threats on personal and professional lines of communication (including death threats); educators have had to take safety trainings and install security devices because they were part of an EAC professional learning; special safety procedures and accommodations and have had to be instituted in case of retribution from his followers; reputations and jobs have been impacted by his claims; and there has been untold trauma (mental/physical health, family, friends, etc.) that has transpired from his baseless claims.

Whether you agree or not with the decisions, actions, and outcomes of the work by Ramirez and the others, it is never acceptable to threaten harm against them or anyone else for that matter. I have never made any threats nor have I encouraged others to do so. I’m an investigative journalist. I conduct research, collect evidence, and report on issues. I stand behind my work as it is rooted in facts.

While I do find it concerning he and others are experiencing threats of harm, I believe he is exaggerating the claims and fraudulently labeling me as the cause. This appears to be nothing more than a last ditch effort to avoid being held accountable for breaking the law by using his public position for personal gain.

The attacks and retaliation by the respondents: Shadiin Garcia

Garcia was the last of the three to meet with the OGEC that day, and I think she was by far the worst. She very clearly tried to base her entire defense on being the victim in this whole process. Here are some key parts of her session, which you can listen to here:

• 04:56-08:26: Garcia’s live testimony, which includes this horrendous part:

“I would like briefly to name the elephant in the room, for the sake of transparency. This is about an indigenous woman and educator who has endured harassment, stalking, handwritten death threats at my home against me and my children and more. It has been painful and scary for me and my colleagues, and all we want to do is serve our state with integrity. I'm not the only one. I'm not the first one. And I know I won't be the last one. I think you all understand that this really, it's not about a complaint and standing up for Oregon's ethics laws, but it’s about one person’s very public and vocal disagreement with the Oregon legislature’s decision to spend taxpayer funds in this way.”

• 08:27-09:29: Chair Hollister provides a brief statement to show support for Garcia and to express concerns about what she’s gone through

• 10:50-12:02 – Commissioner Fiskum thanked Garcia for her comments, expressed his misgivings like he did with Ramirez, and delivered a motion to investigate while expressing and emphasizing she “may have violated…” the laws referenced in the complaint

• Commission voted 6-0 to proceed with investigation

What I find most troubling about Garcia’s testimony is how she implies I targeted her for being “an indigenous woman and educator”, and that I am possibly tied to the “harassment, stalking, and handwritten death threats” she received at her home.

On that last note, I decided to contact the Gresham Police Department to obtain any records they may have to back up this claim. I know if I were to receive death threats at my home, I would call the police immediately. In the first document, which you can read here, it shows a record of all calls to the police. Note that there were no calls to the police on or after when Garcia moved into the home on June 27, 2021, which is well before I began investigating Garcia and the issues referenced in the ethics complaint.

The only other police record provided to me was this report regarding a neighbor’s home, which includes some statements made by Garcia regarding information she had about the incident. It’s in her statement that she mentions when she moved in.

Like the other two, Garcia wrote a letter to the investigator in response to the complaint. You can click here to view her two page letter. I wanted to call out one specific part here:

I am responding in good faith with documentation and information in order for the Ethics Commission to gain a complete perspective of the level of misinformation, intimidation, and violence that is occurring repeatedly against me and other state employees. These attacks have been especially vitriolic when it comes to women of color who are working towards equity in education.

Garcia plays the race card, like the others, as part of her defense. She also calls out, “violence that is occurring repeatedly against me and other state employees”, but provides no evidence to support this wild accusation. If she and her family have truly experienced violence and harassment, that is terrible! However, for her to claim that I somehow am involved in this or actively doing it myself is not just careless, but defamatory. It’s a lie, plain and simple.

What I found truly hilarious was what Garcia wrote in the very next paragraph:

I have no reason to respond with counter evidence…

What happened to, “responding in good faith with documentation and information”? Garcia clearly believes the victim strategy is the most effective approach, but we’ll see how effective that is once the formal investigation has concluded.

Final thoughts about the OGEC process

After the dust settled, I did reach out to a couple of the OGEC commissioners and the OGEC Director to express concerns I had about the process. Both Commissioner Burke and Chair Hollister refused to speak with me, stating that they couldn’t due to their rules against “ex parte communications”. That just means they can’t talk “off the record” about pending cases. Even after explaining I didn’t want to talk about the cases but the negative statements made about me during the meeting, they still refused to talk.

I did get a phone call from OGEC Director Ron Bersin, but it was clearly not to apologize. He was very rude and dismissive about the concerns I had. I asked why I couldn’t be there to defend myself from the personal attacks by the respondents as well as the commissioners. I don’t recall his exact words, but his response was essentially this, “Once you submit the case, your involvement is done. You have no rights as you’re no longer part of the process.” He failed to see how this will discourage whistleblowers from coming forward, as they can be openly attacked with the recordings made public for all to hear.

I look forward to the OGEC meeting on July 14th, which is when more information about the investigations involving Daniel Ramirez and Shadiin Garcia should become public. You can view the meeting agenda here, which includes the information on how to attend the meeting in-person or virtually.

I’ll leave you with these two questions, and please feel free to comment on this story with your thoughts:

Would you be comfortable filing a complaint with the OGEC knowing now that there are no protections of any kind for you?

What do you feel needs to change?

Another section of the bill, which received far less coverage, has turned out to be much more impactful. The mandate in this section called on the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) to conduct a comprehensive review of Oregon high school diploma options and graduation requirements and produce a recommendation for changes by September 1st 2022. These recommendations, submitted to the legislature by ODE Director Colt Gill, are tainted by lies, misinformation, and activism masquerading as evidence.

While it was announced in January that Colt Gill will be retiring at the end of this year’s legislative session, his report & recommendations will have impacts for years to come unless challenged for the fraud they are. Through this and other stories in this Unmasking Deception series, I will provide the evidence of how Director Gill and other leaders in Oregon public education have not just damaged our education system, but have harmed students, families, staff, and communities in the process. Transparency is the precursor to accountability.

Background on SB 744 and the Essential Skills requirement

There are nine essential skills that students should develop throughout grades K-12, but according to the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) website, only these three skill proficiencies are required for graduation:

1. Read and comprehend a variety of text

2. Write clearly and accurately

3. Apply mathematics in a variety of settings

These requirements to receive a high school diploma had already been paused for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years as part of Governor Brown’s COVID-19 pandemic response. However, SB 744 received far more attention as it was no longer about the pandemic, it was about “equity, accessibility and inclusivity”, per an op-ed written by Senator Michael Dembrow (D) and Representative Teresa Alonso Leon (D).

There was another section in the bill that did not receive much attention, but it is being used to transform Oregon diplomas and their requirements in a far more significant way than those skill proficiencies. Here is the portion of Section 1 that shows what ODE was instructed to do:

Section 1. (2) The Department of Education shall:

(a) Review state requirements for high school diploma options offered in this state, as those requirements are prescribed by ORS 329.451 and by rules adopted by the State Board of Education.

(b) Review state requirements related to demonstrations of proficiency in skills or academic content areas that are not related to career and technical education, with an emphasis on demonstrations of proficiency in Essential Learning Skills.

(c) Make recommendations for state requirements for high school diplomas in this state to reduce disparities and to ensure that every student will be on track to earn one of the high school diplomas.

The way that last item is worded is very troubling. This law directs ODE to ensure every student will be on track. It effectively gives ODE direction to “game the system” to ensure every student receives a diploma, otherwise they would be in violation of the law. This is the fundamental problem with equity (equal outcomes) vs equality (equal opportunities).

Here’s another example of a problem with the way the law was written:

Section 1. (3)(f) The identification of the causes of disparities that have resulted from the requirements for high school diplomas in this state.

This wording assumes the diploma requirements led to the disparities (i.e. a higher percentage of White students earn diplomas than Black students). This wording is a key issue. Again, it’s stating the disparities in students of different race and other groups receiving diplomas comes from, at least in part, the diploma requirements themselves. Just changing that 4th word from “the” to “any” would be far more appropriate, leaving the door open to unbiased analysis. Go back and re-read (3)(f) with that one change. Did you notice the difference?

Now here is another part of the law that I believe is worded properly, giving reviewers the room to collect evidence, apply critical thinking, and perform a true root cause analysis to determine if this is indeed an issue or not:

Section 1. (3)(g) The determination of whether the requirements for high school diplomas in this state have been applied inequitably to different student populations.

I can’t help but think of a phrase that originated in the computer science world but definitely applies here: garbage in, garbage out. That will make more sense as we continue exploring the work.

ODE begins the work mandated by SB 744

Colt Gill and his team spun into action shortly after SB 744 was signed into law. By the end of August 2021, ODE’s Office of Teaching, Learning & Assessment had put together this Work Plan, which lays out:

• The project’s scope

• Implementation teams

• Liaisons within and outside of ODE

• Monthly work schedule and more

This document is significant as it shows Gill’s radical interpretation of SB 744 and the biased direction he wanted for the project. You can see this in the “Equity Levers” laid out for the implementation teams in their work plan:

Let’s focus on that first section for the project’s core team. The four bullets in “Equity Levers” came from “How to Be an Antiracist Educator” by Dena Simmons, a self-described activist, educator, and student of life. In that article, Simmons lays out her “…five actions for teaching for an antiracist future.” Those same bullets were in Simmons’ first action titled “Engage in Vigilant Self-Awareness” as you can see below:

I realize this is a lot to take in, but I believe this is important context to have before we dive into Gill’s final report & recommendations. These equity levers taint the entire process by substituting Critical Theory principles for genuine critical thinking. The two are NOT synonymous!

Identity, power and privilege, single narratives, and upholding whiteness… This approach alone should be a civil rights violation for discriminating on the basis of race, as it led to the production of a biased, radicalized set of recommendations.

Gill’s Senate Bill 744 Report - September 1, 2022

On the deadline specified in SB 744, Gill & team delivered their final report to the legislature (Community-Informed Recommendations for Equitable Graduation Outcomes). This lengthy report includes all the components requested by SB 744, including:

1. Review of current diplomas, requirements, and comparison with other states

2. Summary of engagement with teachers, communities, and more

3. Graduation & assessment data review and analysis

4. Recommendations for changes to requirements and laws

This 183 page report is extensive, but don’t let the size fool you. This report is loaded with lies. The lies aren’t always obvious as they involve omission, falsification, misinterpretation, exaggeration, and more. Identifying these lies involves a lot of time and research, some of which I have done and will share in the rest of this article. Given the significance of what I will share, I hope this will lead to a more thorough investigation of this report, Director Gill and his core team, how this went unnoticed until now, and the identification of other reports & recommendations to explore.

Lie #1: Systemic and teacher biases are significant causes of disparities

From the very beginning of this report, bias is raised as a key source for the disparities in graduation rates. This excerpt is from the executive summary on page 5.

Although graduation rate trends are moving in a positive direction, substantial inequities remain, such as experiences of systemic bias, limited access to adequate educational resources and educational guidance, and support from practitioners, such as school counselors and teachers. This is especially the case for students who identify as tribal citizens, Black/African American, Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaska Native, Latino/a/x, people who have disabilities and/or are served through an Individualized Education Program (IEP), people who are identified as English learners/Emerging bilinguals while in high school, and/or people navigating poverty, houselessness, foster care and high mobility.

The second page of the executive summary then refers to bias again when mentioning the essential skills assessment:

The Assessment of Essential Skills graduation requirements were popular at the time that Oregon adopted them. Since then, most states have moved away from these types of redundant, and sometimes biased, requirements.

Then further on in the section analyzing graduation data, there is a mention of teacher bias influencing work sample scoring on page 66. For context, this is regarding using work samples as an alternative method of demonstrating proficiency. In other words, a student could submit a work sample instead of taking a state assessment to meet graduation requirements:

Because ODE does not have capacity to implement a monitoring system to help ensure that those work samples are being scored reliably, they may be a source of educator biases.

You have to keep in mind this report isn’t supposed to be an opinion piece. There is an expectation of intellectual honesty that the legislature should not have to specifically call out. There were over 100 citations in this report to identify sources of other information, yet no evidence or citation was provided to support these significant claims of bias.

The only attempt to provide evidence of bias that I could locate in this report was from this quote provided by an anonymous Oregon superintendent:

Sorry Director Gill, but that’s not going to cut it. This is what’s referred to as an “opinion”.

Lie #2: Cultural identity, belonging, and ethnic studies

In the recommendations that start on page 108, the report includes several bullets that seem fairly reasonable, such as:

Design and deliver education that supports students on their journey to earning an Oregon Diploma and successfully transitioning to their next steps after graduation.

Things immediately go off the rails though, starting at the top of page 109:

In addition to technical solutions, such as ensuring flexible access to courses, adaptive changes are needed within our K–12 education systems in order to transform them to better reflect the values and priorities of the communities they serve and the needs of our changing world. Improving high school graduation outcomes for students first involves ensuring that all students in Oregon feel a strong sense of belonging with their school, among their peers, from their educators, and in their communities.

The “sense of belonging” has become a more common phrase in Oregon public schools over the past 1-2 years, and so it is not a shock to see it show up in this report. What parent wouldn’t want their child to feel like they belong in school? But when we say “belonging”, are we talking about the same thing? And what evidence did Gill and his team provide to support this?

Back on page 84 in the report, you will find mention of belonging as part of the “Causes of Disparities” section. Unfortunately, the established pattern of lying is evident here as well.

Cultural identity and feeling of belonging is another factor that can impact graduation rates. Student’s sense of belonging at school can have a large impact on achievement. A recent meta-study examined 82 separate studies of student belonging, and described a sense of belonging as a prerequisite to a successful high school experience.

Notice that the report connects cultural identity to the feeling of belonging here. If they were to be read as two separate things then the sentence would have read, “Cultural identity and feeling of belonging are other factors…” See the difference there? Why does this small detail matter?

First off, Gill & team added the part about cultural identity. This was not part of the meta-analysis they cited as evidence (Korpershoek, et al., “Relationships between school belonging,” 641-680). Korpershoek’s article did not state a “sense of belonging as a prerequisite to a successful high school experience.” Here are actual statements from the article that are actually aligned with the research and analysis:

The meta-analytic results show that students who ‘feel personally accepted, respected, included, and supported by others in the school social environment’ (Goodenow 1993, 80) are likely to perform better in school (e.g. academic achievement) and show more favourable motivational (e.g. mastery goal orientations), social-emotional (e.g. self-concept and self-efficacy), and behavioural outcomes (e.g. behavioural, cognitive, and agentic engagement).

This is how the author defined belonging, which is not the same as how ODE’s report did. That point alone is incredibly problematic and deceptive.

Our results further revealed a small positive association between school belonging and achievement (for school grades; and to a lesser extent for standardised test scores)

This was another interesting point in the article. The author acknowledges that, while there appeared to be a positive link between belonging and student achievement, it was relatively small.

I also wanted to include some additional quotes from the “Limitations and directions for future research” section of the article:

Our study underlines the relevance of adolescents’ sense of school belonging throughout secondary education. Readers should, nevertheless, bear in mind that our findings are based on a relatively small number of primary studies for some of the specific student outcomes…

The primary studies used various instruments to measure school belonging. Although results from highly unreliable instruments were excluded, the construct validity of the various instruments was often unclear.

Finally, the selected studies used cross-sectional designs; therefore, conclusions about causality cannot be drawn. [ . . . ] Hence, it is important to further investigate cause and effect in more detail, using longitudinal designs and well-targeted intervention studies.

The key takeaway from these three quotes is this: this was a study of studies (aka meta-analysis), and so while the author has provided their interpretations of the data, they believe further, targeted studies should be done to validate and extend the work. In other words, ODE claiming this meta-analysis as evidence for their radical approach is premature.

If I were to make an attempt at explaining why identity or cultural identity are included here, I believe it is tied to the emergence of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (aka Culturally Responsive Teaching). Cultural identity is essential to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, which is an educational approach that integrates students’ cultural backgrounds and identities into the learning process.

While not cited in their report, educational theorist Gloria Ladson-Billings first coined the term ‘Culturally Relevant Pedagogy’. Her September 1995 article “Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy” is regularly cited, even to this day, as the source of truth for this approach. You might also be familiar with an article she published the following month titled “Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education”. This could be the subject of a whole article by itself.

The point of making this connection is simply to share that this is another lie in the report, specifically one that involves omission, falsification, and misinterpretation. The authors of this report clearly have biases of their own in how they want Oregon’s educational system to operate, and they continually let those biases get in the way of doing genuine research and analysis.

Lie #3: Racism is fundamental to racial disparities in educational attainment

The third paragraph on page 86 of the report includes multiple citations that ODE misinterprets to deceive the legislature and anyone else leveraging this work. The paragraph starts with this sentence:

Research shows that racism is “fundamental to racial disparities in educational attainment.”

This quote is very misleading, and it should be criminal. This came from “Completing the Educational Career”, by David M. Merolla. The report does include this link to the article, but that link only provides access to a short abstract. You can view the full article using this link. This screenshot below provides more content and context around the partial quote that ODE provided in their report. The key thing to note is the difference in how the author is identifying “racism” and how ODE would have you interpret that term:

The author’s research wasn’t indicating any sort of present-day racism. In the very next sentence of his conclusion he even pointed out how race was becoming less significant over time:

Some scholars have argued that the importance of socioeconomic disparities for explaining racial disparities in educational outcomes indicates that racial disparities in educational attainment have been eclipsed by class-based disparities in the twenty-first century, and the significance of race for educational disparities is declining (Gamoran 2001).

I believe ODE purposefully used this quote out of context to further a particular narrative they wanted to tell. It is further evidence of how the authors’ own biases and goals have tainted and perverted this entire report.

Conclusion

If I would have documented all the issues with this report, this article could have easily been longer than ODE’s original report. With that said, I believe the legislature is responsible for holding Director Colt Gill and his team accountable for lying to them and all Oregonians. On top of this, I believe a thorough investigation should be done to identify any other reports & recommendations ODE has delivered during Gill’s tenure and analyze them for similar issues.

This report and others like it will be leveraged for years to come to transform Oregon public education. Reports like this that are built on lies should be retracted so they aren’t used to further destroy our education system

The Beaverton School District (BSD), like the other 13,800 public school districts around the country, continues to see differences in the rates of suspensions and expulsions when viewed by race/ethnicity, sex, and other groups. There are some consistent themes we’ve seen across the nation and over time. For example, male students get suspended and expelled at 2x-3x the rate of female students. This has been going on for decades, but is it just a “boy thing” or are they just innocent victims of biased and sexist teachers and principals?

Superintendent Dr. Gustavo Balderas, Deputy Superintendent Dr. Heather Cordie, and other BSD leaders say it’s the latter. Yes, you read that right. They believe the root cause of the disciplinary differences are biased teachers, principals, and other school staff. This and other ridiculous, unsupported claims were made during their School Board Work Session on March 20, 2023.

You can see this for yourself as BSD publishes recordings of their school board meetings on YouTube. Starting at the 2:45:45 point in the video, Superintendent Balderas states:

“Middle school boys get disciplined at twice the rate of middle school girls. That's a national stat. It hasn't changed for 30 years probably. [ . . . ] So why is that? That's the bias.”

Background for the work session on student discipline

Oregon public K-12 students were in distance learning for nearly two years due to the pandemic. Most returned to full-time, in-person school in the 2021-22 school year, and the transition back was challenging for a number of reasons. Student behavior quickly became a huge issue for many schools, forcing some to temporarily shift to distance learning due to overwhelming fights and disruptions.

This video is just one example of the fights happening across the district in the 2021-22 school year. I blurred the video to protect student identities, but I will say that while the fight was traumatic to watch, what really bothered me the most were the reactions of the other students. By reviewing the video frame by frame, you can see how most kids really didn’t react much to this fight. Violence has been normalized for them as this was a nearly every day experience.

The March 2023 work session between BSD leaders and school board directors was to review how the first half of the 2022-23 school year had gone, what changed from the previous year, and what will leaders continue to pursue to ensure we have safe and productive schools.

Deputy Superintendent Cordie began the session on student behavior by re-stating their primary method of evaluating situations & decisions (at 57:35 point in the video):

One of the things that we always want to start our conversations with, is a reminder about our Equity Lens....

They didn’t really blame teachers and principals, did they?

In a word, yes. Feel free to watch the 3 hour work session for yourself and fact check me. To further shed light on this, at the 2:48:04 mark in the video, school board director Sunita Garg references the disparities in disciplinary rates before asking this question: “How much implicit bias training do teachers get? Like is there a requirement or what happens there? This is the response from Dr. Cordie:

So umm I can't speak as much to what that professional development has looked like umm up until now, though I know, I do know that it has been rigorous. But as our Office of Equity and Inclusion has been working diligently umm to learn and understand the modules that have been recently created by ODE (Oregon Department of Education) Those will be the, there are multiple modules with several umm modules and clusters within them and this is one of the primary areas of focus and in that professional development and we know from hearing from Dr. Balderas and knowing the importance of that professional development that that is going to be the #1 umm professional development series that we ensure is offered to all.. that is required for all staff in the coming years. In rolling that out, and that is a key part of those series.

Here are the key points I gathered from this exchange:

• District leaders and board members agree that teacher and other staff biases are the cause of disparities in student discipline

• Dr. Cordie doesn’t know what implicit bias training they’ve done in the past, but she knows it was “rigorous”

• Even though no evidence or root cause analysis for the disparities was presented or discussed and staff have already had “rigorous” implicit bias training before, the #1 professional development subject for years to come will be implicit bias

For those interested, here is a link to the ODE materials (Engaging Equity: Equitable Mindsets, Practices, and Systems) that Dr. Cordie referenced above. They are available to the public for everyone to review.

Deception with data

Later during their review of the data between the first semester of last year and this year, Dr. Jon Bridges, Administrator for Accountability, explained how discipline rates had changed for different student racial groups. Starting at the 2:11:20 point in the video, Dr. Bridges lies through distortion, meaning he is providing misleading information to hide the truth.

So the good news there is that, our black students in the first semester of 21-22 were 4.5 times more likely to be excluded from class whether that’s an in school suspension, out of school suspension, or expulsion. 4.5 times more likely than white students. We've reduced that disproportionality to 2.9 the first semester of this year. It's a huge improvement.

I do want to call out how to understand what Dr. Bridges meant when he said Black students were disciplined at 4.5 times the rate of White students in 2021-22. It’s just a simple comparison of the percentages in the chart above.

• 1.8% of White students were disciplined, or put another way, roughly 18 out of every 1000 White students would have received one or more suspensions or expulsions in the first semester.

• 7.9% of Black students were disciplined in the same time period, or roughly at a rate of 79 for every 1000 Black students, and 79 is roughly 4.5 times higher than 18.

Just one example of distorting the truth to deceive the community

I say Dr. Bridges lied through distortion because he narrowed the data to only compare last year to this year. As last year was the year right after returning from the pandemic lockdown, it made it appear the district had made significant improvements. However, nothing is further from the truth.

Here’s a chart using BSD’s disciplinary data, provided through public records requests, showing what they call the “discipline risk ratios” for 2012-13 through 2021-22 (except the two years with incomplete data due to the pandemic, 2019-20 and 2020-21). This chart just shows you the difference in discipline rates like what I mentioned earlier. So for example, in the full 2021-22 school year, Black students (top, yellow line) were disciplined at a rate of 2.7 times higher than White students.

I also want to highlight what I believe is strange and also misleading about how they view and use this data. If you notice on the chart, White students are always 1.0. That’s because they are the baseline that every other group is compared against. So if 3.7% of White students were suspended in 2021-22, and the Black student “discipline risk ratio” is 2.7, that means 10% of Black students received one or more suspensions or expulsions that year (3.7% x 2.7 = ~10%). Those are the actual figures by the way.

For those who aren’t quite as passionate about data as I am, your head may already be spinning. The key takeaway is this. BSD made a radical shift in their approach to discipline, starting in the 2013-14 school year, when they implemented Restorative Practices (aka Restorative Justice), as a substitute for traditional discipline. This was and still is a poorly researched, unproven method of dealing with student behavior in schools. However, BSD leaders continue to ignore the truth and push this failed approach to discipline while putting students and staff at risk.

For more information about what led to BSD implementing Restorative Justice and how it progressed over the past decade, please see this video below. It’s a recording of a livestream conversation I had with Scarlen Valderaz at Parents Defending Education. It is now one of several resources they’ve made available to inform parents about discipline in schools.

Another sneaky lie, this time by fabrication

During the meeting and in their data report provided to the board, the district leaders repeatedly referred to a specific target for these discipline risk ratios. For example, their report stated:

A goal for reducing disproportionality would be to have odds ratios for all student racial/ethnic groups to be 1.3 or less.

If you view the video starting at the 2:12:17 mark, Dr. Bridges tried to recall where this citation came from. He thought it was either from the Office of Civil Rights or some research literature on the matter. Unfortunately, no one during the meeting provided the citation nor was it in the report the submitted to the board.

I have been following BSD’s disciplinary approach and data for a couple of years now, and I’ve had multiple conversations with various administrators about this. Up until this meeting, I hadn’t heard them mention this 1.3 or lower target before. So I reached out to Dr. Cordie and Dr. Bridges to get for this citation, and here is the response I got from Dr. Cordie:

In reference to your question about the data linked to reducing disparities, this is based on the EEOC 80% rule. Here’s a link to the article:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/828307#:~:text=Under%20the%20so%2Dcalled%2080,rate%20for%20the%20favored%20group.

Citation: Meier, P., Sacks, J., & Zabell, S. L. (1984). What Happened in Hazelwood: Statistics, Employment Discrimination, and the 80% Rule. American Bar Foundation Research Journal, 9(1), 139–186. http://www.jstor.org/stable/828307

When below 80% is defined as underrepresentation in a positive outcome like employment, then 1/80% = 125% is defined as overrepresentation for a negative outcome like discipline. 125% = 1.25 which rounds to 1.3.

Wikipedia article on disparate impact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact

So let me explain why this response is truly absurd. There was no guidance from the Office of Civil Rights or research literature on disproportionate disciplinary rates. Their source for the “1.3 or lower” target is a 39 year old American Bar Foundational Research Journal article where the authors are making an argument for using the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s 80% rule to identify potential issues of employment discrimination. Dr. Cordie also provided a Wikipedia article on Disparate Impact, which also made no mention of student discipline or any citation related to it.

I can’t stress enough how reckless and bizarre their target of “1.3 or lower” is. This in essence establishes quotas for disciplinary rates. Or better put, it could establish limits, or be a precursor to eliminating disciplinary consequences altogether. As Superintendent Balderas said, the rates of discipline they are seeing are closely matched by what we see around Oregon and the rest of the United States. Here’s a comparison of disciplinary rates between BSD, all of Oregon, and all of the US.

The key takeaway here is the data confirms what Superintendent Balderas said. There are differences in disciplinary rates all across the country when you compare them by race/ethnicity. However, there has been no evidence provided by BSD leaders to support their offensive and ridiculous claims that the disparities are the result of biased, racist, and sexist teachers and other staff.

If district leaders are so comfortable lying about something as important as this, you have to ask yourself, “Why are they doing this? Who is giving this direction to them? What else are they lying about?” Future stories will hopefully help address some of these questions and more.

A few final “nuggets” from this work session

Sprinkled throughout this session were some other interesting “nuggets” that I thought I’d share. I believe these show how out of touch these leaders are and the crazy stories they tell to cover for the terrible mistakes they’ve made in their approach to discipline over the past decade.

• Dr. Bridges said the total number of class days missed due to discipline began to climb in a few years after their change in disciplinary approach, and even acknowledged it was prior to the pandemic. However, rather than stating the truth that it was because Restorative Practices/Justice was ineffective at curbing bad student behavior, he said it was due to schools dealing with increased vaping and marijuana use. Dr. Bridges provided no data to support that claim.

• There were multiple references to how students can’t learn if they’re not in school. This is often stated as their rationale for moving away from traditional discipline and toward the unproven, ineffective Restorative Practices approach. The truth is rather than one student being removed for poor, disruptive behavior, they are left in the classroom for the teacher to deal with. So you have many cases where entire classrooms are cleared due to dis-regulated students and no one is learning.

• One specific issue that wasn’t mentioned at all, but I’ve heard from MANY teachers about, is that of “copycats”. This relates back to the previous bullet, where teachers no longer can send disruptive students to the principal for more than a few minutes. Some teachers even half-jokingly shared that these disruptive kids often come back with a sticker and a lollypop, which were meant to calm them down but only end up rewarding the bad behavior. So it’s no surprise why we see students copying this bad behavior.

• When reviewing the data, an example was provided that 3 elementary students accounted for over 100 incidents in the first semester. Some involved disciplinary actions, but not all. There was absolutely no mention of the impact these incidents had on the other students or their teachers. Clearly those 3 students are not getting the support they need, but what about the trauma and lost learning of all their classmates?

These are just some of the many examples of why using an “Equity Lens” leads to worse outcomes for everyone. More stories to follow!

Information and story tips can be sent to jeff@saveoregonschools.org.

Rather than acknowledging their mistakes and makings things right, district and school board leaders have repeatedly tried to delay the process and distract from the core issues. To their credit, the district did hire an outside consultant, George Finch of Finch Consulting LLC, to conduct an investigation. As I’ll explain later, Finch’s final report contained critical flaws that he and the district chose not to address.

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Recap: voting to adopt a non-existent curriculum

Let’s step back for a moment to identify the primary issue here. One of a school board’s key responsibilities is to adopt curriculum to be used throughout the district. The board is the last step in an often lengthy process run by district staff, who work with many parties to develop a recommendation for the school board to approve. As the governing body of the district, the school board’s job is to ensure the district followed the right policies, rules, and laws and to be the gatekeeper before the materials get into the classrooms.

School districts have three options when adopting new core curriculum:

1. Select from the Oregon State Board of Education’s approved list

2. Select a curriculum from a company/organization that is not on the approved list *

3. Create their own curriculum *

* If a district chooses to go with options #2 or #3, they must still meet specific criteria established by the Oregon State Board of Education. The curriculum must also meet state standards for the subject area as well as federal requirements for accessibility (i.e. materials are available in formats for students of differing abilities).

As I detailed in my original story about this illegal curriculum adoption, the Beaverton School District decided to go with option #3 - creating their own Social Science curriculum for grades K-5. However, when they approached the school board in May 2022 to provide their recommendations for approval, the district hadn’t yet begun writing the curriculum. Rather than pointing out this huge concern, the school board voted unanimously to adopt the non-existent curriculum in the following meeting in June 2022.

Note: Discussion starts at 1:02:42 timestamp and ends around 1:07:00 with a unanimous vote to approve the adoption of a non-existent curriculum.

Now three months later, where do things stand?

I received a formal response to my complaint to Beaverton’s board chair Tom Colett on March 20th. He provided a summary of Finch’s (the investigator) findings as well as a copy of the complete report, which you can access here. Somehow the investigator agreed with the district’s stance that adopting a curriculum didn’t require that the curriculum exist yet. I hope that is as confusing to you as it is to me.

For comparison, you can click here to access information on the packaged curriculum from inquirED that the Beaverton School District staff had has their other finalist, but chose not to recommend. More information about inquirED’s curriculum was readily available as well, including their Scope & Sequence (grade level plans by unit) and access to view lessons and other material here (requires free registration to access).

What the Beaverton School District did was like a legislature voting to pass a bill that hadn’t been written yet, with the assumption that some lobbyists would take care of that some time down the road and we should just trust them. Sounds reasonable, right?

Now I understand you may be skeptical. How could I be sure I am correct when an outside consultant had found otherwise? There are two very good reasons I’ll share with you.

The first has to do with a second complaint I filed that isn’t under the district’s control. I filed a complaint with the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) after board chair Colett had arbitrarily decided to extend the timeline of my district complaint (note: this was a violation of district policy for him to do so). The investigator from ODE has already acknowledged the district did violate the curriculum adoption rules, but it would likely be months before he could issue a final order given the high number of cases he has on his plate.

The second reason is the investigator made a serious error in one foundational part of his report that ultimately made his findings completely incorrect. Finch asserted that the use of the word “may” in one part of a related adminstrative rule (OAR 581-011-0050) meant a curriculum may or may not have any actual components of a curriculum. Yes, you read that right.

This makes little sense, especially in Beaverton’s situation where none of the curriculum had been written yet. How can the district confirm their new curriculum meets the State Board of Education’s criteria if it doesn’t yet exist? Finch also seemed to ignore the clear interpretation of the rules I had received from Aujalee Moore at the Oregon Department of Education, who oversees the curriculum adoption process. I had shared this him and and discussed it when we spoke prior to his report being writen. You can read the entire email exchange with Aujalee Moore here.

As you can see in this lengthy email exchange, I did point out the mistakes to both Colett and Finch. I also reached out to Finch multiple times prior to publishing this story, but he did not respond.

There are nearly 700 teachers in grades K-5 at the Beaverton School District, and they have all been instructed to use this new, illegally adopted curriculum with the roughly 16,500 students in their classrooms. As I pointed out in a separate story, An Experiment on Kindergarten Students Goes Radically Wrong, the content of this curriculum is also of great concern. Perhaps this is why the district wanted the school board to approve the curriculum before it was written. Doing so allowed the district to bypass the most critical step in the process - giving parents and the community access to review it first.

A follow-up story will be published once I receive a final response from the Oregon Department of Education on the complaint filed with them.

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These innocent, 5 year old children are going to be the first to experience a new Social Science curriculum, hand-crafted by a consultant whose work centers equity, anti-oppressive education, social justice pedagogy, and activism. Kindergarten teachers were given little training and preparation to deliver these new lessons on not-so-typical Social Science topics like:

• Gender identity & pronouns

• Equity & equality

• Ableism & disability justice

• The six senses

• Consent

Kindergarten kicks off the year with the 1st new Social Science Unit

In the past, Social Science lessons generally came later in the school year. They also tend to be limited as the focus is primarily on reading, writing, and math. This school year was different.

Along with grades 1 through 5, kindergarten teachers were expected to teach the first Social Science unit at the start of the school year. A district administrator said the reason was to help establish the classroom community. This graphic below provides a brief overview of the unit and the state standards it was designed to meet. You can view the entire set of Kindergarten Social Science Unit 1 slides here.

The first kindergarten lesson in the unit, “Who is in our class?”, centered on physical characteristics, name pronunciation, diversity & inclusion, and pronouns. A former kindergarten teacher who reviewed this content said they were surprised at how many activities were dedicated to pronouncing names. They also pointed out how inappropriate the content was for the young age and development of kindergarten students.

After a brief lesson on “needs”, the content takes another radical turn as it moves into the first lesson on “What special needs do each of us have?” This is when the concepts of equity vs equality are introduced.

Here are two of the lesson’s slides describing the two terms along with some kid-friendly examples. The first slide covers equality.

The next slide uses similar examples to explain what equity is. They build on a previous lesson covering “needs” to make their point that equity is better than equality.

Are you confused now? If so, you’re not the only one. A quick search on the web can make this even more confusing. Their definitions and examples are purposefully used to make students think equality is bad and equity is good.

The reason this is so confusing is because the actual definitions of equality and equity are similar. Context is what really matters. For example, in the context of education the definitions are often expressed as:

• Equality = equal opportunities (every student has the opportunity be successful)

• Equity = equal outcomes (every student achieves the same level of success)

Going back to the equality and equity slides, the description and examples just don’t make sense. How could an expert in the space of elementary education & equity get this simple, kindergarten lesson so mixed up? Was it intentional? It’s an unfortunate example of schools trying to teach kids what to think rather than how to think.

My wife, a K-1 public school teacher for nearly 20 years, gave an excellent description of how they should correctly portray equality and equity.

“Using her first example, equality would be when all students have access to a Band-aid if they need one. Equity would be when one student has a boo-boo, you give every other student a boo-boo too.”

Is this Social Science or Sex Ed?

This kindergarten unit doesn’t just stretch the definition of Social Science, it clearly makes the leap into other subjects like Sex Ed. For example, there are lessons on gender identity, pronouns, and consent. None of these topics are in the Social Science standards.

After reviewing the Current Oregon Health Education Standards, I was able to find references to gender identity and consent. While gender identity is included in the kindergarten standards, consent is intended for 1st graders.

[Kindergarten] HE.4.K.5 Discuss ways to communicate respectfully with and about people of all gender identities, gender expressions and sexual orientations.

[1st Grade] HE.1.1.15 Describe consent as it relates to personal boundaries.

By putting Health/Sex Ed lessons and activities into this Social Science unit, they likely violated their own district policy IGAI which requires them to notify parents and guardians ahead of teaching Health Education lessons. This potential violation is significant because that policy requires schools to inform parents and guardians of their rights to review the curriculum as well as opting their children out of some or all of the lessons. The district did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

These are just some of the issues with the first Social Science unit for kindergarten. This also raises more red flags about why the district and school board violated Oregon laws & rules to rush this curriculum into classrooms. In conversations with multiple parents and teachers within the district, some common questions emerged.

• Why did the school board vote to approve the curriculum if they knew it wasn’t created yet?

• Was this an honest mistake or were district leaders trying to hide this new curriculum from parents?

• How can we hold the district accountable to the laws?

This is why it’s important for parents and guardians to build good relationships with their children’s teachers, as they’re closest to what their children are exposed to. It’s also important for them to know their rights as well as district policies on curriculum adoptions and other important topics. They should also understand the Federal Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA), which allows them to inspect all instructional materials used with their children. It’s a lot of work, but the kids are worth it!

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The school board has made several changes to the rules regarding public comments since the beginning of the pandemic in their attempts to muzzle parents. Even with their limit of 2 minutes per person, several of us were able to speak and address how harmful their radical approaches are.

During my 2 minutes, I started off by calling out the violations of Oregon law and Oregon Administrative Rule that the district & school board committed last year when they adopted their new Social Sciences curriculum for grades K-5. The curriculum didn’t exist yet, but the district had a plan to use an outside consultant to build it. The board had no authority within the law to vote to adopt a curriculum that didn’t exist, let alone one that hadn’t been reviewed by parents & citizens.

I then spoke about the Beaverton School District’s quest to be #1. Unfortunately, this isn’t about being #1 in student achievement, staff job satisfaction, fiscal responsibility, or parent & community engagement. No, this is about their quest to be the first to go all-in on risky, unproven approaches to critical areas like curriculum and student discipline (or lack thereof).

I also let them know I would be sending them an email that evening, and that I would be copying the Oregon Department of Education, State Board of Education, legislative committees on education, and others. I also stated I would post that email here, which is what you can find below.

If you want to view some of the Social Sciences curriculum for yourself, I have posted what I have online here. I am in the process to get all of the curriculum so I can share it for all to see. I also posted a copy of the public comments I delivered here.

Buckle up, it’s going to be a bumpy ride!

[Email sent on Tuesday, January 17 2023 at 11:40pm Pacific Time (PDF available here)]

Good evening to you all,

I am a resident of Beaverton, OR and a parent of two children in the Beaverton School District. For the past two years I have been investing a great deal of my “spare time” to better understand our education system, how our schools operate, education funding, relevant laws and policies, and of course the people! I understand and appreciate the diverse viewpoints you all and those in our community represent, and I believe we are at our best when we work together in a fair and just way. I’ll warn you in advance this is a lengthy message, but I hope once you’ve read it you will understand why I provided all this detail.

The Beaverton School District was once a great district with an equally great reputation. I went to the same schools my kids go to now, so I have many years of experience there as a student and now as a parent.

Unfortunately, I am coming to you all for help with a particularly challenging matter. This district has been steadily declining for years, and I’m not just referring to academics. I spoke about this earlier tonight during the 2 minutes they allow for public comments. I attached my comments here so you can see them. You can also watch the recording here. Other parents came and spoke bravely about this topic as well. Erin Herrick and Albert Faizriev.

The Primary Issue: Violation of law/rule on Independent Curriculum Adoption

The specific issue I wish to raise with all of you is this: the Beaverton School District (BSD) violated Oregon law (ORS 337.120) and Oregon Administrative Rule (581-022-2350) when the school board voted to adopt the recommendations put forward by BSD leaders for their Elementary Social Science curriculum (grades K-5).

This is not an accusation I make lightly. I took the time to meet with district staff, including Heather Cordie (Deputy Superintendent – Teaching & Learning) and Kayla Bell (Administrator for Elementary Curriculum). I also reached out to Aujalee Moore at the Oregon Department of Education to be sure I properly understood the details of the rules governing the independent curriculum adoption that BSD should have followed. Here’s what BSD did.

BSD had begun their work on this new curriculum back in 2020, but when they presented their very lengthy report to the school board on May 23, 2022 it was lacking most of the components of a curriculum for grades K-5. BSD had taken the optional 2021 Social Science standards and created student-friendly learning targets for them. They also created draft book lists by grade level. That’s it. That’s all they had done when they presented their final report & recommendations to the school board. And on the June 21, 2022 meeting the school board voted unanimously to approve & adopt the “curriculum” that didn’t really exist.

You can see their full report here (see pages marked 43 – 49 for the Elementary details): BSD Social Sciences Phase Two Report

One thing I didn’t mention yet was that in BSD’s report was some mention of the additional work they intended to do with the help of their outside consultant, Dr. Katy Swalwell, author of Social Studies for a Better World: An Anti-Oppressive Approach for Elementary Educators (https://www.ssfabw.com/). Dr. Swalwell would conduct the professional development with the elementary teachers and also develop the units using the materials selected by BSD. However, the board cannot approve and adopt a curriculum that doesn’t exist yet.

The school board received no units, lessons, activities, assessments, scope & sequence, student-facing material, or teacher guides… they had nothing but learning targets and *draft* book lists. Worse yet, parents and citizens (as called out in law/rule) were not given the opportunity to review the curriculum either. BSD may try to argue that they had parents and community members as part of their project team and that they did get the chance in early May to vote whether to finalize their work and put it to the board for approval. Again though, what exactly were those parents and community members basing their votes on? What was anyone basing their votes on when it came to the elementary curriculum that didn’t yet exist?

According to the Oregon law & rule mentioned earlier, BSD should have created the curriculum first, then solicited parents & citizens for feedback, and then taken the final step to request board approval. The district completely failed to follow the laws & rules governing this process as did the school board.

The Next Issue: Unit/lesson content

Up until this point I haven’t addressed the content of the units that BSD has already rolled out to all K-5 classrooms. To my knowledge they have developed two of the three intended units so far. The first was rolled out at the start of the year and the 2nd I believe is intended to roll out soon if not already. I am still trying to collect and review all of the K-5 units, but what I’ve seen so far is pretty bad. For example, the first unit for Kindergarten is not at all developmentally appropriate for that age/grade. That’s not just coming from me, but from teachers inside and outside of the district who have reviewed the material.

On top of this, BSD has for some reason incorporated lessons for the health standards into this Social Science unit. I am specifically referring to lessons/activities regarding “consent” and “gender identity”. I can assure you there is nothing about “consent” in the Social Science standards, let alone for 5 year olds! This is especially troubling as the district is required by law to notify parents ahead of teaching the health curriculum so they can 1) review the curriculum and 2) opt their children out of some or all of the lessons if they so choose. By sneaking some of these lessons into Social Science units, they are likely violating additional laws & rules and potentially opening the door up to lawsuits.

I would also like to point out that Dr. Swalwell is a radical activist. Having read her book, I can assure you she does not try to hide it at all. Her intent is to transform children to take on a particular viewpoint for a “better world”. She doesn’t hide her disgust for things like the constitution, Christianity, the Founding Fathers, White people, capitalism, the police, and so much more. While the district leaders tried to assure me the units are being written to meet their standards and not Dr. Swalwell’s viewpoint, they did fail to point out that Dr. Swalwell’s book mentioned above is part of the recommended professional development readings for BSD teachers. Just go look, it’s in that same report I mentioned above. These optional 2021 Social Science standards are also so radical that only a person like Dr. Swalwell is capable to write material to support them.

Had BSD just adopted the 2018 Social Science standards and selected from the State Board of Education adopted curriculum list, we could have been putting students through a rich set of engaging lessons over the past couple of years. Instead, BSD used the pandemic as an excuse to never implement the 2018 standards and instead wait just long enough for these optional 2021 standards to arrive. And even with all the warnings provided by ODE on using these standards and the complete lack of support provided with them (i.e. ODE created professional development, State Board of Education adopted curriculum options, etc.), BSD still prioritized their crazy desire to be “the first” at the cost of our students’ education and innocence.

My Asks of You

I hope I haven’t lost you by this point. This is yet another terrible mess BSD has created and we now get to deal with. I wanted to be sure to provide enough information to make it clear what the issues were and where things stand today. What I ask if all of you is your assistance in compelling BSD to take several corrective actions. My recommendations are:

1. Immediately stop the use of all the new Social Science units & materials in grades K-5

2. Recall all of the material from the teachers to avoid any further exposure to students

3. Use existing Social Science content from last year to finish this school year

4. Establish a small project team to select and recommend to the school board a Social Science curriculum from the State Board of Education’s approved list (for the 2018 standards)

   1. To be clear, this also means BSD will adopt the 2018 standards, not 2021

   2. I would like to be part of this team as well, if only to ensure they follow a fair, ethical, and legal process

5. Hire a 3rd party investigator with no prior connection to BSD or BSD leaders who can conduct an investigation into how the decision was made to violate the law, who is responsible, and provide recommendations for any corrective actions needed

This may sound harsh, but as you’ll see from my public comments this is not a one-off situation. This district has an established pattern of rushing into high-risk approaches with little to no communication and absolutely no accountability. I would be happy to share with any of you the details behind those other examples as well as other past illegal and unethical behavior of leaders there.

I look forward to hearing back from you on how best we can assist BSD in making better choices going forward and putting in the real work necessary to build back trust with their students, families, staff, and community.

Thank you for your time.

On September 19, 2022 – this Fox News Article first broke the story about millions of dollars being wasted each year by a fraudulent and corrupt grant program called “Preschool Promise” run by the Oregon Department of Education – Early Learning Division. This was the culmination of several months of work I had started, and I was and am still thankful to have partnered with Kelsey Koberg at Fox News on this.

The very next day, stories poured in from the Oregonian and many other news sources regarding the delays in starting the program this school year due to multiple issues created by the Early Learning Division (ELD). I can honestly say it was a coincidence that these two big stories hit within a day of each other. The timing was incredibly bad for ELD Director Alyssa Chatterjee, as she was scheduled to present to the Oregon House Interim Committee on Early Childhood the next day, September 21st.

The following week another story on Preschool Promise waste was published by Christina Giardinelli from the local news station KATU. I was happy to contribute to her story, and was not surprised at the additional types of waste and abuse she discovered in her own research.

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Transparency in action: I published the data

I ran into many skeptics as I shared those articles and other information with communities around Oregon. I have become accustomed to the blind faith that some have for these public agencies and their programs. So I decided to put the data out there for anyone to see.

I put together two options to review the the data & results for yourself:1

1. An interactive dashboard that works on computers, tablets, and phones

2. A Google spreadsheet you can view and download

To give a more complete picture of the public funding these preschool providers received, I included the data on two different COVID-19 related funds. The CARES Act provided something called the COVID-19 Childcare Stabilization Grant. Providers were also eligible to apply for two rounds of PPP loans.

Along with receiving the Preschool Promise grants, a provider could receive both PPP loans as well as the COVID-19 Childcare Stabilization grant. As you can see in the screenshot, this provider (Village Childcare Enterprises LLC) received all of these grants and loans, totaling over $1,000,000 in two years while only having 2 enrolled Preschool Promise students the first year and 4 enrolled the second year. Village Childcare Enterprises LLC is owned by Leslee Barnes, who in April 2021 became the Director of the Multnomah County Preschool for All program.

This is just the beginning of unraveling the corruption within Oregon’s Early Learning Division. Please contact me if you have any tips or other information to share about these or related programs.

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[October 7, 2024 Update]

In late September, the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) held off on releasing the assessments results for the 2023-24 school year. This unexpected delay was was explained by Assistant Superintendent Dan Farley in this September 23 2024 email to all Oregon Superintendents, Principals, and other relevant roles. Included in that email was this reason:

…ODE staff need additional time to make the data more accessible by formatting them into data visualizations.

ODE did release the assessment results and their data visualizations on Thursday, October 3rd. Those graphs and tables of data (aka data visualizations) were provided in this document. After reviewing all of them, it appears many were built to provide a misleading view into student achievement. For one thing, the document led off with multiple pages of charts on “Participation Rates” (the percentage of students taking the tests). This is not what’s top of mind for most parents. What they care about are the results in their kids’ schools, school district, and the state overall.

Here is one example of misleading data from ODE.

By only including the past three years of results, you don’t see the significant drop caused by the pandemic lockdown learning loss. Had they included the results from the last full year of in-person school prior to the pandemic (2018-19), you would have seen the score for “All Students” (upper-left in the picture below) at 53.4%. A 10% drop in proficiency is huge, yet ODE would prefer not to arm parents, community members, and legislators with the reality of the situation they helped create.

I encourage you to continue reading the original article below, as it provides more details surrounding our assessment system and results, education funding, and a second dashboard I created to compare assessment results between Oregon & Washington.

[Original article]

In September 2022, the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) released the results for the previous year’s Oregon Statewide Assessment System. ODE provided some guidance to those evaluating the results in this document about the system:

The Oregon Statewide Assessment System evaluates systems, not students. The primary purpose of this equity-centered assessment system is to measure student group learning (as delineated by relevant content area standards), so that meaningful assertions can be made about how well schools, districts, and the state are fulfilling their responsibility to provide all students with high quality grade level educational opportunities.

Put another way, students in specific grade levels take assessments in areas like Math, English Language Arts, and Science; and over time that data can help us see how well schools are generally doing. As they also capture demographic data, we can compare different groups of students to see their outcomes (i.e. Males, Females, Black, White, etc.) The data doesn’t tell you WHY or HOW the results are changing year over year, they just provide the results.

Unfortunately ODE doesn’t make it easy for the general public to review the data. While they do provide access to the raw data for each available school year on their Assessment Group Reports page, a concerned parent would have to download and comb through multiple, large spreadsheets to extract the figures. The good news is, I happen to be a bit of a data geek, so I built an online dashboard to make it easy for anyone to access the results from a computer, tablet, or phone.

This dashboard includes results from the 2014-15 to the 2021-22 school years, with the exception of 2019-20 and 2020-21 as ODE did not provide that data due to the pandemic). You’ll see three drop-down boxes that allow you to view the data by any combination of this data:

• District (or select “ALL OREGON” for statewide results)

• Grade Level

• Student Group

The feedback I received on this dashboard was overwhelmingly positive. It felt great to be able to provide information to people across the state, but on the flip side I was frustrated that ODE did not. I reached out to offer ODE access to this dashboard and the source design (no cost, no strings attached), but I did not hear back. Given how poor the results were, it makes sense why they wouldn’t want to make it easy for anyone to see.

As you saw in the quote at the start of this story, the assessment results are to measure the SYSTEM and not the STUDENTS. While the nearly two years in a COVID-19 lockdown led to some dramatic drops in results, prior to that we had been seeing declining results. Many people, including teachers and administrators often say it is due to poor funding, but is that really the issue?

A quick tangent on Oregon Education Funding

Public education funding in Oregon has been increasing dramatically over the past 10 years, but their own data makes it clear their strategy and use of those funds have failed. Just take a look at this slide from an ODE presentation in September 2021. What really stands out to me is the explosive growth in the orange bars, which represent ODE’s own “Agency Budget”.

I’ve done a lot of research into how ODE is funded and where those funds go. The short version is this: Oregon public education funding has become incredibly complex. In 2013, ODE’s portion of overall public education funding was 24%. Now in the current 2021-23 biennium, it has ballooned up to 43%. This is because much of the increased funding provided to public education has been tied up in programs managed by ODE rather than going directly to school districts.

So honestly from a teacher’s or administrator’s perspective, I believe them when they say they lack the funding needed to deliver good educational outcomes. The assessment results highlight this as well. The problem is the money isn’t making it to the classrooms.

Again that graphic makes it very clear that Oregon public education has been growing significant, and is far outpacing the overall student enrollment in public schools. Just as we saw with the assessment data, ODE doesn’t offer any way to hold them accountable on how they’ve been using or distributing these increasingly massive sums of taxpayer dollars. I sincerely hope governor-elect Tina Kotek will select a new leader for ODE, and that their first official action will be to conduct an audit of all funded programs. Accountability is desperately needed. Now back to our original story…

Comparing Oregon to other states

Quite a few people reached out to ask how Oregon results compared to other states. This seemingly simple question resulted in many hours of frustrating research on my part. One issue is that not every state uses the same type of assessments. Oregon uses the Smarter Balanced assessments, as do other states like Washington and California. However, when I was searching for the data in late September I found that not every state releases their data at the same time or in a way that would be easy to incorporate into a dashboard.

With that said, I was able to obtain assessment data for our neighbor to the north (Washington), and I used it to put together a second public dashboard to provide some high-level comparisons between the two states.

What was interesting to see was how Washington had been generally improving over the first few years prior to the pandemic while Oregon results were flat to declining. I encourage you to check out the dashboards and play around with the different drop-down choices to compare various groups, grades, and so on.

This last section is provided to answer other questions I received about how to understand the results - specifically, what they mean when they use the term “proficient”. I also wanted to give a bit more details on the assessment system we use in Oregon and where to go for more information. If you feel you’ve already topped out on data for the day, I understand! As always, I welcome any questions or feedback you may have. And now for those remaining brave souls, let’s dive into proficiency…

What does “Proficient” mean?

Oregon uses the Smarter Balanced assessments, and their website has lots of information about their scaled scoring methodology. Here’s our attempt to make it as simple and straightforward as possible.

For each grade level and subject area, scores are broken out into four ranges. They refer to these as “Levels”, and here’s a brief description of what they mean a student can demonstrate for each subject:

• Level 1: Minimal understanding of and ability to apply knowledge

• Level 2: Partial understanding of and ability to apply knowledge

• Level 3: Adequate understanding and ability to apply knowledge

• Level 4: Thorough understanding of and ability to apply knowledge

A student is considered “proficient” if they achieve a score in Level 3 or 4. So the dashboard we created and the charts you’ve seen on the news are based on the % of students who scored in level 3 or 4.

What makes this complex is the scores required for each level increase with each grade level. In essence the requirements to be proficient go up as the student gets older. This makes sense as these assessments are intended to assess their readiness for college, and we’d have higher expectations of proficiency for a 3rd grader vs an 11th grader. I included a picture that shows the scores for each level by grade & subject.

The Smarter Balanced website has a lot more info as well as a YouTube video that explains how they determined the necessary scores for each grade and level.

The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) provided school districts with information & guidance on what the grant can be used for, how to apply for the grant, and a template they can use. You can find this information, as well as other useful info like what the allocations to each district would be on their Education Staff Retention and Recruitment Grants web page.

We reviewed the grant applications for the top 10 (by enrollment) school districts in Oregon and put together this summary to highlight how much money they were awarded, if all staff were provided input, if a bonus payment to staff was included, and a brief description of their main objectives & actions. You can download the PDF here or see the picture below.

The Beaverton School District stands alone as the only district reviewed that did not use the funds for recruitment or retention bonuses. We reached out to Beaverton SD to obtain the results of the "Retention & Recruitment" survey they sent out, and we were very surprised by the results!

Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed in Beaverton selected a Retention Bonus as their highest priority, yet the district chose not to provide one with these funds. Instead they planned to use it for an array of objectives, including one of the lowest on the priority list from the staff: stipends for affinity group leaders.

For any curious "data geeks" out there, the weighted scoring method above was a simple, descriptive analysis done by assigning point values to the rankings for each response. Each respondent to the survey ranked the 8 choices from top to bottom. For our analysis, 1st priority was given 8 points, 2nd priority was given 7 points, and so on.

Clearly the staff wanted that retention bonus, followed up by substitute & classified staff training, and possibly mentors for licensed staff. However, as you saw in our review, Beaverton's district leaders went in a different direction. As the kids might say... OOF!

To be fair, just prior to submitting their HB4030 grant application, the Beaverton SD had finally come to an agreement on a new contract with the teachers union. That contract included a pair of retention bonuses, one for past service and one for future service. However, there's no mention that this grant funded much of the money they would give to teachers. One could argue the union should have pushed for more, especially given how Beaverton continues to operate with some of the highest median class sizes in the state of Oregon.

• What is CRT (Critical Race Theory)

• How CRT gets into schools

• How CRT shows up in schools & classrooms

• But they say CRT isn't being taught...

• How they deal with pushback

• Does CRT work?

This only scratches the surface of many areas, especially examples of how CRT shows up in classrooms. But hopefully this helps explain, in a nutshell, what has been going on and why many people like us are pushing back.

This specific point came up during their in-person Bond Q&A meeting at Beaverton High School on April 18 2022. After being challenged on their poor spending practices during public comments in the April 25 2022 School Board Business Meeting, district personnel and board members again repeated claims about investments made to reduce class sizes.

Are class sizes really getting smaller? At the start of the 2021-22 school year, there were many complaints made to the district about high class sizes through email and public comments, including elementary classes over over 30 children! How can we find the truth? ODE to the rescue!

The Oregon Department of Education makes a great deal of data freely available to the public. Class size reports are available in spreadsheet form by school year (click here to access). You can see data by district, school, grade level, and more. We've taken the time to consolidate the available data for the state and the top 10 school districts (by student enrollment) to show you just how big the class sizes in Beaverton are when compared to others.

To help make sense of this, look at the 2014-15 school year column. The median class size for the entire state of Oregon was 25 students. Beaverton, Hillsboro, and North Clackamas all tied for the highest median of 29 students. Beaverton consistently has at or near the highest median class size across the top 10 districts in Oregon. Even in the middle of the pandemic, when student enrollment drops around the state drastically reduced class sizes, Beaverton barely saw a change as they once again ended up with the highest class sizes.

A quick note about using median vs average class size and where student to teacher ratios may fit in. Median provides the midpoint for class size, and is useful to prevent outliers from skewing the result. This is likely why ODE uses this method instead of something like student to teacher ratio. This ratio is hard to compare between districts due to what they consider to be a “teacher”. BSD’s definition of a teacher is broader than others, which lets them artificially lower their claimed student to teacher ratio. However, when you simplify things by just focusing on how big their class sizes are, you see what’s really going on in schools.

So while it is true that Beaverton did not lay off teachers in the 2020-21 school year, even with the massive enrollment drop, they still had incredibly high class sizes. Now think about this - what if enrollment hadn't dropped so drastically? Just how big would class sizes have been? This is incredibly important because they effectively lucked into smaller class sizes with the unpredictably high drop in enrollment. Luck, like hope, is NOT a strategy.

[Note about chart/graphic] ODE did not have data available for the 2019-20 school year. There is also a significant delay in them releasing the data for each school year, which is why the 2021-22 data is not available. The 2020-21 data was just released in February 2022. Salem-Keizer data was not provided for 2014-15 per a note in the raw data from ODE that it was missing information.

I debated about not including this post when joining Substack. It’s not because the bond measure passed, but because I was concerned some may see this as crossing the political line as I advocated for a particular position. I decided to include it though, as I wanted to preserve and share the analysis I did. I plan to do a follow up story to determine if those who contributed to the district’s campaign for the bond did end up getting those lucrative contracts.

It's late April and the political campaign ads have nearly taken over every commercial break on TV. However, bond measures don't typically follow the same approach to get your vote.

The Beaverton School District has a $723 Million bond on the May 17 2022 ballot. If this bond passes, it will pay to rebuild two schools, perform seismic upgrades, improve ventilation systems, update computers and other technology, and increase physical security (cameras). If this measure passes, it would certainly benefit companies in the area that happen to be in construction, technology, land use planning & law, and so on. So what could a company do to help generate future business?

How about contribute to Yes for Beaverton Schools?

That appears to be exactly what is happening here in 2022. We wouldn't go as far as saying this is a "pay to play" scheme, but it does call into question the ethics and transparency of those involved. No where in the 12 favorable arguments that Yes for Beaverton Schools paid to put in the Voters' Pamphlet does it mention that 91% of their contributions came from a handful of businesses that could financially benefit in a big way if the bond passes.

Click Here for Finance Records

So how many other favorable arguments were to be found in the Voters' Pamphlet? Zero! Again all 12 came from Yes for Beaverton Schools, thanks to contributions from the neighborhood construction, architecture, legal, and technology providers.

Save Oregon Schools group members proudly submitted two arguments in OPPOSITION to the bond, and these were paid out of our pockets. Save Oregon Schools is and has always been funded by the parents and community members who are trying to make a difference, not trying to make a dollar... Learn more at pausethebond.com!