Editor’s note: This is the fifth of a multi-part series analyzing the latest version of the school re-opening guidelines and the prospects of schools re-opening in the Fall.

As the state struggles to deal with government shutdowns during the COVID-19 epidemic, various stakeholders in the the world of K-12 education have taken to trying to use the crisis to their advantage.

Arguably the most powerful public employee union in the state, the Oregon Education Association -- representing teachers, along with it's sister union, the Oregon School Employees Association -- representing classified school employees, submitted a letter as testimony to the policy committee which considered legislation for the first special session, held in late June. The subject of the letter was to urge legislators not to remove the cap on virtual schools. The cap currently limits the number of students that can transfer from their traditional public school to a virtual school at 3% of enrollment.

Arguing in the letter that virtual schools “have dismal educational outcomes (one graduated just 33 percent of its seniors last year),” virtual schools have countered that students who come to them are often at the bottom of the heap of the public school student body -- a a factor often driving their desire to transfer.

As the Governor -- who is, after all the state superintendent of public instruction -- cheerleads Oregonians with cries of "We're going to get through this together..." she might take a moment to have the education unions take their share of the pain.

Or at least not use the crisis to try to carve out an advantage for themselves.


--Staff Reports

Post Date: 2020-08-10 14:13:52