Original Source | The Oregonian
By Dana Hepper, Wednesday November 4, 2009

In September, The Oregonian asked whether Oregon schools would end up in a "race to the sidelines" while other states engage in the Obama administration's "Race to the Top" competition for a share of $4.3 billion in federal education reform funding.

As a member of one of the working groups developing Oregon's Race to the Top application, I'm here to report that we're approaching the starting line.

Over the past month, more than 100 of the most effective leaders in Oregon education -- teachers, principals, superintendents, parents, business leaders, advocates -- have contributed to Oregon's application. The recommendations still need to be forged into a bold and coherent strategy, but there are promising signs.

The recommendations indicate a willingness to tackle tough issues such as low-performing schools, the use of student outcomes in evaluations and improvements to colleges of education. And they seek to build on the effective practices already in place in some districts, such as providing qualified mentors for beginning teachers and principals, and basing credits on what students have learned, rather than the time they've spent in a classroom.

But we need to train harder if we're going to get past the starting line. There's so much more at stake in this race than federal funding. One-third of Oregon's seniors dropped out of high school last year. Today, when Oregon's unemployment rate ranks second highest in the nation, our young people are less likely to graduate from high school than their parents were.

If Oregon's students, schools and economy are to get back on top, we need to commit to three things as a state.

First, we need to provide the early childhood learning and services that enable every student to come to school ready to learn.

Second, we need to commit to the reforms that enable all students, teachers and principals to do their best work. Our Race to the Top proposal, for example, needs to go further to make turnaround mandatory for the lowest-performing schools, to provide teachers and principals the real support they need to do their best work, and to create a pre-K-through-20 data system so we really understand how our kids are doing.

Finally, we need to stabilize funding for Oregon's schools. Funding for K-12 has been in decline for more than a decade, giving us some of the largest class sizes in the nation and a school year that's three weeks short of the national average. On Jan. 26, we need to vote "yes" on Measures 66 and 67 to keep $733 million available for funding schools and other essentials services.

In the coming weeks, Oregon's Race to the Top recommendations will evolve into a proposal that will serve as "the blueprint for Oregon for the next decade," in the words of Redmond Superintendent Vickie Fleming, who is leading the process.

It's time now for Oregon to get out of the starting blocks and move our schools to the top. To do this, the state's political and education leaders must commit not only to funding schools adequately, but to insisting that with those funds we close our persistent achievement gap and raise Oregon's unacceptably low high school graduation rates.

Dana Hepper is advocacy director for Stand for Children.