Oregon's on-time high school graduation rate is stuck at a stubborn 66 percent.

Education Week ranked us a miserable 46th among all states for our K-12 achievement. And this generation of young Oregonians is likely to be the first to be less educated - fewer diplomas, fewer degrees, lower skills - than their parents and than their peers around the United States.

The status quo should not be acceptable to any of us who want strong communities, a healthy economy and successful children.

Changing that status quo starts with our youngest learners. Some 40,000 babies are born each year in Oregon. Let me ask you to imagine one of them.

CHRISTOPHER ONSTOTT / TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO Four-year-old Sarah Suprun plays with an alphabet puzzle at preschool. Just 11 of the 60 kindergartners at Earl Boyles Elementary in Southeast Portland this year came in with any preschool experience.

When Johnny starts kindergarten, it's fun: new kids, a playground, a hot lunch. He's feeling pretty good about school.

But by the end of first grade, Johnny discovers he's not doing as well as the other kids. He doesn't know why. We can guess: He probably started school with about 3,000 words in his vocabulary, while other kids started with 20,000. Maybe he held the book upside-down and didn't realize you read from left to right.

He notices the teacher relates to him a bit differently, but he's still confused. By about third grade, he gets the message: He's not good at school.

By fourth grade, he drops out of school. He may still show up most days, but mentally and emotionally, he's gone. He's decided he will never measure up. Despite the money and effort the school spends on special education, intervention and more, Johnny drops out after a year of high school: An undereducated, unemployed young man who is bound to repeat the cycle, having his own little Johnnies.

Our schools are full of Johnnies. Forty percent of the babies born in Oregon face challenges - poverty, family violence, substance abuse, hunger, homelessness and more - that greatly increase their risk of starting school behind, and never catching up.

For their sake - and for ours - we need to do better. The Oregon Legislature in February will consider proposals that take the next step for Oregon's public education system and for students across our state.

First, we need more effective early learning. Oregon spends more than $800 million every two years on more than two dozen early childhood programs, with little or no coordination and no common screening or standards. Families scramble from agency to agency to get the support their children need, and kids like Johnny fall through the cracks.

Under a new system, all of these services would be coordinated with a common objective: To have children ready for kindergarten. New, universal screening tools would identify children in need, and creative local collaboratives would work with families to access a variety of services.

Kids like Johnny would arrive in kindergarten better prepared.

We also hope to give our schools better and more tailored support to help every student achieve. Oregon wants to enter into partnerships with our local school districts, using achievement compacts to align our goals, and to set ambitious yet achievable targets based on student-centered measures that recognize individual growth.

We want to replace the punitive and often arbitrary provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act with tailored support and intervention for struggling schools.

These reforms can help free resources for the comprehensive, well-rounded education Oregonians want for all our children. If students are ready for kindergarten, we reduce our costs for remediation - special education, other interventions - later.

When students graduate from high school ready for college and careers, they are far less likely to need social services or end up in the criminal justice system. Instead, they become contributing members of our communities and our workforce - benefiting all of us.

The 2011 Legislature approved an ambitious goal: That by 2025, 40 percent of Oregonians would earn a bachelor's degree, 40 percent would have an associate's degree or certificate and all Oregonians would earn a high school diploma.

That class of 2025 starts kindergarten in September. We have no time to waste. Our children are counting on us to act.

Richard C. "Dick" Alexander of West Linn is chairman of Capital Pacific Bank and an entrepreneur who serves on the Oregon Education Investment Board and the Early Learning Council.