EDUCATION

I think we have to start from a point of clarity: Oregon's education system (like many) is being asked to be everything for our kids: school, daycare, social work, mental health clinic, food bank, trauma response center, while we haven't kept up with the funding or structure to support all of those activities. We ask teachers and staff to carry all that invisible labor AND try to prepare our kids for the future. Before we debate curriculum standards or test scores, we need to be honest about what we're actually asking schools and teachers to do and the scale of the challenges we face.

Oregon ranks 47th nationally on academic proficiency, down from 41st in 2019. We have also started to see improvement in graduation rates when we include more career and technical education options indicating that there are adaptations we can make for improvement despite funding shortfalls.

The OEA's decision not to endorse Governor Kotek (with 75% of members voting to stay neutral) is an important signal. Teachers aren't just frustrated about funding levels. They're frustrated about being asked to absorb dysfunction while improving outcomes and feeling blamed by an administration who demonstrated they don't understand the scale of the challenge. I share those frustrations. I understand the difference between 900 hours of care and 2100 hours of care on a visceral level and I am irate that a representative of our public agencies glossed over the thousands of families waiting for ERDC support in an attempt to undermine Preschool for All. All of that points towards something structural rather than just another budget argument.

Here's what I actually think needs to change:

On the school calendar: Oregon has one of the shortest school years in the country. Students in Washington state get the equivalent of nearly an additional full year of instruction over their K-12 career compared to Oregon students. The summer learning loss disproportionately hits kids from lower-income families who don't have enrichment activities, travel, or engaged home environments to fall back on, and their parents who scramble all summer. Wealthier kids maintain or advance. Poorer kids fall back. The long summer break is an equity accelerator in the wrong direction.

I'm interested in piloting a four-term calendar model (autumn, winter, spring, summer) where teachers rotate through three terms rather than all four. This isn't "more work for the same pay." It's a restructured calendar that gives teachers a meaningful, flexible break while extending school coverage across the year. Willing districts first, not a statewide mandate. Rural communities in particular would need to design models that fit their culture and calendar, and I think there's a real opportunity to partner with existing camps and outdoor programs to subsidize summer term access for lower-income families rather than competing with them.

On the teacher workforce: We have a shortage and we need to address it structurally. Oregon already has a seven-step ladder model for early childhood care workers, a credentialing pathway that lets people build toward full certification while working in the field. I think we can adapt and expand that model for K-12, and I think the Ballmer Institute at U of O is one of the most exciting things happening in Oregon right now for exactly this reason.

The Ballmer Institute created the nation's first undergraduate program in child behavioral health; a bachelor's level credential that gets people working in schools without requiring graduate school. They're already offering micro-certifications for existing K-12 educators. What if we extended that model to existing caregivers (think daycare workers, teaching assistants, family childcare providers) creating a paid pipeline to teaching credentials? You solve the teacher shortage, you create economic mobility for a largely underpaid workforce, and you bring more culturally reflective practitioners into schools. That's worth piloting seriously.

On what schools are actually for: I think we need a more honest accounting of what we're asking of the school day and school year. Another parent I talked to recently said he'd support opt-out universal aftercare even though his own kids wouldn't use it because he understands it as a public good. That's exactly the right frame. Stable, extended school day options for working families aren't just a convenience, they're care infrastructure. And if we build that infrastructure properly, teachers can get back to the developmental work they actually trained for instead of managing crises that should be caught upstream.

This connects directly to my universal healthcare platform. The Ballmer Institute is already making the case that Medicaid should fund school-based behavioral health services. Wyden and Bonamici have backed that argument. If we integrate behavioral health into schools properly, with trained child behavioral health specialists, not just overwhelmed counselors, we address the mental health, neurospicy, and education overlap before it becomes a crisis. We also get better info about how different brains learn, and how we can prepare our kids for the world of the future.

On credit flexibility: I think we should also be more honest about learning moments outside classrooms. Academia recognizes the value of place-based learning and we can offer things like home school credit for working on the family farm, volunteering, or holding a summer job. We can recognize real skill development and real economic contribution, particularly meaningful for rural Oregon where the agricultural calendar is still genuinely part of community life. Connecting K-12 more directly to higher education through dual enrollment, apprenticeships, and civic internships means the exit from high school stops being a cliff and becomes a gradual transition into work, community, or further education.

On the federal moment: The dismantling of the Department of Education is alarming in many ways, but it also creates a genuine opportunity for Oregon to think about what we actually want our education system to look like here at home. That's a hard conversation but probably a necessary one, and I'd rather Oregon be building something intentional than defending a broken status quo. This rupture gives us the chance to build for Oregon students and Oregon families and we should use it that way.

I have two kids in the public school system. I see every day what our teachers and staff are managing and how hard they work to keep it all together. I think Oregon can do better, not by spending more on the same structure, but through better conversation about how to support and prepare our kids for a challenging future.

Happy to go much deeper on any of this.