Oregon does not have a detailed plan of how the state will improve K-12 education.

Let’s repeat that.

Oregon does not have a detailed plan of how the state will improve K-12 education.

Plenty of goals, plans, programs and initiatives are out there. Almost every legislative session something new and different gets passed. State employees and school district officials then go off to add the latest churn on top of the churn.

Having a broad, statewide plan is no guarantee of success. But Oregon does need a long-term approach to education goals. It needs measurements. It needs reporting requirements. It needs specifics about how funding gets us to goals and how new initiatives fit in.

Much of that exists. What is missing is how it all fits together in a detailed road map for the future. Any state plan should be heavy on goals and providing performance data and easy on district flexibility to reach goals. There would also need to be a mechanism for accountability.

What are our candidates for governor going to do? They can reflect parental dissatisfaction easily enough. What are their plans for statewide improvement? Do they believe Oregon needs a statewide education road map?

Oregon’s public education is far from a mess in every classroom in every school district. It succeeds for many students. And not every education problem is directly related to bad teachers, bad curriculum or poor education investments.

But Oregon’s public education system does have problems. Here are some facts from a new state audit of public education:

Less than 25% of Oregon students meet proficiency standards in math in 11th grade.

Oregon’s graduation rate may be improving. It has still been near the bottom in the nation.

A statewide review in 2020 found only a third of Oregon children eligible for early intervention special education programs had access to them.

And many of the students that are performing poorly in the system are minorities or low income.

Oregon is getting its level of performance with more recent investment in education. Measure 98 was passed in 2016 to increase graduation rates and career readiness. It was essentially another $800 per high school student per year. Oregon also established a corporate activity tax in 2019 to bring in what was hoped to be an extra $1 billion a year to improve education in early childhood and K-12.

We are going to have that new governor in not so very many months. It looks like Oregonians will have three major candidates to choose from: Democrat Tina Kotek, independent Betsy Johnson and Republican Christine Drazan. Which one would be the most likely to deliver a plan for improving K-12 education and pull it off? We don’t see anything like that on their campaign websites. Should it be?