Written testimony submitted to Oregon Education Investment Board yesterday by my friend Tom Olson. The Six Deadly Sins of OEIB’s “Education Transformation” By Tom Olson Co-Founder, Oregon Save Our Schools My name is Tom Olson. I’m a co-founder of Oregon Save Our Schools. Our growing organization has closely observed your work since its inception, and we conclude that you have allowed private business special interests to dominate your work. First…..In spite of contrary evidence, you continue to blindly pursue “40/40/20.” This was conceived in private corporate board rooms, and is clearly another attempt by special business interests to place sole responsibility for economic success on our public education system. One year ago, August 7, 2012, you received information that this slogan is totally out of whack with the Employment Department’s actual Oregon labor market projections through 2020. (see attachment #1) So will you continue to cheerlead, “Higher Graduation Standards:40/40/20” while at the same time you absolutely ignore the need for significant increases in core state investment in our public education system? Second…..you readily adopted the privately-developed “Learnworks” reforms produced by Duncan Wyse, President of the Oregon Business Council and John Tapogna of EcoNorthwest. Third…..your Achievement Compact/Accountability work group was also headed by a private corporate executive, Jeld-Wen’s Ron Saxton, who constantly pushed for “tougher and harder consequences” to be placed on our schools. Fourth…..Another corporate executive, Nike’s Julia Brim-Edwards, chaired your totally flawed Chief Education Officer selection process resulting in the hiring of Rudy Crew. How did that work out for you? Edwards is the same person who lobbied so hard for Nike’s notorious special tax deal in January’s special one day legislative session. Fifth…..You’ve given unquestioning obedience to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s wrongheaded push to change Oregon state policy to meet his federal demands for even more Draconian test-based accountability policy in order to receive the NCLB waiver. Apparently you’ve abandoned the state motto, “Oregon flies on its own wings!” * Substantiating facts provided on attachments Sixth,….You adopted the strategic investment recommendations that came from six secret Education Funding Team meetings. The meetings were closed to the public. Who ran and wrote up the results of these meetings? Duncan Wyse, President of Oregon Business Council and his group of highly-paid private consultants. After public testimony that was overwhelming in its opposition to these recommendations, you adopted the private meeting’s grab-bag of disconnected projects called “strategic investments.” None of these investments address Oregon’s slide to the bottom in funding public education. The Quality Education Model displays a $2 billion gap in funding K-12 education. Nor do they address Oregon’s embarrassing 47th place among the states in funding higher education. (see Attachment #2 for additional facts) Results of these Six Deadly Sins? A series of Draconian consequences have been imposed on students and teachers that Steve Buel will now share with you. As you listen to each of them, please ask yourselves, “Did I really intend to have this happen?”
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 03:02:43 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015