Pioneer Connect ad:
YachatsNews.com logo; Independent, nonprofit news. Free for all, funded by readers.
YachatsNews.com logo; Independent, nonprofit news. Free for all, funded by readers.
 

Oregon school performance craters relative to national averages, elementary and middle school math scores rank 6th worst in U.S.

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram

By BETSY HAMMOND/Oregonian/OregonLive

In the latest sign that Oregon children have been failed by leaders and need an intensive educational rescue, new federal test results indicate that the nation’s students experienced staggering instructional setbacks during the pandemic – yet Oregon’s bore an even worse brunt.

Scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the only standardized achievement test given to a representative sample of students in all states, reveal that Oregon schools, which once outdid national averages, produced jaw-dropping declines in student outcomes last school year.

The results, made public late Sunday, show Oregon elementary and middle school students now read and do math far more poorly, on average, than their counterparts nationwide. Oregon’s fourth- and eighth-grade math performance ranked sixth worst in the country, the 2022 results indicate.

In fourth grade, only one state – West Virginia – generated significantly worse math scores. Meanwhile, in the west, Washington, Idaho, Colorado, Montana and Utah all significantly outdid Oregon.

Standardized tests do not measure all the important skills and attitudes that schools strive to provide their students. But policymakers have long relied on the tests colloquially known as “the Nation’s Report Card” to fairly compare student performance over time, from state to state and among some large urban districts. (Those don’t include Portland Public Schools, because Oregon’s largest district doesn’t have a representative sample of its students take the test.)

The aim is to detect both excellence and failure to spread effective instruction and root out poor practice.
Where Oregon departed most from national averages in the latest results was not in the share of students performing a little below the tests’ rigorous grade-level standards but in students scoring “below basic.” The tests’ designers characterize “below basic” performance as failing to even partially master fundamental grade-level reading and math knowledge.
Dan Farley, Oregon’s assistant superintendent for research, testing and accountability, told The Oregonian/OregonLive in statement that results of the national tests “are a continued call to action for Oregon to keep advancing the programs we know meet our students’ needs.”
He thanked lawmakers for passing the 2019 Student Success Act, which has pumped an additional $1 billion a year into schools, plus additional state funding for “mental health and wellbeing supports, summer learning and other crucial programs.”
He added that, “Struggling Oregon students, such as those performing below the … basic achievement level, were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. Investments to renew and accelerate learning need to focus on these students.”
As was the case with state test scores released earlier this fall, the new federal results for Oregon do not show that Latino students’ learning was harmed more than that of white students. Instead, white students’ reading and math skills in both grades tested plummeted just as dramatically as Latinos’.
Because Black and Indigenous students each make up less than 5% of Oregon’s student population, the federally administered tests did not generate statistically reliable results for those groups.
The state does not systematically monitor school districts’ spending of the extra money they’re receiving from the state and the federal government to ensure it is in fact spent on students furthest behind or that districts’ strategies are paying off.
Due to decisions by Gov. Kate Brown, Oregon Health Authority Director Pat Allen, local teachers unions and school boards, Oregon’s schools remained fully closed or offered only sporadic in-person learning far longer during the 2020-21 school year than typical U.S. schools.
During The Oregonian/OregonLive and KGW debate among candidates for governor last week, all three leading candidates said Oregon kept schools closed for too long during the pandemic, although Republican Christine Drazan and unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson said so in starker terms than Democrat Tina Kotek.
Democrats controlled the governor’s office and state health authority when they ordered schools to close and were slow to insist that schools offer more than anemic hours of in-person instruction.
Johnson led her answer to a question about education during the debate by saying, “The single worst thing we did in the pandemic was shut kids out of the classroom.” The former longtime Democratic lawmaker said “the academic damage” of those closures was “appalling” and noted the social-emotional damage has yet to be measured.
Kotek said, “I do believe we kept students too long from the classroom. We’re going to have to be making up for that. Fortunately, we have the billion dollars a year from the Student Success Act to help our districts be able to make this up,” including via summer school. “I am going to hold districts to high expectations.”
Drazan, who has a child still in high school, said, “I know how hard it is to watch your student suffer, and that’s what kids across our state were doing … We had some of the longest lockdowns in the nation. As governor, I will not shut our schools down.”
When students returned to in-person learning statewide last school year, more than one-third of them ended up missing out on one-tenth of the school year or more – enough, research has shown, to put young students in danger of failing to learn to read and older ones in danger of failing to graduate.
The state revealed that troubling statistic late last week when it issued school performance reporting. State schools chief Colt Gill said he believes many of those absences were because students or the family members had COVID. But he also acknowledged that schools and communities have the power to spur higher student attendance, noting the state is renewing its “Every Day Matters” school attendance promotional campaign.
As recently as 2017, the Nation’s Report Card pinpointed Oregon student performance as at or above the national average in both reading and math in grades four and seven.
  — Betsy Hammond; betsyhammmond@oregoninan.com; @chalkup