FUND OREGON SCHOOLS

TIME FOR ACTION

We need to put pressure on our lawmakers at the state level, to fully fund the Quality Education Model (QEM) this year. According to the 2024 QEM Report, we need the legislature to allocate $13.526 billion from the General Fund (combined with the Student Success Act funding) to provide a quality education over the next two years.  Many of us have been hearing from our legislators that we can’t ask for the full QEM and should advocate for the Governor’s $11.3 billion school funding request. But during the last biennium (2023), the legislature told advocates that they could not ask for the full QEM amount, effectively letting them off the hook. “We gave you what you asked for”, they said.  In Portland, that left PPS with $33 million in cuts last year. The Governor’s current Budget would mean another $40 million in cuts to our schools this year. We will all feel this. 

How did we get here? Why does this keep happening? A bit of history…

Two anti-tax ballot measures passed in the 1990s, made state funding for public school in Oregon come from the same pot of money as all other state priorities. In November of 2000, Ballot Measure 1 was adopted by voters to constitutionally require the legislature to provide funding adequate to meet QEM. However, because of a loophole, Oregon has never funded to QEM. This means we are more than $22 BILLION underfunded, after the 24 years that this law has been enacted. When we are only funded to Current Service Levels, (CSL), we don’t come close to chipping away at this deficit. Without a plan for a new funding structure, our legislators will continue to dump budget shortfalls onto our kids. It's a cycle of failure that leaves kids attending public schools bearing the brunt of these problems.

State public education advocates believe Gov. Kotek is swayable this year. There are so many important issues facing our legislators this year, but they will only prioritize education if their constituents let them know it’s our priority.

Let's be heard!

We need every single public school advocate to get in front of their lawmakers these next few months. 

There several ways we can do this: 

• We can organize a postcard-writing night, and have our students make and/or sign them, to send to the Ways and Means Co-chairs or the Senate President and Speaker of the House. (Most of them are Portland legislators) We need to share our stories about why we love our school AND how underfunding is impacting our school community.

• We can find out when our state representative and senator are having town halls or coffee chats by subscribing to their newsletter. First, look up your legislators here, then click on their website, and fill out the newsletter subscribe option on their homepage.

• If you have already written to your legislators, ask your neighbors and family members to send an email to their legislators to ask for fully funding our public schools. One thing we’ve heard several times is constituents aren’t contacting them enough with concerns about education funding. We can change that!

• Let’s organize with parents, caregivers and teachers and make a trip to visit our legislators in Salem. While this is not as hard as it sounds, we also know this option is not for everyone right now. Here is a “how to” for a legislative visit that you can find here.

• The Portland Public Schools has created an awesome Advocacy Toolkit that we suggest you check out. Consider also reviewing this list of proposed responses to commonly made statements from legislators.

Most importantly, continue to find ways to tell your story. OUR VOICES MATTER.

 During last year’s teacher’s strike we saw thousands of families come together to stand up for our students, our teachers, our schools. Many have been working ever since the strike to organize an effort to address funding issues on a greater scale. It’s time to step it up and focus on Salem. We won’t have the opportunity again for another 2 years. Let’s go big.

Families are empowered to create opportunities all over the district. We have seen parents and community members put together public education funding forums, plan their own visits to Salem, and invite legislators into their schools or community meetings.  These events have created valuable opportunities to speak with state legislators and other education stakeholders. Please know you are capable of leading the way! Our elected leaders need to hear loud and clear, that EDUCATION MATTERS!