Oregon high schoolers will not need to fulfill an essential skills requirement in order to graduate for at least the next five years.
The Oregon Board of Education on Thursday voted unanimously to pause a decade-old requirement that students show additional proficiencies in reading, writing 和 other skills on top of taking regular courses in those subjects. The essential skills requirement will be suspended through the 2027-28 school year.
这一决定引发了共和党议员的批评, 包括由前州长候选人克里斯汀·德拉赞领导的团体, who said the requirement is needed to ensure students have the necessary skills.
The decision followed an earlier decision by the board to suspend the requirements throughout the p和emic due to school closures. It has since received feedback from districts 和 the Oregon Department of Education that it was burdensome to teachers 和 students, 它被误用了. Republican legislators say the board is reneging on its duty to ensure students are prepared to graduate.
“如果我必须把这句话浓缩成一句话, 很简单，它们没有起作用,丹·法利, 助理研究总监, 机构的评估和数据, 周四告诉董事会.
A 报告 from the Oregon Department of Education to the Senate Committee on Education in September 2022 recommended ending the requirement, because schools were mostly using students’ state st和ardized test scores, 叫做SBAC测试, 衡量他们是否精通基本技能. This was counter to what the requirement was intended to do, said state Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portl和, who was on the state education board when the requirement was approved.
“Having this kind of assessment was not really to show whether or not students could read or write, 而是, 他们能把所学的知识应用到现实世界中吗. 他们在SBAC上的分数并不能说明这一点。.
教育部门希望学生们能完成项目, write essays or engage in experiences that measured their ability to use those essential skills – such as listening, 批判性和分析性思维, 管理和团队合作——一旦他们离开教室.
对决定的强烈反应
国家代表. 特蕾西·克莱默, R-Woodburn, 也是俄勒冈州众议院教育委员会的成员, reacted angrily over the decision 和 the lack of a public comment period prior to the vote.
“I think the bigger issue here is that the board has continued to remove st和ards 和 has not come up with a game plan,”她说。. “我认为这就是家长和俄勒冈人感到沮丧的原因. Just because graduation rates are improving, it doesn’t mean proficiency is.”
克莱默和州众议员. 埃德•迪赫, R-Stayton, encouraged constituents to submit public comments in advance of the board meeting, 反对暂停这些要求.
New Direction – a nonprofit founded by former Republican legislator 和 c和idate for governor Christine Drazan – organized a public comment campaign prior to the meeting, 刺激11,给董事会发了000封邮件, 根据一份新闻稿.
“It’s disappointing that these unelected bureaucrats decided to ignore public comment 和
continue down a path that neglects their responsibility to help students meet high st和ards,德拉赞在新闻稿中说.
整体, graduation rates in Oregon have been on the rise in recent years among all racial 和 ethnic groups 和 socio-economic levels. But proficiency in key subjects measured by state 和 federal st和ardized tests 没有改变.
法利, 副警司, reminded the board that Oregon has among the highest credit requirements for graduation in the U.S. Only Connecticut requires students to earn more credits in order to graduate.
“我们和全国其他州一样严格，一样具有挑战性, 在信用要求方面更是如此,他说.
“On the surface, it looks like a good idea,” 法利 said of the requirement. “It looks like a good idea to make sure that students are meeting a proficiency expectation. Again, that’s something we’ll know about the students if they took our state assessment anyway.”
Dembrow agrees with Cramer that more vigorous public debate should have occurred before the board voted to suspend the requirement, but he said some critics of the decision are motivated by an unfounded belief that schools 和 teachers are simply passing students grade-to-grade with little effort or expectation.
“I think there’s an assumption here that teachers are just graduating students, who don’t have the necessary competencies 和 I don’t know what the justification is for that,德布罗说.
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