Tag Archives: Portland Public Schools

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Oregon High School NIL Contracts: A Black Hole

Trouble is brewing in Oregon’s high school sports.

Late last year I asked Portland Public Schools for access to all Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) contracts signed by students in the district that have been disclosed to member schools.

“In discussion with staff, I understand that we didn’t identify records of any NIL agreements being shared by students, and I understand we don’t have a formal process to capture this information,” Ryan Vandehey, Public Records Officer and Media Relations Representative with the District, replied initially. “If you’re only looking for copies of agreements, then I think the answer is that we don’t have any records.”

He later added, “I understand from staff that we don’t have any formal process to recognize or collect such agreements, and informally staff could not recall any. It’s possible that a student has such an agreement and either hasn’t shared it with staff or only shared it with school-level staff, but it would take some digging to find that out.”

The fact is, there’s no requirement in Oregon for such contracts to be filed with high schools or for them to be subject to public records requests.

It’s not just Oregon’s college athletes who are reaping financial rewards from the personal branding now allowed in name, image and likeness, or NIL, deals. Some Oregon high school students are on the gravy train, too.

The consequences could be significant ……and worrying.

Just a few years ago, many high schools were hostile to the college NIL option slipping down to the high school level.

“Coaches’ jobs would be impacted dramatically by a policy permitting NIL payments,” noted a 2021 article on the  National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) website. “Between teaching their sports’ fundamentals and nuances, scouting opponents, organizing effective game plans and managing different personalities and priorities to get players striving toward a common goal, coaches must have a firm grasp on a variety of moving parts to be successful. The presence of a single NIL contract within a team dynamic has the potential to affect the attitude and playing style of every player on the team, making each aspect of coaching significantly more difficult to control.”

“It’s certainly not something that any coach is going to be happy to deal with,” said John Holecek, head football coach at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Illinois. “It’s a complete change, and kids aren’t mature enough to handle it for the most part. Hopefully, that won’t be the case, but you would think there’s going to be some tough situations out there for coaches to deal with.”

Notwithstanding such concerns, Oregon joined the high school money rush on October 10, 2022, when the Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) adopted NIL rules for high school athletes.[1]

Two Portland-area high school athletes, Jackson Shelstad , a basketball player at West Linn High School , and Sofia Bell, a  basketball player  at Jesuit High School, were the first to take advantage of the new NIL rules in October 2022 when they signed with Portland Gear owner Marcus Harvey to promote his brand. 

As of Sept. 2024, this is what the high school NIL picture looked like across the country, according to Opendorse, used by brands, schools, fans, sponsors and collectives to help athletes build and monetize their name, image and likeness.

With every state and the District of Columbia having their own rules, it’s now really the wild west out there in high school NIL-land. 

HuskerMax, a website that covers University of Nebraska sports, notes that allowing high school athletes to earn NIL money “opens up the potential of leveraging NIL as a recruiting tactic”. An NIL collective, for example, “could offer an NIL deal to a highly rated high school prospect with the undertones that signing with the college team would increase or lengthen the payout”. 

“…that’s what’s happening behind the scenes at every college and with every NIL Collective.,” HuskerMax says. 

“Loopholes abound, says HuskerMax. “If you’re a big-time recruit, get an agent and a lawyer ASAP.”

The NIL game can also divert the attention of high school athletes by pressing them to be more active on social media, a distraction with potential negative implications. After all, high-profile athletes need to do more than be standout players to attract attention. They can, for example, sign deals with brands to promote their products on their social media channels, get paid to share their training routines and design and sell custom merchandise like jerseys and posters.

But maintaining an aggressive social media presence is demanding and can become a job in itself. It can also pressure high school athletes, many of whom are still maturing and not yet legal adults, to adopt a persona that may not be consistent with their true self. 

John E. Johnson, J.D. , a former athletic director at an Overland Park, Kansas high school, cautioned on the website of the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), which promotes high school athletics and activities, that NIL programs at high schools are counterintuitive to the positive traditional notions of education-based athletics. 

High school students with NIL contracts may also come up against a coach’s controls, Johnson wrote.  Under such circumstances, can/will a coach effectively control. 

  • Earned playing time,
  • Fair and deserved discipline of the player if necessary, or
  • Leading the team and community through any resentment of other athletes and families directed at the athlete with an NIL deal.

NIL deals can also spur intense competition between in-state high schools and between states with differing rules.

When I attended a private New England prep school (a long time ago), it was common for the school to poach star athletes from public schools with a post-grad year and a full scholarship offer as inducements. Some public schools also recruited athletic standouts from other districts, encouraging them to live with a relative in the new district to qualify for attendance.

Luring out-of-district and out-of -state athletic stars is still common today.

In 2024, Jada Williams was a senior basketball player at La Jolla Country Day School, a private school in San Diego, California. She was originally from a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, but the state didn’t allow NIL, so she headed West to a state and school where she could capitalize on what she figured was her NIL value. At La Jolla, Williams signed NIL deals with Spalding, Gym Shark and Move Insoles, generating more than six figures a year. 

How many Oregon high schools have students with similar deals? Who knows?

The existence of some high school athletes’ NIL deals in Oregon is clear, but the OSAA rules have a gaping loophole. Students are required to disclose a proposed contract to their school, but the school is not required to keep a copy or make it available for public inspection. Nor is the student required to notify the OSAA of a contract/agreement or provide a copy of the agreement to the organization. 

That means public high schools, public school students and the OSAA can, and do, stymie efforts to seek disclosure of such contracts. 

Such secrecy, particularly at public schools, is trouble waiting to happen.

The Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) can remedy that by requiring that student athletes signing NIL contracts provide copies to their schools and that member schools make any NIL contracts entered into by their students public records.

It’s the right thing to do.

[1] The following is intended to offer guidance to students, parents, and member schools regarding Name, Image and Likeness (NIL).
A student may earn compensation from the use of their Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) provided that: 

  1. (a)  The compensation (or prospective compensation) is not contingent on specific athletic performance or achievement (e.g. financial incentives based on points scored) 
  2. (b)  The compensation (or prospective compensation) is not provided as an inducement to attend a particular member school or to remain enrolled at a particular member school (“Undue Influence”). 
  3. (c)  The compensation (or prospective compensation) is not provided by the member school or an agent of the member school (e.g. school booster club, foundation, employee, etc.) 
  4. (d)  The student-athlete discloses any proposed agreement/contract to the member school at which the student is enrolled and/or participating. 

In seeking compensation for Name, Image and Likeness (NIL):
(a) The student shall not use OSAA or member school marks, logos, insignias in NIL activities. 

  • (b)  The student shall not wear apparel or equipment which includes OSAA logos or member school markers and/or logos for the purpose of NIL activities. 
  • (c)  The student shall not reference the OSAA or member school name and/or mascot for the purpose of NIL activities. 
  • (d)  The student shall not use a member school’s district facilities and/or equipment for the purpose of NIL activities. 
  • (e)  The student shall not use school practice and/or game film for the purpose of NIL activities. 
  • (f)  The student shall not promote any services and/or products during team activities. 
  • (g)  The student shall not promote activities, services, or products associated with, but not limited to,: 
  • (i)  Adult entertainment products or services; 
  • (ii)  Alcohol, tobacco, nicotine and vaping products; 
  • (iii)  Cannabis products; 
  • (iv)  Controlled dangerous substances; 
  • (v)  Prescription pharmaceuticals; 
  • (vi)  Political parties and/or candidates; 
  • (vii)  Any product illegal for people under 18; 

(viii) Gambling, including sports betting, the lottery, and betting in connection with video 

games, on-line games and mobile devices; (ix) Weapons, firearms, and ammunition. 

The student and their family are encouraged to seek legal counsel and tax advice when considering NIL activity, along with guidance from their member school. 

NOTE: Compliance with these policies does not ensure maintenance of eligibility under the eligibility standards of other high school state activity associations or entities such as, but not limited to, the NCAA, NAIA, NJCAA etc. Students are encouraged to communicate with those organizations to ensure any activity complies with those eligibility standards. 

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Are Oregon Teachers Underpaid ?

When educators from across the Portland Public Schools (PPS) district’s 81 schools began their strike on Nov. 1, they had a lengthy list of demands, with a focus on teacher salaries.

“As costs have risen here, teachers’ salaries haven’t kept up,” the National Education Association asserted in a news release supporting the PPS strike.

Data suggests, however, that Portland’s teachers were actually doing fairly well in comparison with other teachers across the country, though there is no question inflation has eroded their financial position. The same is true of Oregon teachers in general.

During the strike, PPS said the average salary for a Portland teacher was $87,000; the Portland Association of Teachers (PAT) union said it was about $83,000.  Pay can vary widely depending on multiple factors, including amount of education, certifications, additional skills, and the number of years spent in the profession.

PAT also raised concerns about pay for new teachers, with the lowest annual base salary in the district for a teacher with a BA starting at $50,020.

When the strike began, PAT wanted a 23% cost-of-living adjustment over three years; PPS offered about 11%. In the new contract, educators will receive a 14.4% compounded increase over the next three years (6.25% the first year, 4.5% the second and 3% the third) and about half of all educators will also earn a 10.6% bump from yearly step increases.

To get a handle on how all this translates into actual dollars, I asked PPS and PAT for their numbers on the current average and median salaries of educators in the district and what they expect the average and median salaries of teachers will be in the first year of the new contract?

PAT never responded. PPS responded to an initial request with a commitment to provide the data. Repeated follow-ups, however, brought nothing but excuses for the delay. Eventually my entreaties just went into a black hole. So much for public accountability.

In 2018, The Oregonian reported that in 2016-17, the average Oregon teacher made nearly $61,900 a year, higher than the national average of $59,700. Oregon ranked 13th highest for average teacher pay among the 50 states. “Oregon teachers have long been better compensated than most of their peers around the country,” the paper reported. 

In 2023, according to the National Education Association (NEA), the average Oregon teacher made $70,402 a year, higher than the national average of $66,745, and again Oregon ranked 13th highest for average teacher pay among the 50 states.

In other words, Oregon has actually been holding its own in average salaries, although the numbers for starting teacher pay are not as favorable for Oregon.

In 2023, the average salary for a starting teacher in Oregon with a bachelor’s degree and no experience was $40,374 (31st in the US, where the average was $42,844). Under the PPS contract with PAT, the salary for a starting teacher with a bachelor’s degree and no experience in 2023 was $50,020.

Averages, however, can be deceiving. Very high or very low salaries can skew the numbers. Median compensation represents a more accurate picture of how much Portland’s teachers are being paid, but neither PPS nor PAT agreed to provide median salary numbers.

The Oregon Center for Public Policy, a progressive economic research organization, argues that Oregon public school teachers are underpaid by about 22%. Even after accounting for the more generous benefits earned by public school teachers, the Center claims Oregon public school teachers are underpaid by about 9%. 

But the analysis is not based on compensation for other teachers. Rather, the Center claims Oregon teachers are underpaid “relative to comparable private-sector workers (in Oregon)…with similar levels of education and experience”.  The claim that public-school teachers endure a salary penalty with this comparison is dubious.

Less dubious was PAT’s assertion before the strike that recent inflation has eroded teachers’ wage gains over time. 

In an annual report that ranked and analyzed teacher salaries by state, the NEA estimated that the national average teacher salary for the 2021-22 school year was $66,397 — a 1.7 percent increase from the previous year. But when adjusted for inflation, the average teacher salary actually decreased by an estimated 3.9 percent over the last decade. 

In other words, teachers were making $2,179 less, on average, than they did 10 years earlier when the salaries are adjusted for inflation. A similar NEA report issued in 2023 concluded that teachers made on average $3,644 less than they did 10 years ago, adjusted for inflation.

However, comparing over a longer period, the average Oregon teacher’s salary in 1970 was $8,818. Inflation adjusted, that figure would have been $66,509.99 in 2022. In other words, although there has been a decrease in inflation-adjusted pay in recent years, average teacher salaries in Oregon have kept up with inflation over the long term. 

 

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Portland’s Striking Teachers and Their Union Leaders are at Escalating Risk of Losing Public Support.

 Portland, Oregon, long a bastion of anything-goes progressivism, can’t take this strike much longer. 

 Facts are stubborn things. A city still recovering from the pandemic, buffeted by economic uncertainty and battered by homelessness, proliferating graffiti, rampant drug use and crime, simply can’t afford to keep its kids home.

The union says it’s fighting for the children, but they will have missed 14 days of classes by Thanksgiving and may miss more. 

This in a district which is already struggling with high rates of student absenteeism. In the 2022-2023 school year, 36.4% of the district’s students were “chronically absent”, absent for more than 10% of the academic year. Chronic absentee rates were 52.9% for Black/African American students, 48% for Hispanic/Latino students, 66.1% for American Indian/Alaska Native students, 59.9% for Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, 31.4% for white students and 22.7% for Asian students.

“The fact that absenteeism has gone up is the biggest issue right now and has been overlooked,” says the Lewis-Sebring Director of the UChicago Consortium on School Research, Elaine Allensworth. “People keep focusing on the test scores, but our research shows over and over again that student attendance is an incredibly strong predictor of pretty much every outcome you care about: High school graduation, college ready, college enrollment, college graduation. It’s vital that students actually come to school every day.”

And then there’s the performance of Portland Public Schools kids on state subject competency tests, likely already exacerbated by high absenteeism. Although mostly better than statewide results, they are still disappointing, often showing declining scores as children move through the system. 

At Portland’s elementary schools, for example, 56% of tested students met or exceeded state standards in math in the 3rd grade in 2023, while just 40% met or exceeded state standards in the 8thth grade, 55% met or exceeded English standards in the 3rd grade compared with 54% in the 8th grade and 44% met the standards in science in the 5th grade versus 38% in the 8th grade. 

At the district’s high schools, just 27% of 11th graders met or exceeded state standards in Math, 50% met or exceeded the standards in English and 39% met or exceeded the standards in science.

Of course, all this probably matters less now that the State Board of Education unanimously voted to extend the 2021 law that paused a requirement that Oregon students show proficiency in Essential Learning Skills in order to graduate.

The District’s teachers also need to confront a public perception that a massive amount of money is already being plowed into the troubled system. 

Taxpayers are already spending an astronomical amount to support Portland Public Schools, as I pointed earlier this year in The Cost of Sending Kids to Portland Public Schools is More Than You Think, a Lot More. The commonly used number for spending per student is $15,000, but that’s actually way off. All funds available to the District in the 2022-23 school year totaled $1.9 billion. Divide that by 41,470 students and per student expenditures came out to $45,533.

And that was more than the District spent per student in the 2021-22 school year, even though the number of students served declined. In the fall of 2021, the District enrolled 45,005 students in grades K-12, a decrease of 1,932 students from fall 2020. The net loss was even greater than the previous year’s loss of 1,716 students.

A recent “Portland Public Schools Enrollment Forecast” by Portland State University’s Population Research Center projected that the District’s enrollment will likely continue to fall throughout most of the forecast’s horizon, declining to a low of 39,123 in 2035-36. 

How can the union expect spending to keep increasing in the face of enrollment declines.  

Portland residents also aren’t likely to look more favorably on higher taxes or fees to help the district as the strike continues.  Portland’s income tax rate of 14.7% for earners is already second only to New York City, largely because of resident’s previous misguided willingness to support innumerable feel-good programs. Portland’s rate is even more punitive when you consider that an individual hits that high earner mark in Portland at $125,000, while a New York taxpayer would have to earn $25 million.

The Portland Metro Chamber recently noted that total taxes paid by businesses located in the City of Portland increased by about one-third, or from $781 million to $1.031 billion, just from 2019 to 2021, according to calculations by the global tax consultancy Ernst & Young.

Key changes during that three-year period, included implementation of a gross receipts tax for the Portland Clean Energy Fund, a property tax to fund city parks, a rate increase in the Multnomah County business tax, an income tax to support Preschool for All (paid in part by sole proprietors), property taxes for Multnomah County library renovations, and new business and personal taxes associated with Metro’s Supportive Housing Services measure.

The Preschool for All program, for example, is funded by a personal income tax based on the following thresholds:

  • Single taxpayers. All Oregon taxable income over $125,000 is taxed at 1.5%. All income above $250,000 is taxed at 3%. In 2026, the tax rate increases by 0.8%
  • Joint filers. All Oregon taxable income over $200,000 is taxed at 1.5%. All income above $400,000 is taxed at 3%. In 2026, the tax rate increases by 0.8%.

“Portland’s higher level of business taxation dates to the enactment of corporate income taxes levied by the City of Portland and Multnomah County in 1981,” the Chamber said. “ These local-level business income taxes are not common in other cities across the U.S.”

If the Portland Association of Teachers hopes to come out of this with continuing public support, teachers need to get back too work and kids need to get back in class. Parent and student patience is not inexhaustible. 

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Lars Larson Got It Wrong On Portland Public Schools


Conservative radio host Lars Larsen missed the mark.

In an Oct. 24 column about the impending strike by Portland Public School teachers, Larson said the district “… spends 15-thousand bucks, per student, per year.” 

He’s off by a mile.

I’m not surprised, though, that he used the $15,000 figure. That number is frequently cited in news stories. It is also close to the number put out by the National Center for Education Statistics, which estimates the per pupil expenditure in Oregon’s K-12 public schools for 2019-2020 was $14,829.[1]

Earlier this year I asked the Portland Public School District if that number still holds. The district said the average of budgeted per pupil expenditures for next year (2023-2024) is actually $11,000 per student. 

“This represents standardized site services. (teachers, principals, counselors, etc,” the district explained. “It does not include services like transportation, nutrition, SpEd, ESL or other central office supports and operations. “

So, is Larson’s number too high? is $11,000 actually the answer?

Nope. 

Now stay with me. 

“Once you include services like transportation, nutrition, SpEd, English as a Second Language Programs (ESL), other central office supports and operations, from a whole system perspective the budgeted per pupil expenditure number doubles and is closer to $22k/student (this is both GenFund and Special Revenue and does not include bond dollars).,” the District told me.

This is getting confusing. Is $22,000 the final number then?

Nope, again.

It’s not so much a lie as an obfuscation, a deceit.  

A lot of things PPS spends money on are not counted in calculating spending per student. When all spending is thrown into the pot, the spending per student jumps up substantially.

Let’s look at the 2022-2023 school year.

PPS served 41,470 students that year. At $22,000 per student, that would translate to total spending of $912.3 million. But the District’s 2022-2023 budget is actually $1.883 billion.

Why the huge difference?

Put simply, the $22,000 doesn’t take into account all funds that support the District each year. The table below, provided by the District, shows all resources available to the district for the school years 2018-19 through 2022-23. 

This table shows that all funds available to the District in the 2022-23 school year actually totaled $1.9 billion. divide that by 41,470 students and per student expenditures comes out to $45,533. That’s right, $45,533.

And that was more than the District spent per student in the 2021-22 school year, even though the number of students served declined.

In the fall of 2021, the District enrolled 45,005 students in grades K-12, a decrease of 1,932 students from fall 2020. The net loss was even greater than the previous year’s loss of 1,716 students.

A recent “Portland Public Schools Enrollment Forecast” by Portland State University’s Population Research Center projected that the District’s enrollment will likely continue to fall throughout most of the forecast’s horizon, declining to a low of 39,123 in 2035-36.  

In the meantime,  Angela Bonilla, president of the Portland Association of Teachers, is arguing , “We’ve been sounding the alarm to the district for nearly a year in bargaining sessions, but Portland Public Schools management has not been willing to fund what our schools need…”

And the beat goes on.

[1] According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the $14,829 of per student expenditures comprise expenditures for the day-to-day operation of schools and school districts for public elementary and secondary education, including expenditures for staff salaries and benefits, supplies, and purchased services. General administration expenditures and school administration expenditures are also included in current expenditures. 

Expenditures associated with repaying debts and capital outlays (e.g., purchases of land, school construction, and equipment) are excluded from current expenditures. Programs outside the scope of public prekindergarten through grade 12 education, such as community services and adult education, are not included in current expenditures. Payments to private schools and payments to charter schools outside of the school district are also excluded from current expenditures. The Center says researchers generally use current expenditures instead of total expenditures when comparing education spending between states or across districts because current expenditures exclude expenditures for capital outlay, which tend to have dramatic increases and decreases from year to year. Also, many school districts support community services, adult education, private education, and other nonelementary-secondary programs, which are included in total expenditures. These programs and the extent to which they are funded by school districts vary greatly both across and within states and school districts.

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Portland (And Oregon) Public Schools: What the Hell?

I posted a story recently that showed how much money Portland Public Schools is really spending per student.

In April, Willamette Week reported that the National Center for Education Statistics  put the per pupil expenditure in Oregon’s K-12 public schools at $14,829.  

When I sought clarification from Portland Public Schools, the District said its per pupil expenditure is actually  closer to $11,000.

“If you include services like transportation, nutrition, SpEd, English as a Second Language Programs (ESL), other central office supports and operations, from a whole system perspective the budgeted per pupil expenditure number doubles and is closer to $22,000, including both GenFund and Special Revenue, but not bond dollars,” the District said.

But that’s not really the whole story, either. 

In fact, considering all funds available to the District in the 2022-23 school year, totaling $1.9 billion, per student expenditures came out to $45,533.

That’s right, an astounding $45,533 per student for what can only be described as abysmal academic performance by the District’s students.

Where’s the anger?

Look at the situation with all that spending in the 2021-2022 school year:

  • 3rd grade students who failed to meet state grade-level expectations in English Language Arts: 44%
  • 8th grade students who failed to meet state grade-level expectations in mathematics: 62%
  • Students failing to earn a high school diploma within 4 years: 16%
  • Students with chronic absenteeism (in attendance less than 90% of school days): 33.5%

– African Americans chronically absent: 55%

-Hispanic Latino students chronically absent: 48.1%

-American Indian/Alaska Native students chronically absent: 68.8%

-White students chronically absent: 27.1%

-English learners chronically absent: 42.5%

-Grade 12 students chronically absent: 64.7%

And these numbers are for the Portland Public Schools System as a whole. Some individual schools did appreciably worse.

At Cesar Chavez K-8 School, for example, only 17% met state grade level expectations in English Language Arts and only 11% met state grade level expectations in mathematics and science. At Kellogg Middle School, 34% of students met grade level expectations in English Language Arts, 25% met state grade level expectations in mathematics and 18% met state grade level expectations in science.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as The Nation’s Report Card, provides additional information about student achievement and learning experiences in various subjects by state and 27 urban districts. Although the district-specific analyses do not separate out Portland Public Schools, the state reports are illuminating as a supplement to the data noted above. 

NAEP is a congressionally mandated program that is overseen and administered by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), within the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of Education Sciences.

NCES reports results at the state level, most often in grades 4 and 8, in four subjects—mathematics, reading, science, and writing. 

In 1922, NAES tested in mathematics, reading and writing. Oregon students performed poorly in all three areas:

  • Just 28.61% of Oregon 4th graders performed at or above the NAEP Proficient level in mathematics, lower than in 2019.
  • Just 27.99% of Oregon 4th graders performed at or above the NAEP Proficient level in reading, lower than in 2019.
  • Just 22.31% of Oregon 4th graders performed at or above the NAEP Proficient level in writing.
  • Just 22.03% of Oregon 8th graders performed at or above the NAEP Proficient level in mathematics, lower than in 2019.
  • Just 27.79% of Oregon 8th graders performed at or above the NAEP Proficient level in reading, lower than in 2019.
  • Just 33.15% of Oregon 8th graders performed at or above the NAEP Proficient level in writing.

I raise all this not as an act of self-flagellation by a disenchanted Oregonian, but as a concerned citizen. Oregons political and business leaders say they want the state to be a magnet for investment, particularly in technology. With this kind of academic malfeasance, it’s not going to happen. More broadly, we  cannot sustain American freedom and prosperity if the abysmal academic performance of our children, including low-income communities and communities of color, is not righted.

“…gaps between the highest and lowest scoring students, already growing before the pandemic, are widening into chasms,” warns the Brookings Institution, —. “At the pace of recovery we are seeing today, too many students of all races and income levels will graduate in the coming years without the skills and knowledge needed for college and careers.” 

And Oregon and America will pay the price. 

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The Cost of Sending Kids to Portland Public Schools is More Than You Think, a Lot More

How much does Portland Public Schools spend per student?

It’s complicated. 

Is it 14,829? That’s what the National Center for Education Statistics  estimates was the per pupil expenditure in Oregon’s K-12 public schools for 2019-20, their most recent figure.[1]

I asked the district if that number still holds. 

The district said the average of budgeted per pupil expenditures for next year (2023-2024) is $11,000 per student. 

“This represents standardized site services. (teachers, principals, counselors, etc,” the district explained. “It does not include services like transportation, nutrition, SpEd, ESL or other central office supports and operations. “

The district did not clarify further.

So, is $11,000 the answer, then?

Nope. 

“Once you include services like transportation, nutrition, SpEd, English as a Second Language Programs (ESL), other central office supports and operations, from a whole system perspective the budgeted per pupil expenditure number doubles and is closer to $22k/student (this is both GenFund and Special Revenue and does not include bond dollars).,” the District said..

So, is $22,000 the answer, then?

Nope.

It’s not so much a lie as an obfuscation, a deceit, an exercise in willful ignorance. People just don’t want to think about the massive amount of money going to public education that is producing such abysmal academic results.

A lot of things PPS spends money on are not counted in calculating spending per student. When all spending is thrown into the pot, the spending per student jumps up substantially.

Let’s look at the 2022-2023 school year.

PPS served 41,470 students that year. At $22,000 per student, that would translate to total spending of $912.3 million. But the District’s 2022-2023 budget is actually $1.883 billion.

Why the huge difference?

Put simply, the $22,000 doesn’t take into account all funds that support the District each year. The table below, provided boy the District, shows all resources available to the district for the school years 2018-19 through 2022-23.

This table shows that all funds available to the District in the 2022-23 school year actually totaled $1.9 billion. divide that by 41,470 students and per student expenditures comes out to $45,533. That’s right, $45,533.

And that was more than the District spent per student in the 2021-22 school year, even though the number of students served declined.

In the fall 2021, the District enrolled 45,005 students in grades K-12, a decrease of 1,932 students from fall 2020. The net loss was even greater than the previous year’s loss of 1,716 students.

A recent “Portland Public Schools Enrollment Forecast” by Portland State University’s Population Research Center projected that the District’s enrollment will likely continue to fall throughout most of the forecast’s horizon, declining to a low of 39,123 in 2035-36.  

In the meantime, the story will likely be more money for fewer students who are unaware of their rights and obligations as Americans, can’t read, and don’t know how to calculate the square footage of a room, comprehend the ebb and flow of American history or write a coherent and compelling story.

And the beat goes on.

[1] According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the $14,829 of per student expenditures comprise expenditures for the day-to-day operation of schools and school districts for public elementary and secondary education, including expenditures for staff salaries and benefits, supplies, and purchased services. General administration expenditures and school administration expenditures are also included in current expenditures. 

Expenditures associated with repaying debts and capital outlays (e.g., purchases of land, school construction, and equipment) are excluded from current expenditures. Programs outside the scope of public prekindergarten through grade 12 education, such as community services and adult education, are not included in current expenditures. Payments to private schools and payments to charter schools outside of the school district are also excluded from current expenditures. The Center says researchers generally use current expenditures instead of total expenditures when comparing education spending between states or across districts because current expenditures exclude expenditures for capital outlay, which tend to have dramatic increases and decreases from year to year. Also, many school districts support community services, adult education, private education, and other nonelementary-secondary programs, which are included in total expenditures. These programs and the extent to which they are funded by school districts vary greatly both across and within states and school districts.

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Oregon’s Traditional Public Schools Are Cruisin’ For A Bruisin’

Thank goodness for Mississippi.

Only Mississippi lost a larger share of K-12 public school students in the 2022-2023 school year than Oregon. 

Oregon’s public schools have lost 30,000 students since the fall of 2019. lowering total enrollment by 5% to 552,000 students in the fall of 2022.

Ethan Sharygin, director of Portland State University’s Population Research Center, told The Oregonian a switch from public school to private school represents about one-quarter of the “missing” students, many left to be homeschooled and some simply dropped out or weren’t enrolled in kindergarten when they reached the age of 5. Smaller slices of the loss are due to families moving out of state and to a gently declining birth rate.

Portland Public Schools (PPS) have been hit particularly hard by declining enrollment. The PPS website says “…With more than 49,000 students in 81 schools, it is one of the largest school districts in the Pacific Northwest.” But that’s far from reality. 

In the 2022-23 school year, total enrollment was actually  43,023 and a Portland Public Schools Enrollment Forecast 2022-23 to 2036-37, Based on October 2021 Enrollments   projected enrollment will continue to fall throughout most of the forecast horizon, reaching 42,047 in 2025-27, 39,561 in 2031-32 and 39,123 in 2035-36. 

Under a “low growth scenario” enrollment could go down further to 37,350 in 2035-36.  The difference is primarily due to different assumptions about the levels of net migration (the net movement into and out of the District) of the District’s population.          

Every single one of the missing children will represent a loss of revenue to the school district. That’s because Oregon school districts receive (in combined state and local funds) an allocation per student, plus an additional amount for each student enrolled in more costly programs such as Special Education or English Language Learners.

If a departing student shifts to homeschooling, there is no money transfer to families at this point, but the student’s school still loses that student’s funding allocation.

If a student shifts to one of Oregon’s 132 public charter schools, whether a brick-and-mortar institution or an online entity, the money the traditional school got for that student goes to the district sponsoring the charter school. Oregon law then provides that a sponsoring district must pass on to its charter school at least 80 percent of its per-pupil grant for K-8 students and 95 percent of its per pupil grant for grade 9-12 students.

Charter school enrollment in Oregon rose steadily from 1.7 percent of total public school enrollment in 2006-07 to 8.2% (46,275 students) in 2020-2021, then slipped slightly to 7.7% (42,668 students) 2021-2022. Charter school enrollment rose again in the 2022-2023 school year, however, to 11.9% (46,278 students) with 30,578 attending brick-and -mortar schools and 15,700 attending virtual public charter schools.

Right now in Oregon, once a school district has 3% or more of its students enrolled in a virtual public charter school outside the district, it can generally start denying requests. But school choice advocates have been pushing to eliminate that cap. Legislative efforts to remove the cap have failed to date, but that may not hold.

The outflow of students to charters may also accelerate if a movement in Oklahoma is replicated in Oregon. Many parents abandon traditional public schools because they want a more religious-oriented environment for their children. In early June, Oklahoma approved America’s first religious charter school.  The Archdiocese of Oklahoma won approval to launch an online charter school that would embrace Catholic doctrine.

Some advocates of religious schooling have been suggesting that any effort to stop charter schools from being religious is a form of discrimination against religion. Ultimately, this issue will end up in court, perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Another potential problem could come from the increasing public pressure for more school choice. 

The Cascade Policy Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Oregon, is at the forefront of Oregon’s school choice movement. “Oregon’s public schools, largely controlled by teachers’ unions, are a one-size-fits-all system that leaves many students behind,” the Institute argues. “Traditional public schools, charter schools, magnet schools, online learning, private and parochial schools, homeschooling, and tutoring are all paths to success for students. All options should be valued, and parents should be empowered to choose among them to help their children succeed.”

Cascade is particularly enamored of Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), where a percentage of the funds that the state otherwise would spend to educate a student in a public school is deposited into accounts associated with the student’s family. The family may use the funds to spend on private school tuition or other educational expenses. 

There are currently voucher and similar programs in 32 states and the District of Columbia, according to EdChoice, a free-market organization that promotes public money for private education. Voucher programs often are characterized in state legislation as “scholarship programs,” but whatever the name, the policies result in a transfer of public money to private institutions. Some even subsidize home-schooling.

In Arizona, the school choice movement has secured a school voucher program which has exploded since it was signed into law in 2022. 

Arizona’s voucher program allows any child in the state to receive roughly $7,000 each year of their K-12 education while getting instruction at home or attending private school. The Arizona Department of Education recently estimated that enrollment in the program would continue to skyrocket and cost $900 million next year, nearly $300 million more than expected, Public school funding would have to go down to pay for it. 

More students have applied for Iowa’s state-funded education savings accounts than expected as well, meaning the cost of paying for the private school scholarships could exceed what the state budgeted.

As of June 13, 2023, 17,520 applications had been submitted for the program, which will provide eligible families with $7,600 per child in state money to be used solely to pay for private school costs such as tuition and fees. A nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency had earlier  estimated  that 14,068 students would be approved to receive education savings accounts in the program’s first year. Families still have until June 30 to apply for the program, meaning the number of applications is likely to increase further.

Imagine the hit to traditional public school funding if similar programs were enacted in Oregon.

Regardless of the specific school choice options adopted, the prognosis for public school enrollment in Oregon is grim. How Oregon adapts in managing the enrollment decay is going to be a challenge.

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Portland Public Schools: Enrollment Down/Spending Up

Public school enrollment is plunging in Oregon and across the country. The New York Times calls it “a ‘Seismic Hit’ to Public Schools, “supercharged” by the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Enrollment at the country’s public schools have declined by at least 1.2 million students since 2020, according to a recently published national survey.

In 2016, PPS said, “Based on demographic studies conducted by Portland State University, it is anticipated that enrollment will level off at about 54,383 students by the 2030/31 school year under the PSU Medium Growth Scenario .”

Oh well.

Overall enrollment in Oregon has declined by almost 30,000 students since 2019-2020, slipping from 582,661 in 2019-2020 to 553,012 in 2021-2022. Oregon’s experience has generally followed national trends which are showing enrollment losses in city districts and growth in rural, suburban and town districts, according to the Burbio school tracking site. 

Some of the enrollment declines are likely due to parents frustrated with remote schooling, some to frustration with curriculum and “woke” instruction. Declines may also be attributed to economic dislocation of families, a decision that home schooling or charter schools were simply preferable or simply demographic changes. 

Portland Public Schools, the state’s largest district, is seeing the largest enrollment declines. Total enrollment in the district has dropped from 48,559 in the 2019-2020 school year to 45,123 in the 2021-2022 school year. District officials are projecting total enrollment of 41,723 in the next school year, a decline of another 3,400 students.

And yet, the Portland Public Schools budget keeps growing.

On May 24 2022, the Portland Public Schools board passed $1.89 billion budget for the 2022-2023 school year, This compares with a $1.5 billion budget for the 2018-2019 school year, when enrollment totaled 48,677 students, 6,954 more than expected enrollment of 41,723 in 2022-2023.\

Portland Public School central staff has risen 67% since 2017.  Elizabeth Thiel, Portland Association of Teachers President said in The Oregonian, “Since 2017, for example, there has been a 67% increase in the number of academic administrators in the central office. Over the same period, the central office budget has grown twice as fast as what PPS spends on frontline educators and support staff who deal directly with students, based on Portland Association of Teachers’ analysis of PPS’ budget documents.”

On May 25, OPB reported that after the school board’s budget vote, Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero,  board members, teachers, and the few parents remaining at the end of the meeting all agreed on the need to head down to Salem next year to lobby the legislature for more school funding.

More. Ever more.

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Coming to Portland’s book burning party?

bookburning
The Portland (Oregon) Public School board recently voted to prohibit textbooks or classroom materials questioning the mainstream thinking about climate change. The Cascade Policy Institute’s comments on the action, reprinted here, deserve attention.
 
“Resolution No. 5272 is two pages long, but the most chilling part is the final sentence:
 
‘[Portland Public Schools] will abandon the use of any adopted text material that is found to express doubt about the severity of the climate crisis or its root in human activities.’
 
The primary purpose of education is to teach students how to be critical thinkers. Now that the School Board has declared that expressions of doubt about complex scientific topics will be banned, what is the point of going to school?
 
Regardless of the subject we should encourage students to be skeptical. The more questioning the better. They will be poorly prepared for adult living if they spend their childhood years being spoon-fed in schools where skepticism is prohibited.
 
Public education already faces a growing challenge from private schools, online learning, and home-based education. If Resolution 5272 is upheld, Portland Public Schools will give parents one more reason to leave.”