Jennifer Anderson's front page piece on Ron Saxton in today's edition reminds me why I used to eagerly look forward to picking up the latest copy of the the Portland Tribune every Tuesday and Friday.
Lately I've been disappointed with the Trib's predictable lack of substance. I mean, the Tribune, like Willamette Week, is supposed to an alternative to the Oregonian (the B'oregonian to some), not a pale imitation.
Maybe it's just me, but Anderson's last two efforts have been first rate, shedding some much needed light on the local education scene. As with any news story, however, you have to read between the lines to really understand what's happening with the Portland Public School district.
First, today's story is not just about Ron Saxton, a rich guy running for Governor who finagled a way to get his son into Lincoln High School. Not really. It's about school choice and the inequities it promotes. Not just between wealthy and privileged individuals, like Saxton on the one hand, and everybody else on the other, but the two-tiered school system choice inevitably creates.
The key sentence in the article is this:
"The issue is particularly heated today, in the midst of concerns about
the gap between rich schools and poor schools, and the search for
balance between school choice and neighborhood schools."
Unless choice is centralized and limited to secondary schools, as it is in Beaverton, I don't see how choice and neighborhood schools can ever peacefully coexist. As I wrote earlier,
"I look at it like this: you can either have strong neighborhood schools
OR you can have a market-based school choice program. But the two, by
definition, cannot coexist."
Then, the implications in the article are important to note. Martin Gonzalez, whom I supported for school board in 2003 over David Wynde, sees no "...problem with using the system to seek the best educational option for a child." But how do we know that Lincoln is a "better educational option" than other Portland high schools?
We don't, unless you believe in the wisdom of test scores. Aside from its IB program --overrated, but that's a different post-- what we know about Lincoln is that it has good student demographics. We know nothing about the educational experience at Lincoln, or any other school for that matter, because we make no effort to measure it. It makes no sense, therefore, to talk about "better educational options."
If the district had the will, it could provide "good educational options" at all Portland schools. And provide a quality education to all Portland students, rich or poor.
That's what I take from the article.
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