Oregon school funding is complicated. We try to break it down
OPB Story from December 1, 2023 — Excerpt below
Oregon’s two largest school districts say they’re in trouble.
In Portland, a three-week teachers strike brought learning to a halt, as school officials insisted they did not have the money to meet educators’ demands. Meanwhile Salem-Keizer schools say they are bracing for at least $70 million in budget cuts in coming months, as the district attempts to craft a new labor contract of its own.
Announcing those steps earlier this week, Salem-Keizer Superintendent Andrea Castañeda mirrored a complaint made by Portland leaders: She said the state’s system for funding schools is woefully broken.
“Oregon’s state K-12 public education funding system is archaic and inequitable,” she said in a video statement announcing cuts Wednesday.
Lawmakers bristled in early November when Portland school officials blamed threadbare state funding for the district’s labor woes. After all, they’d just passed a budget that included much of what school districts had demanded.
But now it appears the state is in for a reckoning.
