Oregon has scrapped the requirement that graduating seniors show basic proficiency in reading, writing and math in order to receive a high school diploma. With the passage of Senate Bill 744 last month, the graduating class will not have to demonstrate this minimal competency. A spokesperson for the Governor said she adopted the policy to benefit “Oregon’s black, Latino, Latina, Latinx, Indiginous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color.”
The idea appears to be that, because some minorities “do not test well”, it is better to forever stigmatize their entire graduating class with a second-rate diploma and education experience. The students are potentially missing out on an opportunity to learn. As research reviewed in the Scientific American in 2015 revealed, testing offers an important means of learning. The positive effects of the mental retrieval process involved in preparing for and taking tests has 100 years of research support.
The poor quality and ineffectiveness of the Oregon K-12 school system should not come as a surprise to Oregonians. The US News’ Best States rankings for 2021, place Oregon’s school system quality at a paltry 35 out of 50. Oregon’s Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate (ACGR) of only 80 percent ranks it as 37th, beaten out by Louisiana at 36th.
Graduation rates are well known to be statistically important indicators of student performance and prospects. By this criterion, Whites and Hispanic students have higher ACGR graduation rates than Blacks, at 81.3, 76.2, and 70.0 percent, respectively. All three rates are exceeded by Asians with a graduation rate of 92.0 percent.
The performance of Asian students inconveniently belies the common woke claim that minorities’ performance and opportunities have been uniformly held back by some sort of racism instituted by the "privileged class" of Oregon society. If this were so, then Asians’ consistent outperformance of Whites would not be observed. The fact that such disparate performance is observed in the same school system suggests that other forces may be at work to make the school experience nadequately responsive to student differences.
On the student side, the disparate performance can arise from family or other background influences that vary by student. But it may also be the case that the school system is overly homogenous in its curriculum, teaching methods, or in other structural ways. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Oregon school system proved itself to be blatantly and obviously unable to adjust to a different set of circumstances. Meanwhile the parochial and private schools largely remained open and functional.
Policies like SB 744, are just ruses to paper over Oregon public school failings. Oregon should, instead, encourage more flexibility in the provision of K-12 education services. This would obviate the need for neo-racism programs to create the illusion of caring for the students.
The Netherlands, with its much more diverse population than Oregon provides a useful model. The Netherlands allows largely unrestricted entry of private and parochial schools. Most are supported by capitation payments made by the State. They are free to implement their own curricula and teaching methods. Consistency is maintained only by proscribing certain minimum school sizes, compulsory “core” subjects, and by testing learning outcomes on those core subjects. The Netherlands has schools run by government, too. But the private competition sets the pace for the whole system.
It is clear that diversity of providers is a successful model. Two-thirds of Dutch schools were privately run in 2009. Their PISA score is consistently higher than Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Australia, Norway, and the United States. Instead of moving the goal posts via such things SB 744, Oregon should advance real reform. That starts by allowing unfettered private entry, and letting parents use of the current per-student public payments, pari passu, to pay for a better education for their kids.
