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Compared with other states across the U.S., Oregon’s education spending per pupil places the state roughly in the middle of the pack. And yet the Urban Institute ranks Oregon students last in the nation in fourth grade reading and second to last in eighth grade math.
The state spends roughly $1,000 more per student than the national average, a number boosted by investments in recent years. In the past decade, Oregon has added new streams of education funding: Measure 98 funds efforts to boost high school graduation, and the Legislature has committed millions to early literacy efforts. And one of Oregon’s most controversial taxes, the corporate activity tax passed in 2019, is also tied to education.
As another legislative session nears, discussion has again turned to whether Oregon schools need more funding. The Quality Education Commission, an 11-member panel tasked with determining how much money is needed to fund Oregon’s education system, found in August that it would cost $2.5 billion more just to maintain the status quo in the 2027–29 biennium, and more if the state were to aid districts in new accountability measures put forth by Gov. Tina Kotek. (Kotek also appoints the commission’s members.)
That’s sure to lend momentum to school funding advocates, who have argued the state has long funded its public schools. But as state lawmakers face tough budget decisions in the upcoming cycle, in large part thanks to federal cuts, some incumbents—and their challengers—are asking why more funding has not resulted in better outcomes for students.
We put the question to candidates as they’ve come through our endorsement interviews. Their answers have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
House Majority Leader Ben Bowman (D-Tigard)
“You have 197 school districts who all negotiate their own collective bargaining agreements, who all hire and fire their own superintendents, who all adopt their own curriculum, who all make their own determinations about length of school year, who make their own determinations about class offerings. And I’m not saying we should unwind all of that, but I do think we have gone so heavily toward this ‘do whatever you want’ at the local level. We haven’t gone enough toward ‘every kid deserves a baseline level of quality education, every kid deserves curriculum that is evidence-based and proven to work, every kid deserves a certain number of school days and instructional hours.’ I think this weird obsession with local control is sort of the other side of the accountability coin. What do we want the system to actually guarantee for every kid?”
Rep. Lamar Wise (D-Southeast Portland and Boring)
“One thing I really want to dig in on is making sure that the dollars are going where they need to go. We have over 190 districts, and so I’m looking at, are there ways that we can be sharing services, consolidating those services to make sure that we are spending our money as wisely as possible?”
Andrew Morrison, Republican nominee for Wise’s seat
“I think a huge problem is that we’re taking the full curriculum and pushing it down into the districts from the state level. Set it at the district level. Somebody at Roosevelt High School is going to have very different educational needs than somebody in Burns. I think that curriculum needs to be set at the district level with a committee of students, parents and administrators.”
Michael Sugar, Democrat nominee for District 40 (Oregon City and Gladstone)
“What I notice here in Oregon is we expand and contract so much that we have to spend a tremendous amount of work every year figuring out how we’re going to reorganize staffing and resupport programs. If, for example, you’re losing the German teacher, what are we going to do for all these families who want German? That is an experience that seems to be unusual.”
Brian Schimmel, independent challenging Rep. Susan McLain (D-Forest Grove)
“This system is a travesty, frankly. The whole funding formula that’s largely based on enrollment, what institution has their budget affected real time, current year, based on an enrollment? That is no way for any institution to function.
“I don’t want to start a conversation with ‘we need to add more money.’ We need to evaluate how we’re spending the money we have. When you have piles of unfunded mandates and rules that are taking money away from the classroom into compliance management…we’ve got to recalibrate that so money goes back into the classrooms where quality has a chance.”
