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Most of Oregon is rural and a lot of rural districts are not great. Portland metro has some excellent schools and my daughter's elementary school in PPS is one of those schools. You may have to research school districts and individual schools here more in depth before you make a decision. I have pretty high standards and I can tell you that The Portland area has some awesome teachers.
I get a bit passionate about the quality of education in Oregon
Oregon's educational problem is that Oregon attracts slacker "artists" with slacker kids. Couple that school system encourages too much screwing off under the guise of "critical thinking" and absolutely laughable academic "standards," and you have the poor educational system you see today. Oregon has always been an arts first, science...."what? who cares?" kind of place. There is very little structure or accountability for what a student actually learns.
This is what I saw time and time again in PPS with my 3 kids (elementary age at the time)
Put your name on the paper and jot some random crap down.... C+. My son used to come home and tell us he had no home work and his grades were good. Once he got bad grades, we went in to figure out what the problem was, he had only turned in 40% of his work and was given a 3 or 4. Essentially a C+ or B-. For doing FORTY PERCENT of the total work he was supposed to do... he got a passing grade! That made me livid with PPS! After reading some graded papers it made me even angrier. "Good try, 3/6" was the grade for an essay question that was two sentences... he just put random crap down that and the stupid teacher gave him half credit! When I came home from PTCs I showed my son the graded papers he was supposed to give me. He instantly went into defense mode, thinking we would never see those papers. He knew as well as we did what he had done.
I think Oregon schools problem is this:
Little effort is rewarded only slightly less than great effort
.... the students see this and now it becomes "well if we do less the standard the standard will lower." And magically the kids are right, they just keep lowering the standard. The kids aren't dumb, they know this.
I saw a recent per-algerbra math test for my son, this is in North Clackamas Schools. The question was an algebraic inequality. very simple. My son wrote down x=6. Not only was 6 not even possible, he ended up with x=6 on an inequality, he didn't even look at it. 0 points, right? NOPE! 2/5 with "good try" written next to it. You have got to be kidding me. The test was atrocious! He scored a 52 that was adjusted to 77 after a 25 point curve!!!!! How dumb or lazy are the other kids?
Now comes the real problem.. They go through 2 years of this "nice try, 2/5, 19 point curve, C+" crap and then they take the OAKS standard test where there is no partial credit and of course they bomb the test. They have gotten so use to putting 50% effort into everything that when its pass or fail they obviously fail. They haven't been held to any standard and now they are. It's as simple as that, it really is. Every time they try to make the problem better they make it worse. They inadvertently lower the standard even more or get rid of it entirely thinking because they shadowed a Finnish school program it can work in Oregon. "They don't have standards in Finland, lets follow them!" They also don't have house holds full of single moms with three kids from three different guys and loser boyfriend who wears Tapout shirts and drinks excessively who thinks discipline consists of four letter words and yelling at everyone and everything.
The culture is different! In Finland children are taught from an early age to respect authority,respect elders, speak when spoken to, play when it's time to play learn when its time to learn. I was raised in a "strict" Scandinavian household, and by strict I mean my parents had ground rules and had placed a healthy fear of their authority in me.
In America we teach our kids that they are perfect little angels we coddle them and wrap them in bubble wrap and hang over them like helicopters. If any other adult dare think of correcting their precious child, mommy sweeps in to save them, because our children are all soooooo brilliant, they could never be wrong. American parents never do anything meaningful to discipline a child. We live in the day where a child must never be touched is a "harmful" manner and the punishments I got would now have people calling cps. Kids don't fear the authority of adults any longer... Especially not school teachers. Kids walk all over school teachers just like they walk all over their parents. Kids have gotten smart enough to put their parents against their teachers to get what they want, when historically parents and teachers have worked together to get what they want out of the children.
Now teachers just bow to the every want and will of the student just to appease the students parents. They say "hey johnny good job, partial credit, no failing for you, your a smart precious child who can do no wrong, C+ great work." Then when it comes time to test, the children havent learned anything so of course they do bad. Then that leaves conservatives blaming teachers unions and liberals blame standardized testing and parents blame idiot hack teachers and teachers blame uninvolved parents and crappy administration. And every one is correct because everyone is at fault. Society in Oregon...the nation really, is at fault for the state of Oregon's education system. It's never ending cycle of lowering standards and misplacing blame and never solving the problem.
If any of you think Oregon has a good education system, I'd like to see what you consider a bad education system.
12-19-2014, 08:33 PM
i7pXFLbhE3gq
n/a posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by AndyAMG
I get a bit passionate about the quality of education in Oregon
Oregon's educational problem is that Oregon attracts slacker "artists" with slacker kids. Couple that school system encourages too much screwing off under the guise of "critical thinking" and absolutely laughable academic "standards," and you have the poor educational system you see today. Oregon has always been an arts first, science...."what? who cares?" kind of place. There is very little structure or accountability for what a student actually learns.
This is what I saw time and time again in PPS with my 3 kids (elementary age at the time)
Put your name on the paper and jot some random crap down.... C+. My son used to come home and tell us he had no home work and his grades were good. Once he got bad grades, we went in to figure out what the problem was, he had only turned in 40% of his work and was given a 3 or 4. Essentially a C+ or B-. For doing FORTY PERCENT of the total work he was supposed to do... he got a passing grade! That made me livid with PPS! After reading some graded papers it made me even angrier. "Good try, 3/6" was the grade for an essay question that was two sentences... he just put random crap down that and the stupid teacher gave him half credit! When I came home from PTCs I showed my son the graded papers he was supposed to give me. He instantly went into defense mode, thinking we would never see those papers. He knew as well as we did what he had done.
I think Oregon schools problem is this:
Little effort is rewarded only slightly less than great effort
.... the students see this and now it becomes "well if we do less the standard the standard will lower." And magically the kids are right, they just keep lowering the standard. The kids aren't dumb, they know this.
I saw a recent per-algerbra math test for my son, this is in North Clackamas Schools. The question was an algebraic inequality. very simple. My son wrote down x=6. Not only was 6 not even possible, he ended up with x=6 on an inequality, he didn't even look at it. 0 points, right? NOPE! 2/5 with "good try" written next to it. You have got to be kidding me. The test was atrocious! He scored a 52 that was adjusted to 77 after a 25 point curve!!!!! How dumb or lazy are the other kids?
Now comes the real problem.. They go through 2 years of this "nice try, 2/5, 19 point curve, C+" crap and then they take the OAKS standard test where there is no partial credit and of course they bomb the test. They have gotten so use to putting 50% effort into everything that when its pass or fail they obviously fail. They haven't been held to any standard and now they are. It's as simple as that, it really is. Every time they try to make the problem better they make it worse. They inadvertently lower the standard even more or get rid of it entirely thinking because they shadowed a Finnish school program it can work in Oregon. "They don't have standards in Finland, lets follow them!" They also don't have house holds full of single moms with three kids from three different guys and loser boyfriend who wears Tapout shirts and drinks excessively who thinks discipline consists of four letter words and yelling at everyone and everything.
The culture is different! In Finland children are taught from an early age to respect authority,respect elders, speak when spoken to, play when it's time to play learn when its time to learn. I was raised in a "strict" Scandinavian household, and by strict I mean my parents had ground rules and had placed a healthy fear of their authority in me.
In America we teach our kids that they are perfect little angels we coddle them and wrap them in bubble wrap and hang over them like helicopters. If any other adult dare think of correcting their precious child, mommy sweeps in to save them, because our children are all soooooo brilliant, they could never be wrong. American parents never do anything meaningful to discipline a child. We live in the day where a child must never be touched is a "harmful" manner and the punishments I got would now have people calling cps. Kids don't fear the authority of adults any longer... Especially not school teachers. Kids walk all over school teachers just like they walk all over their parents. Kids have gotten smart enough to put their parents against their teachers to get what they want, when historically parents and teachers have worked together to get what they want out of the children.
Now teachers just bow to the every want and will of the student just to appease the students parents. They say "hey johnny good job, partial credit, no failing for you, your a smart precious child who can do no wrong, C+ great work." Then when it comes time to test, the children havent learned anything so of course they do bad. Then that leaves conservatives blaming teachers unions and liberals blame standardized testing and parents blame idiot hack teachers and teachers blame uninvolved parents and crappy administration. And every one is correct because everyone is at fault. Society in Oregon...the nation really, is at fault for the state of Oregon's education system. It's never ending cycle of lowering standards and misplacing blame and never solving the problem.
If any of you think Oregon has a good education system, I'd like to see what you consider a bad education system.
I can't help but think the vast majority of the blame deserves to go to squarely on parents who think every kid deserves a trophy.
Teachers and school administrators have been beaten down by the neverending onslaught of parents who parade in to whine that Jonny's self esteem got hurt because he didn't get an A+ for being wrong.
It doesn't help that teachers are paid crap, either. Why would a qualified person accept 60+% less than they could make in the private world?
The rankings that I mention are from the Gov't national school rankings. I was researching to see if the schools have gotten any better and came across 2013's results via Oregon Live. I would like to put my children in public school but I dont think it will happen as long as we live in Oregon. Until then, I will shell out $1500/ month for a terrific private school. I love where they are at and the fact that they are not being taught with Common core but it is a lot of money.
You are letting facts and rational thinking sway your opinion. That is so anti Portland.
Basically, it comes down to one word; ideology. But that is another topic.
The scores are definitely low but could be much worse. Thankfully, there is a tech industry in the area which attracts outside talent who take education seriously. The end result is their children's scores prop up the dismal and failure of the Oregon school system.
If you want your child to succeed, you will need supplemental education outside the classroom. With modern technology and internet, it is easily obtainable.
Oregon public schools were ranked 43rd overall in results and they were the WORST in Math and second worst in Reading!
What is the deal?
I can't speak to elementary, middle and high school, but the lack of an Oregon university in the Top 100 of the USNWR rankings is caused by drastic under-funding. I read somewhere that Oregon/Oregon State get like 70% of the funding from the state that most liberal arts/land grant pairs get in other states (i.e. Washington/Washington State, Virginia/Virginia Tech, Texas/Texas A&M, etc.)
I can't speak to elementary, middle and high school, but the lack of an Oregon university in the Top 100 of the USNWR rankings is caused by drastic under-funding. I read somewhere that Oregon/Oregon State get like 70% of the funding from the state that most liberal arts/land grant pairs get in other states (i.e. Washington/Washington State, Virginia/Virginia Tech, Texas/Texas A&M, etc.)
Yes, we need a top tier university but good luck with that! I am already talking to my oldest about going out of state for university studies.
12-20-2014, 09:39 PM
i7pXFLbhE3gq
n/a posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by VTHokieFan
I can't speak to elementary, middle and high school, but the lack of an Oregon university in the Top 100 of the USNWR rankings is caused by drastic under-funding. I read somewhere that Oregon/Oregon State get like 70% of the funding from the state that most liberal arts/land grant pairs get in other states (i.e. Washington/Washington State, Virginia/Virginia Tech, Texas/Texas A&M, etc.)
We're not headed in the right direction, either.
From 2008 - 2012, Oregon cut per student funding by nearly half. That's a larger cut than every other state except Arizona, and about double the average cut seen across the US.
From 2008 - 2012, Oregon cut per student funding by nearly half. That's a larger cut than every other state except Arizona, and about double the average cut seen across the US.
That is something we should be working to reverse, though I understand that during that time we were faced with some serious losses in this state and money needed to be cut from everything, and unfortunately our education system took a huge hit from it.
As for needing a top-tier school, the problem with college ranking systems is it is often times based on what kinds of programs the schools offer and in the case of Oregon colleges had their programs divided out so that there weren't duplicate programs. For Oregon, one would need to look at all the colleges together to get an idea of how the colleges should rank.
Though if one wants a top-tier college and wants to stay in the Northwest, University of Washington is always a great school, and of course there are a number of great top-tier colleges in California for those that want to stay on the West Coast.
Plus, Oregon doesn't have any problem with luring people with college degrees to move here.
We recently moved to Portland and I have a child in a highly regarded middle school and a highly regarded elementary school on the west side. I read all about the ranking of Oregon schools when I got here but I really wasn't concerned because of the reputations and Great Schools rankings of the schools that my kids would be attending.
So this is the 4th state that my kids have lived in/gone to school in. We have been in Connecticut, Florida and California. I can't speak about Connecticut as my kids attended Catholic schools there.....but compared to Florida and California, both schools that my kids attend are dismal.
My 5th grader does not have ANY weekly tests for math or spelling. He has daily homework which is not even graded for completion. Since the beginning of school he has had only 3 tests.....they were all assessment tests. He has monthly projects in the form writing assignments and weekly reading assignment, math a few times a week. Is there any incentive to do it? Not really, since no tests will be given and it is not graded. Of course, I make my son do it.......but that really isn't the point.
In both California and Florida, homework was graded nightly and an email would come to with the graded results. Weekly spelling tests and math tests were the norm.
For 5th grade there isn't a grade given. A student can receive Exceeds, Meets or Below standards. When I asked the teacher how the "grades" are determined, I was told that it is "subjective." WTF??? Subjective grading?
My 8th grader has had only one science test this year. She is very concerned and worries that she won't be prepared for high school. When an 8th grader is concerned that she isn't learning anything........there is a problem!
Anyway, I am really disappointed so far. The school atmosphere is wonderful and the teachers are all lovely but I really don't feel that my kids are being prepared academically.
Last thing......the school day is too damn short and the kids in elementary school need daily PE.
Time to talk to the teacher and/or the school principal.
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