In Oregon, just 58% of parents surveyed in 2023 and 2024 provided answers that indicated their child was on track for kindergarten in all or nearly all of the five broad readiness areas. That compared to a national average of 66% and rates of 66% and 69% in neighboring California and Washington respectively.
Oregon has taken a different approach to state funded preschool education than other states. It has opted to prioritize quality over quantity. It spent more per child than any other state – nearly $19,000 in 2023-24, the most recent years for which figures are available. But, partly as a result, it served fewer than 20% of 3- and 4-year-olds that year, or roughly 12,600 children total, ranking it 34th for access among 4-year-olds.
Funding is not the problem in Oregon’s education woes. We spend plenty—vastly more than many states who do better than we do.
Kali Thorne Ladd, CEO of Oregon nonprofit The Children’s Institute, which advocates for young children, agrees Oregon has high quality preschool offerings, both in state-funded programs and in many private sector centers. But she said there is far too little access to them, especially for low- and middle-income families.
“Oregon is not prioritizing … access to quality affordable care for all families in this state,” Thorne Ladd said. “Other states have prioritized that. And they’re having better outcomes.”
I have no idea if this is correct, and I don’t know what the logistics of “prioritizing…access to quality affordable care” looks like. But we’re clearly doing something wrong that other states aren’t.
Being ready for school involves a child’s ability to count and to recognize letter sounds – but also to take turns, follow directions, share, draw a circle, bounce a ball and come up with words that rhyme.
The effort to get a snapshot of kindergarten readiness via the National Survey of Children’s Health has occurred yearly since 2022. Thousands of parents and guardians submit answers about their child with the goal of answering a holistic question: Is the child ready for school?
This sounds more like a failure of parenting than of schools, but what do I know?
Every fall from 2013 through 2019, Oregon asked kindergarten teachers to screen each entering 5-year-old individually to check their knowledge of letter sounds, letter names, math skills such as counting and simple addition and a suite of self control and interpersonal skills such as taking turns, following simple directions and resisting the urge to cut in line.
The findings were not encouraging. The first year, for instance, the typical child arrived knowing just seven letter sounds, and 14% of children couldn’t name a single capital or lower case letter when their teacher pointed to an array of choices. And even as Oregon began modestly expanding high quality free preschool, typical kindergartners’ readiness remained stubbornly unchanged as of 2019.
So why was that? That’s the question that needs to be answered.
But the state discontinued that screening amid the pandemic and hasn’t replaced it, in part because some educators, preschool providers and community-based organizations were concerned it didn’t measure the right mix of skills or was open to teacher bias.
That’s the Oregon Democratic response to education in a nutshell: If it’s not working, don’t study or test it and claim there’s some sort of “bias” that’s been skewing results.
The state has instituted what it calls “family conversations” for a subset of entering kindergartners, a structured opportunity for parents and guardians to tell their 5-year-old’s teacher about the child’s strengths and the family’s hope for the child’s first year in school.
This sounds utterly useless.
But the state has no systemic measure of how prepared Oregon children are from their childhood and preschool experiences when they arrive on the kindergarten threshold.
Well, sure. “Family conversations” are likely unmeasurable, so no accountability is necessary.
Oregon Department of Education spokesperson Liz Merah wrote to The Oregonian/OregonLive, “Instead of asking ‘Is the child ready for kindergarten?’ we should be asking: ‘Is the classroom ready for the child? Are the adults prepared to meet children from diverse experiences and backgrounds? Do systems work cohesively to provide culturally affirming and equitable learning environments where all students can succeed?”
This is a complete misunderstanding of public education. The knowledge that need to be transmitted to the child does not somehow morph. It is the child that needs to change and grow—that’s what learning is!
We should just fire the entire leadership of the Oregon Department of Education.