The five root causes of Portland’s school budget mess
So, this morning, we read that the Portland School District has eliminated funding for the equivalent of 250 teachers, classroom aides, counselors and librarians.
As a journalist with degrees in political science and sociology, I often find myself irresistibly drawn to interpreting political acts through a sociopolitical lens.
Here then,are the root causes that led to this unfortunate cut:
*Measure 5. That datardly 1990 law severely limited property tax authority of local governments, and set in motion a scheme that found the state as the main distributor of funds to schools.
*The Urban Growth Boundary. Although blessed, this has condensed housing sizes in the city and encouraged growing young families to move out of the city and the school district;
*The welcome yet impactful gentrification of smart and hip intown areas by those less likely to have children of school age: wealthy Californians, gays, young attorneys, and those who bailed before the tech boom went bust.
*Statewide decline in the natural resource extraction economy, which has led to an increasingly polarized electorate. This phenomenon, in turn, has borne the rise of conservative politicians who detest taxes and public schools.
*The growth of home schooling as a choice by culturally conservative parents who, confused and dismayed by what they observe in the broader culture, has had an effect on local school enrollment- causing some local elementary schools to close.
And,the longer all these causes cycle in the sociopolitical body of our city and state,the more the impactful ripple effect. Parents with kids of school age either dig in for private academy tuition, go to the suburbs where larger lots are available, or even cross the river into Clark County. When they leave our city, they change where they vote as well.
But no question as to whether Portland Public Schools spends money wisely?
Some of your points don’t make sense to me.
Please elaborate on how the urban growth boundary encourages young families to leave the city.
How does having more folks in with more money and no kids = less money for schools? Those folks pay property and income taxes at higher rates and don’t drain the system as much because they don’t have kids.
Home schooling is such a small percentage of the population, can you really justify it being in a top 5 root causes list?
Russ, I’d also disagree with your inclusion of homeschooling as one of five reasons why parents who live in Portland proper choose to pull their children out of PPS.
I want to know why it’s only “culturally conservative” home-schoolers that are a problem, since they aren’t the only home-schoolers.