The district s longstanding status as a star of city education is more than a little tarnished these days. A decade-long funding crisis forced the Northwest s largest district to switch from a paring knife to a machete as it hacked away at programs and services year after year. Dozens of midlevel administrators got pink slips. By 1996, the cuts reached the classroom. Today, most Portland schools are running bare-bones programs bereft of art, music, and drama, with deep cutbacks in PE and world languages.
Classes are big.
Choices are few. But this is where Portland s story veers away from the history of other cities. Parents are ponying up thousands of dollars in donations to keep class sizes from bloating. The donations are shared with other schools, as well. This wellspring of energy and money on behalf of schools is tied to the Northwest s ferocious commitment to livability, many observers say.