Within 30 days of his appointment, The Oregonian published a story about the schools considered at-risk in Portland. Its scores were lower than the average. Never mind that Kelly has one of the highest Russian-speaking student populations that gets counted in the benchmarks with native English speakers. Let s ignore the socio-economic disadvantages that the Lents community faces compared to the schools that always do well. Let s forget that these students have shown steady, commendable progress for the previous three years.
Nothing can be farther from the truth.
To make matters worse, the lazy legislators, who want to wash their hands of the failure of society, decided to blame the school system for the breakdown in the family structure and voted to use a test score called the benchmark to gauge a successful academic program. This, of course, is a shortcut to thinking. Teachers can only do so much with what they are given. Increased funding, coupled with parent involvement, curriculum revision and other tested remedies increase academic success not short-sighted political solutions to complex social problems. At Kelly, there are teachers that care about their students as if they were their own.