Redesign with no solutions in mind

Change can be difficult, but change is generally inevitable. And in certain areas, like education, change has to follow the times. In Portland Public Schools, it’s time to reform.

Low enrollment rates, lack of funding and a high achievement gap are just some reasons for the need to reform Portland’s public schools, however, solutions right now for solving the problems have been vague.

A 10-page redesign proposal, available for viewing on the PPS Web site, lists the reasons for redesign with proposed resolutions. Though a resolution is all it is. There is no list of actions or steps on how PPS intends to bring these resolutions to life.

It seems that the biggest controversy surrounding the reform is the need to possibly close a couple of schools. The district recognizes that there are too many campuses open for its 11,000 students. Knowing that the community would be strongly against the idea, the solution seems to be to turn two or three schools into “focus” schools like Benson Polytechnic High School. Contributing to the vagueness, however, there is no mention on what these focus schools intend to focus on.

But do focus schools really solve the problem to begin with? A liberal transfer policy allows students to choose another neighboring school if their current school falls below adequate yearly progress ratings (aka the No Child Left Behind Act), which measure a school’s ability to have students meet certain academic standards. If a school doesn’t meet these standards, a student has the right to transfer to a neighboring school that does and that student’s funding follows. Focus schools take nothing but transfer students. If transferring students is a contributing factor in the lack of funding and lower enrollment in some of Portland’s schools, adding more focus schools doesn’t seem like the best remedy.

Wanting to appeal to the community is ideal in any reformation decision, but you can’t make everyone happy all the time. In facing such issues as low enrollment and lack of funding, the best solution, albeit not a popular one, is the closure of one or two schools. Trying to appease everyone defeats the purpose of change.

The PPS community might understand the need to close one or two schools if the school district laid the facts out in black and white. This has been a never-ending problem throughout the years—the lack of communication between the school board and the community.

In any case, the redesign is and continues to be controversial and contradictory. The only thing both sides can agree on is that change needs to happen, but no side can agree on what the best solution is. If the redesign proposal wasn’t so vague to begin with, maybe that wouldn’t be the case.