Feb. 28, 2025
What happened: On Feb. 26, the House and Senate education committees held a joint informational hearing about a state-commissioned school finance report that concluded Oregon needs to spend about 30% more per student to boost educational outcomes meaningfully. Such an increase would require billions of dollars in additional revenue.
Spending vs. outcomes: The presentation came only weeks after results of the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress were released. Oregon results for fourth- and eighth-grade math and reading remain among the nation’s lowest, and scores in three of the four tests actually declined since 2022 despite significant increases in K-12 funding.
Urban Institute study: The Urban Institute recalculates NAEP scores for each state to account for variations in student demographics, including poverty, race and native language. The exercise placed Oregon last in both fourth-grade exams, 49th in eighth-grade math and 47th in eighth-grade reading. The organization’s work amplifies the disconnect in Oregon between school finding and test outcomes.
Legislators express skepticism: Given the clear disconnect between funding and student outcomes, two legislators greeted the proposed 30% increase in per-pupil spending with particular skepticism. Here’s what they said:
- Sen Janeen Sollman, D-Hillsboro: “It seems like a very confusing conversation here in that I feel like the conversation says we need more money, but you had more money and you didn’t get the outcomes – but you should still give more money. … I’m hoping we’re going to just narrow this down to how you feel more dollars into the system is going to deliver different results.”
- Sen. Sarah Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis: “I get it. If we spend more, we get more. You spend more money, you maybe get better results. But I think the question that I’m hoping for is, ‘how do we better use the dollars that we have to increase outcomes for all kids?’ And I don’t think the reason that we have bad outcomes is because we have people with disabilities and kids that speak English as a second language and kids that live in poverty in our state.”
Spending in successful states (see chart above): Sollman and Gelser Blouin are right to be skeptical. The bar chart above shows per-pupil spending in the 10 states that fared best in the 2024 NAEP fourth-grade math exam, as calculated by the Urban Institute, compared with per-pupil spending in Oregon, which finished last. The spending numbers, reported by the National Education Association for the 2023-24 school year, have been adjusted to account for cost-of-living differences calculated by the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center. Spending in other states has been adjusted either upward or downward to reflect an Oregon baseline. On a cost-adjusted basis, Oregon already spends more per student than six of the 10 most effective states.