Held to answer

In a worst-case scenario, the Portland Public Schools bond will pass in November, and almost a half-billion dollars will buy no substantive change in education.

The bond calls for modernizing three high schools and a middle school, upgrading middle school science labs and seismically retrofitting 14 schools – all worthy endeavors.

But given Portland’s low graduation rate, and what’s been called the hollowing out of America’s workforce, is the bond forward thinking? Or is it propping up a school system that needs a lot more than natural light, natural air and seismic retrofitting?

Whatever you’ve read or heard about how to improve education, in Portland, many speakers at the school board endorsing the bond fell back on natural air and light.

Even Kevin Truong eventually mentioned natural light. This young man, who will be student body president at Benson Polytechnic High in the fall, was one of two students — and one of the smartest and most engaged participants — of the 35-member Long-Range Facilities Plan Committee. (The school district should have called it the Gang of 35, but that might have attracted too much attention).

When the Portland school board recently moved ahead with a $482 million bond for the November ballot, it cited the work of this committee (hand-picked by school officials). After seven meetings, orchestrated and overseen by school district staff, the committee recommended the bond proposal.

Truong stood out early at these meetings.

“If we invest more (in buildings) will there be any benefit to our students?” he asked at the January meeting held at Jefferson High School.

He offered suggestions like selling off school properties that are underused. Vancouver has been doing that, he said.

He also noted that in Vancouver when the district presents bonds, it uses the good schools as a selling point. (This idea was instantly rejected by one of the adults who didn’t think focusing on high-achieving schools was a good idea. What does that say about Portland?)

Truong would press on even if his ideas weren’t popular. When some committee members entertained grand visions of Portland’s future schools, Truong splashed some cold-water reality into the conversation by noting that schools could have a 1950s style and still have 21st Century knowledge “because of the teachers.”

While other committee members kept revisiting the quality of classroom air and light, Truong suggested that schools partner with auto mechanics to teach automotive skills and have students intern with construction workers to learn about the building trades.

After the committee completed its meetings, the bond proposal moved to the school board. In public hearings there, many of the committee members reappeared and cheered on the bond. Last week, even Kevin Truong was citing the positive effects of natural light.

“He’s been water-boarded,” joked a woman who follows school board meetings.

No, Truong had been mentored. A member of the Gang of 35 took Truong under his wing and molded him into conforming. A teaching moment: This is how politics works.

As it turned out, only one speaker out of about 30 opposed the bond. He was also the only one in the audience wearing dreadlocks and the only one who spoke with any passion.

Taylor Marrow, who teaches African-American history at Chemeketa Community College in Salem and whose children attend Portland schools, told the school board that he grew up in Princeton, N.J.

“I know a good school system,” he said, and the Portland school district “lacks every single thing” that a good system has.

“My kids will be fine. I have been educated,” he added. But his kids are surrounded by children who are struggling. Portland’s approach to equity, Marrow said, is to bring in someone to talk about African dance.

Marrow was sandwiched in among all the speakers in favor of the bond, and board members did not specifically address his comments (although board Chairman Martin Gonzales made a point of thanking him for his input after Marrow had left).

There was one quiet dissenter, who has become part of the scenery at school board meetings.

If you’ve been to any Portland Public School board meetings in the past year, you would have seen him. He sets up a chair to the side or to the rear of the audience and throughout the meeting displays several large placards with messages such as: “Expand Mandarin & Chinese Immersion” … “Do Not Fund an Outdated Inadequate and Inefficient School System Change It First.”

This man is Dave Porter, Harvard grad, Class of 1969. He writes a blog, “Global Strategies” devoted to his areas of concern – foreign language, immersion programs, high school study abroad and online education.

Because most economic growth in the next decades is expected to occur outside the U.S., Porter believes American students must be competitive in language skills to find work in the global economy.

Language skills are easier to acquire at a young age. Anyone who has tried to learn a foreign language as an adult, can appreciate what Porter wrote in an opinion piece in The Oregonian: Parents must remember that “their child is only young once.”

Porter told me that Portland school board members know who he is.

“I email them regularly, usually with the link to something relevant on my blog,” he said. (Let’s hope board members treat him with more respect than Multnomah County Commissioner Jeff Cogen treated Lainie Block Wilker.)

Had the school board asked him, Porter said he probably would have agreed to serve on the Long-Range Facilities Plan Committee.

But they didn’t ask him.

Porter would have been a challenge to mentor.

– Pamela Fitzsimmons

Related:

Failing With Fluffy Words

Helplessness and the Status Quo