Our Schools

Restore Sanity to Oregon Schools

We should demand excellence from Oregon’s public schools. The first step is to stop shutting parents out of the process. We must pass a common-sense Parental Bill of Rights. Such a bill would codify the rights of parents to know what their children are being taught, to address concerns to school boards and educators, to know details of the budget and spending, to protect their children’s privacy, and to know how the school keeps their children safe.
Oregon passed several educational freedom laws more than a decade ago, which were signed into law by Governor John Kitzhaber. Since that time, some legislators have attempted to chip away at those laws. Instead of limiting school choice, we should work together to expand educational freedom for families to seek affordable options when their neighborhood public schools fail them.
By demanding excellence, we expect our students to do their best to achieve their full potential. Oregon recently watered down high school graduation standards. This is exactly backward. We must restore and strengthen those standards, demanding excellence in the school curriculum and its execution by the local school administration and educators. In the same vein, we should ban DEI at all levels of education, which is nothing more than racial discrimination with a wonky-sounding name. Such discrimination has no place in America.