Bombshell Report Highlights the Dishonesty, Plagiarism, and Manipulation by Oregon Dept of Education
This obviously has state-wide implications, but you can see exactly how it has impacted Salem-Keizer Public Schools
I won’t bury the lead here — a joint report by Save Oregon Schools (SOS) and The Oregon Association of Scholars (OAS) is a MUST READ! Whether you subscribed to me because of your interest in Salem-Keizer Public Schools, the state of Oregon’s education system, government corruption, or anything else, this report covers all of those bases.
Please, go check out the write-up and go read the report. I’m not a fast reader, and I read the entire report in less than 15 minutes. But if that’s too much of a time commitment, they created a 2-page summary, as well.
As altruistic as they were to create that summary, and as jaw-dropping as the evidence is just on that 2-page document alone, it hardly does the full report justice.
The sections of particular note to me, when thinking about the decline of SKPS over the years, and the current state of mismanagement by the School Board, are:
ODE’s Racist Claim That Graduation Requirements Are “White” (the uninvited infiltration of Critical Race Theory [CRT] into our educational system)
ODE’s Unfair Attack on Hard-Working Oregon Teachers (the operationalization of CRT in our schools)
ODE’s Misrepresentation of Key Research on the Discipline of Black Students (this section made me wonder how SKPS may use this or similarly misrepresented research to bolster their philosophy around the disproportionality of suspension/expulsion of Hispanic students)
ODE’s Erroneous Citation of Research on Student Belonging (“Belonging” comes up a LOT at SKPS, and I’m assuming it is emphasized based on the ODE “data” or the misrepresented research ODE cites)
ODE’s Demeaning Attempt to Create Dumbed-Down Education for Black and Hispanic Students (this refers in part to the suspension of graduation requirements that Gov. Brown signed into law [legislation based on the ODE report this report is critiquing]. The suspension of graduation requirements was on the agenda for the Oregon State Board of Education to vote on extending again at their 9/21 meeting, but mysteriously was removed from the agenda after the SOS and OSA report came out)
None of these sections are more than 2 pages long, so they’re very easy to read and digest, as is the entire report. It’s also laughable how this report highlights the utter lack of rigor used to write the ODE report. The mechanics of writing and research methods used by ODE wouldn’t score well as a high school writing assignment. And this is something our legislators used to craft agendas and write legislation.
Post about this. Talk to your friends about this. Write to your legislators and school board representatives about this. It’s all a sham, and we need to let them know we can see behind the curtain.