PPS Equity Blog

Washington state Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson issued an extremely sharp criticism of the federal No Child Left Behind Act on Thursday. It's time for the Portland Public Schools board and senior administrators to do the same thing. Bergeson wants to replace AYP, reduce state testing to only 3 grades, and focus more on improvement — all good steps. She would also stop...

The Portland Public Schools board of education's appointment last night of Martín Gonzílez was certainly no surprise. Two of the five candidates — Blanton and Stephan — were unqualified, and two of the remaining three — Buel and Moore — were openly critical, one even sarcastic, about the board's student transfer and school funding policies which have created a...

The school board office has issued a revised agenda for tomorrow's special board meeting, with the start time changed to 5 pm. The meeting, previously scheduled to start at 7, is still scheduled for an hour, and still has the single agenda item of appointing a zone 4 director....

When David Wynde, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, used his single question last night to ask prospective board members to name a positive thing the district has done during his five years on the board, you can't help but think of all the irrelevant — often disrespectful — questions asked during the presidential primary debates. It is not the role of school board members to give warm fuzzies....

In a broadly expected move, and for the expected reasons, the Oregonian has endorsed Martin Gonzalez for school board zone 4. Citing his familiarity with Portland Public Schools, his life experience and (most importantly) his support for the district's student transfer policy, the editorial board of the O show that they want the same thing that the school board wants: an ethnic minority who won't...

David Colton's involuntary transfer has been more or less rescinded, according to Steve Duin's column in the Oregonian. Duin also reports the outfit that channeled Gates Foundation money to fund the "small schools" implementation has withdrawn Madison's 2008-09 grant. Portland Public Schools spokesperson Matt Shelby told Duin that because Madison is "not going down that road toward small, fully...

The Portland Public Schools Board of Education office has released notice and agendas for two meetings next week, including a Thursday meeting with one item on the agenda: "Resolution to Appoint Zone 4 Board Director." The process, approved earlier this summer, was intentionally left open-ended. But this agenda would appear to indicate the board is ready to appoint one of the five applicants. With...