Policy Matters

Schools play a central role in our society, yet PPS treats schools like a vacuum. The problems facing PPS, the City of Portland, and urban America in general, are all connected.

School Policy is more than Education Policy

We cannot solve problems in a disconnected way, one at a time. We need solutions that solve multiple problems at once.

Credit where it is due: PPS’s agreement to sell its headquarters to the Albina Vision Trust is a great example of multi-solving. This will allow development of 1,000 new housing units, work to right generational wrongs of displacement, and, if relocated to downtown, help the central city’s recovery by using office space and adding workers. And it won’t cost PPS any extra.

School Policy is Housing Policy

The performance of students of color compared to their white counterparts is a persistent issue. PPS has been trying, and must continue trying, to improve outcomes through education policy. But we also need to look at simpler, broader solutions that PPS needs to be a partner in.

We need to give families unhappy with their current school other options within PPS. But we know doing this through charters, lotteries, and bussing often results in worse outcomes overall.

So one solution is to increase the supply of housing around higher-performing schools, to allow families more places to move within Portland.

Unfortunately, most of the city is still zoned for large-lot residential, which limits mobility by economically disadvantaged families. If PPS were advocating for a broad upzoning, like the Inner Eastside for All plan, we would see more family-friendly apartments that are affordable to families of color, feeding into our higher-performing neighborhood schools.

More of these apartments could be located away from dangerous, unhealthy arterials, where most apartment stock is forced to be located now.

Increasing housing supply would also offset PPS’s enrollment decline. PPS’s projected enrollment declines are by far larger than our neighbors (most of which will grow), and the biggest factor in outmigration is by far the cost of housing. New families are leaving because they cannot afford to live in our city.

And to top it off, increased enrollment is revenue-positive for PPS. Additional students are served by the same fixed costs that are already paid for. And of course, the additional housing leads to additional property taxes to fund PPS.

Multi-solving policy: Advocate for broad upzoning and increased housing supply to improve student performance and increase enrollment.

School Policy is Transportation Policy

Did you know that 30% of car trips during Portland’s rush hour are trips to and from school? And that the majority of students are driven to school? But home-to-school transportation is not under the purview of anyone at PPS.

PPS should be using its role as the region’s largest car-trip-generator to support policies that result in fewer car trips. For example, PPS should work with Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) Safe Routes to School (SRTS) to add infrastructure to Neighborhood Greenways that also serve schools. One of the major drivers of cost is public engagement— but by being a partner to PBOT, PPS can defray this cost and deliver schools that even young children are safe to walk and bike to.

Multi-solving policy: Support students walking and biking with reduced car speeds and less exposure to traffic on Safe Routes along Neighborhood Greenways and around schools.

Multi-solving policy: All home-to-school transportation should be the responsibility of the Transportation Director and they should be evaluated on reduction of car trips at neighborhood schools.

School Policy is Health Policy

As animals, we have brains in order to move. In fact, there are animals like the Sea Squirt that lose their brain when they stop moving.

This brain-body unification explains why students do better in school when they get more exercise, as shown and explained in books like Spark.

Addressing this solely through Physical Education and Recess has limits. There is only so much room in the gym, or on the playground, and this time comes at the expense of academic instruction.

But students often spend 20-60 minutes each day getting driven to school. Time which must be better spent if we want better schools.

PPS must explicitly encourage families and students to get to school by walking and biking, well beyond window dressing. They should work with Bike Bus PDX on creating daily Bike Bus routes at every PPS school, and a system that would allow children to attend without an adult, like the yellow school bus works.

Additionally, PBOT SRTS has a Bike Training program that is nowhere near big enough to support PPS. These classes, done during gym for 3 weeks, are popular with students and give them the tools they need for independence and getting to school. PPS could provide bike training at all schools each year for low cost, likely covered through grant funding, but it needs to look at transportation more broadly.

Studies show this additional exercise could lead to a significant increase in test scores and attendance. And it would be basically free for PPS.

Multi-solving policy: Treat increased physical activity to and from school as an educational intervention.

Multi-solving policy: Incorporate bike education into K-8 education at all schools to establish independence and healthy habits.

School Policy is Climate Policy

Today’s students are wrestling with a high likelihood of 2C warming by 2050, and the ensuing destruction and instability it will cause.

School is one of the most important institutions in the lives of families, and PPS needs to do more to fight this existential threat.

PPS has an aggressive, but unfunded and toothless, Climate Crisis Response Plan. This plan exists in a vacuum, looking only at direct sources of emissions and how to replace them. For example, transportation decarbonization is based entirely on replacing the fossil fuel fleet. Unfortunately, this is expensive, slow, and unfunded.

Instead, PPS’s climate response plan should look at the bigger picture around Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Reduction, and prioritize what is practical and effective to change.

For example, urban households have 1/4 of the GHG emissions of suburban households. By increasing enrollment, PPS would have a large emissions reduction impact. Money spent on certain direct GHG reductions may be better spent on enrollment increases.

Similarly, the plan is silent on home-to-school transportation, even though these car trips have an emissions impact on par with all PPS transportation emissions. By replacing car trips with walking, biking, or the bus, PPS can reduce the emissions it is responsible for. Money spent on replacing vehicles may be better spent on getting families walking and biking.

Multi-solving policy: Incorporate impacts that PPS influences but does not control outright, such as enrollment, into the Climate Crisis Response Plan.

Multi-solving policy: Incorporate home-to-school transportation into the Climate Crisis Response Plan.

School Policy is Fiscal Policy

Both PPS and the City of Portland are in the midst of budget crises decades in the making. The causes are largely the same: lower tax receipts, years of deferred maintenance coming due, and new capital projects exploding in scope.

This fiscal irresponsibility is in play right now with the $1.8B 2025 PPS Capital Bond. To raise $1.8B, we actually have to raise $3.5B in taxes, and pay $1.7B of that to banks as interest. This bond will last 32 years. One dollar for our kids, one dollar for the banks. For 3+ decades.

This bond will strangle our ability to be flexible with funds in the future. For example, the Oregon Legislature will hopefully allow districts to raise more money with the Local Option Levy, because it is revenue-neutral for the State. This would allow PPS to hire more teachers and staff, which is our most pressing need. But this bond will tie our hands to raise those funds without raising tax rates.

The fact is: PPS as a district (and Oregon as a state) is pretty average in its education budget, but performs poorly. Throwing more money at the problem would, at best, lead to very high spending and just middling performance. This isn’t a good deal for parents or taxpayers.

Until we can dig in and understand if and how more education spending will improve outcomes, we should be very wary of raising taxes or locking in future spending.

Multi-solving policy: Reduce administrative spending to historical levels, below the current bloated average at peer districts.

Multi-solving policy: Do not propose or pass bonds where almost 50% of the revenue is going to interest.

School Policy is Civic Policy

The trope of angry parents yelling at the School Board or principal is only a trope if you’ve never been hurt by a decision, and left with no transparency, accountability, or course for reconsideration.

Schools are our most local public institutions, but the lack of civic involvement sets an embarassing example for a democratic society.

How many school Site Councils adhere to their bylaws, which usually require elections, meeting minutes, and communications? How many Climate & Culture Teams make community-wide decisions with no community input?

We know people opt-out of engagement when they feel like it doesn’t matter. PPS is happy to ask parents to wash lunch trays and rake leaves, but we’re unwelcome when we want to be partners in decisionmaking.

We know parent involvement is one of the key predictors of student outcomes. By recommitting to include parents in designing and implementing solutions, we give them a reason to engage, rather than tune out. We know this will help our students. And experience says this also helps our city and society at large.

Multi-solving policy: Ensure schools are adhering to Site Council and Climate & Culture Team bylaws that include parent involvement, and revisit PPS policy and those bylaws, to keep parents engaged.

Multi-solving policy: Identify and eliminate administrative directives that override local democratic participation and are not connected to education activities, for example related to site management. Eliminate bureaucracy and make better local decisions.

School Policy is City Policy

The City of Portland and Portland Public Schools view themselves as totally independent entities. Whether it comes to who is responsible for mowing a lawn, or managing streets, or anything else, the relationship is frigid at best and adversarial at worst.

We saw this clearly during the PAT strike in November 2023. The city stayed as far away as it could, instead of helping to resolve the strike. We saw it in January when the City slapped Grant Bowl advocates with a $15,000 bill for a totally unnecessary traffic study. Parent groups see it frequently in issues big and small.

Our schools do more than teach our kids— they are essential to the health of our city. And our city is essential to the health of our schools! One example: the city’s lack of housing affordable to families has resulted in a flight to the suburbs; this reduces tax revenue, forcing cuts in PPS spending. Or how about: PPS’s poor performance pushes more children into charter and private schools, creating longer car trips (30% of trips during morning hours are to school!), which hurts city climate goals, creates congestion, and puts pressure on astronomically expensive roadway maintenance. The examples go on, because City and Schools are both essential parts of Portland.

I pledge to work with the City to streamline overlaps and inefficiencies, so we can do more with limited resources. To build safe streets so we have healthier and happier kids. To get more housing built so we can have more PPS families.

To support each other in our work, instead of antagonize. Portland the City and Portland the School District must learn to live together as family, or perish together as fools.

Public Testimony

You should know who you’re voting for beyond what I’m telling you here. Here’s a list of some public testimony or comments I’ve given the last few years:

Public comment opposing the 2025 Capital Bond. We shouldn’t be stealing from the future and giving banks nearly half of all taxes raised.
Testimony to City Council about visiting an alternative Portland in 2030 where they invested in active, sustainable transportation.
Public comment to the PPS Climate Crisis Response Committee asking them to include family transportation emissions in their emissions calculations.
Public comment to PPS about their Safe Routes and School Streets program, which is a typical example of PPS dysfunction where one group isn’t talking to another.
Testimony to City Council encouraging them to vote to put Fixing Our Streets III (gas tax renewal) on the May 2024 ballot, which is vital for safe streets.
Comments on the problems with the I-5 Bridge Replacement’s Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (spoiler alert, the books are cooked).
Opposing an Urban Growth Boundary expansion in Sherwood. Suburban areas receive massive subsidies from urban areas, and opening up new areas to suburban development will keep damaging our school system.
Opposing a land use exception to allow a private school to open in the heart of the most transit and amenity rich areas of the eastside, instead of using the massive parking lot for something useful.
Testimony to the Planning Commission to support a broad upzoning in the inner Eastside. I grew up right next to a freeway!
Public comment encouraging a stricter PPS device policy than originally proposed. I was happy to see it modified.
Not testimony, but relevant: one of the more political rides I’ve organized was this Strike Bus during the PAT strike, which saw about 700 riders come out in support.