Last November, with the state's graduation rate the third-worst in the nation, Oregon voters overwhelmingly approved Ballot Measure 98.

The measure promised to get many more students to earn diplomas by allocating $800 per student for career-technical courses, college-credit classes and dropout intervention programs in high schools.

But with the Legislature facing a $1.8 billion budget gap and as some critics point out weak points in the measure, what is delivered could differ.

Because the measure changed Oregon's law, as opposed to its Constitution, the Legislature has the power to alter promised funding levels or other provisions of the law before schools see any of the money, said legislative counsel Dexter Johnson.

The measure was one of three unfunded mandates passed by voters in November, and state officials estimate it would cost $300 million to carry out as intended over the next two years.

In her December budget proposal, Gov. Kate Brown recommended allocating just $139 million to the programs in the measure.

During a hearing before the House Education Committee Wednesday, many lawmakers and lobbyists voiced concerns that the measure was flawed. It lacks flexibility, they said, and could force programs to compete for funding.

With teacher layoffs floated as a possibility in a no-new-revenue budget authored by Democrats, some balked at the idea of adding targeted programs in the midst of what could be two years of across-the-board cuts.

But Parasa Chanramy, lobbyist for Stand for Children, a group that championed the measure, said Oregon needs Measure 98. When left to their own choices, districts haven't managed to get the graduation rate above 75 percent, one of the lowest graduation rates in the nation, she has said.

Rep. Diego Hernandez, D-Portland, was among lawmakers on the education committee who said that differs from what principals and superintendents have told them. He said the superintendent of the Reynolds school district that he represents told him she'd rather have money to support the current programs and class sizes rather than additional programs.

As it's currently written, the measure requires districts to allocate money they receive under the measure to all three programs: career-technical offerings, college credit classes and anti-dropout efforts.

But this could pose a problem for rural school districts with few students, lawmakers and some lobbyists said. Small districts would in some cases receive less than $25,000 for the programs said Richard Donovan, a lobbyist for the Oregon School Boards Association.

That's barely enough to fund one program, much less three, he told the committee.

"Being able to focus one area or two areas of import, it's going to be better for those school districts," he said.

Committee Chair Rep. Margaret Doherty agreed, noting that $800 per student doesn't go very far in districts that spend a lot to transport students long distances to and from school.

"I look at this and I think it's going to be very hard for small rural schools, no matter how easy we try to make it," she said.

Doherty, a Democrat from Tigard, also urged changes so districts could funnel some of the Measure 98 money to lower grades, not just high schools.

"Anyone that's been in education knows that you don't start dropping out as a freshman," she said. "You do that in second grade."

But Chanramy said Oregon students perform well until they hit high school.

There, "Our kids are falling off a cliff," she said. "And we're seeing a huge disparity between the trajectory that our eighth-graders are on and where they end up at the end of high school."

Laurie Wimmer, a lobbyist for the Oregon Education Association, warned the committee that, at a time when classrooms need all the money they can get, earmarking money for high school graduation-specific programs would compete with other programs - like special education or programs for blind students - as lawmakers look for areas to cut.

"It literally pits this program against other programs for our most vulnerable students," she said.

Chanramy told the committee that districts are hungry for programs shown to promote high school graduation, especially career-technical courses. During the last biennium, over 70 districts applied for $25.4 million in grants for the courses, she said. But the state only awarded $9 million to 25 applicants.

-- Anna Marum

amarum@oregonian.com
503-294-5911
@annamarum

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