Oregon School Funds Lack Oversight, Despite $1.7B in Pandemic Money

State auditors in the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office recently issued a damning report that found state officials have sat by for years and not held the state education agency accountable as it has neglected the state’s students, while spending billions of dollars.

The audit found that the state’s governor, lawmakers and board of education ignored the state education agency’s hand-offs approach, as it “did little to set meaningfully high standards for schools or districts and did little to intervene when some of them vastly underdelivered for their students, particularly students of color and those living in poverty,” The Oregonian reported.

The audit found five risks based on their reviews of Oregon’s K-12 system over the past six years, including “a lack of intervention by [Oregon Department of Education], despite significant problems at the school and district level, has been a larger problem than infringement on local control.”

This lax oversight comes as Oregon schools has been flush with cash, including receiving $1 billion each year since the 2020-21 school year from a corporate tax for education.

Oregon schools have also collected more than $1.7 billion in federal pandemic funds since March 2020, the newspaper reported.

But the state officials tasked with making sure the schools are functioning well haven’t asked school leaders to show that the money is being well spent in teaching children, the audit said.

A Data Quality Campaign report found that Oregon’s 2021-22 report card was missing important stats about student academic performance, including data on chronic absenteeism and performance on assessments, the newspaper reported.

Oregon didn’t administer standardized tests in 2020 and had less testing in 2021 due to the pandemic. But the report also noted that in previous years, Oregon’s report cards were also missing information on students broken down by gender, foster-care status, homelessness status, migrant status and affiliation with the military, causing concern that poor children are being overlooked.

Auditors said Oregon’s education department’s role in holding school districts accountable for improving student learning outcomes is crucial, and without action from the governor, state board, and legislature that is unlikely to happen.

The #WasteOfTheDay is presented by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.