That's a Steve Duin editorial from last year.
Oregon 4th and 8th graders did not cause Techtronix to leave.
Yes, REI closed a store, and then opened 2 more in the Portland area. Businesses do that.
Adobe closed an office in Portland. Ok? Not a founded-in-Oregon business.
And Keen closed, what's a Keen? Anyone here ever buy a Keen? RIP Keen, we never knew you.
4th and 8th graders...
Do we really have stupid kids and bad schools here in Oregon?
Or could it be something else?
Are these tests being given the same test across the country? Are they being administered the same way? Sorry, I'm just not buying it.
Now I'm not saying that Oregon's test results aren't "massaged," but I'm willing to bet they are a lot more accurate than the majority of states.
But we don't really know what's going on across the nation because standardized testing is bad. Evil. Curriculum and testing need to be set by the community, not by the evil federal government.
The one standardized testing we do have is the SAT.
Looking at the data, Oregon has a much higher than average participation rate than other non-mandatory states, and our test results are high.
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More interesting data here:
For the graduating class of 2024, the national average SAT score was 1024, a figure that continues a post-pandemic decline even as test-taking numbers rise. The distribution of test scores shows that only 7% of test takers achieved SAT scores between 1400 and 1600. Speaking of the national...
igcsepro.org
So Mr Duin's premise that our taxes are too high and our workforce is too dumb really doesn't hold up.
Producing an educated workforce. Could we do better? Sure! But cutting taxes will not make it better.