Issues

Here are the key issues that the Neighborhood Schools Alliance is working on--click to read more; comments welcome.

• Strong neighborhood schools are the key to strong, livable city. We need quality schools in every neighborhood. Enough with the special "boutique" programs that are costly to run and favor the elite! We cannot have the cake icing (focus options and magnets and immersion) when we do not yet have the cake (good neighborhood schools).

• Equity in school funding. At some schools, parents can fundraise hundreds of thousands of dollars to enrich programs and restore teaching positions. At many other schools, however, the parents do not have the means to fundraise. This is a major inequity and a moral outrage. The quality of education for Portland children should not be based on what neighborhood you live in, and a child should not have to commute to a different neighborhood to go to a well-resourced school.

• Why we oppose school closures. Contrary to PPS spin, we all actually end up LOSING when our neighborhood schools are closed. Not only are the financial savings not there, we lose precious resources--families, time, and neighborhood livability.

• Don't sell off our public schools. Did you know a group of wealthy Portland power brokers are poised to start selling off closed school properties to the highest bidder?

• Stop the privatization of PPS. The growth of charter schools and talk of uniforms, same-sex schooling come straight out of the right-wing playbook. This is not the direction Portland should be headed.

• Transparency in Portland Public Schools decision making. We are tired of decisions being made behind closed doors, with a 3-minute "public comment" opportunity at the end of the process.

• Treat parents with respect. With PPS nowadays, if you dare to criticize a policy, you are treated like the enemy. Kind of like with the Bush administration, they seem to think "you're either with us or you're against us."

• We need stable, adequate, equitable school funding--statewide. Our problems go way beyond PPS to the chronic refusal of this state to invest in the education of its children. How do we get out of this mess?