Policy Papers - Education and Talent Development
- Workforce Talent Development
- Education System Redesign
- Oregon Learns/STEM
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- Putting Students at the Center: An Overview of Oregon Learns
- Time to Invest Seriously in STEM
- Oregon STEM Education Plan 2016
OBC created Oregon Learns in 2012 to assist policymakers, education officials, and stakeholder groups as they shaped and implemented Oregon’s efforts at that time to redesign PreK-20 public education, from classroom practice through state-level funding and governance. These state education reforms were promoted by Governor Kitzhaber and enacted by the Legislature between 2011 and 2014 to tap and unleash the potential of schools and teachers in helping more Oregon students succeed in their studies and attain postsecondary degrees or credentials.
Education is not working for too many Oregon children. Watch a video on the system’s design problems here.
- Oregon Proficiency Project
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- Proficiency-Based Instruction and Assessment: A Promising Path to High Achievement in Oregon Education
- Defining Practice, Informing Policy
- Defining Practice, Informing Policy - Phase 2
Between 2008 and 2011, OBC operated the Oregon Proficiency Project, which documented and supported efforts by Oregon schools and teachers to adopt proficiency-based teaching and learning practices.
- Oregon Education Roundtable
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- Raising the Bar for PreK-20 Education in Oregon: 6 White Papers
- Oregon's PreK-20 Education Enterprise: Rethinking the Budget Framework
- Taking Promising High School Practices to Scale
- Proficiency-Based Instruction and Assessment: A Promising Path to High Achievement in Oregon Education
Through the Oregon Education Roundtable, funded by the Oregon Community Foundation and the Lumina Foundation, OBC brought together thought leaders and did significant research over 2004 and 2005 to focus on Oregon’s education challenges and the overhaul needed to address them. The white papers produced in that project laid the conceptual framework for the state education reforms promoted by Governor Kitzhaber and enacted by the Legislature between 2011 and 2014.
- E3/Oregon Small Schools Initiative
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- The Big Picture on Oregon's Small Schools: The Oregon Small Schools Initiative
- Oregon Small Schools Initiative: Quantitative Analysis 2004-2009
From the late 1990s through 2011 OBC operated E3: Employers for Education Excellence, a 501 (c)(3) organization which forged partnerships between businesses and schools to make workplace learning experiences more available to high school students. In 2003 E3 was granted $25 million by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Meyer Memorial Trust to operate the Oregon Small Schools Initiative. That initiative, which ran through 2010, was a statewide project to demonstrate that breaking large high schools into smaller self-contained learning communities can greatly improve learning and student achievement.
Shortly after the Small Schools Initiative ended E3 was reconstituted as the OBC Charitable Institute for the purpose of broadly receiving grant funds to support OBC’s public policy work. At the same time, the Oregon Learns initiative replaced E3 as OBC’s principal vehicle for supporting improvement in Oregon education.
- OBC Education Reform Involvements Through 2000
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- An Assessment of Oregon's K-12 Education Reform - 2000
- Portland and David Douglas: A Comparison Using the Database Initiative Project - 2000
- Higher Education and the Economy - 1997
- Framework for Implementing K-12 School Transformation in Oregon -1997
- People, Productivity, and Prosperity: Rewriting the Book on Job Preparation in Oregon - 1996
- CAM Cookbook: A Guide to Development of the Certificate of Advanced Mastery - 1996
- Report on Oregon's Progress in Implementing CIM and CAM Achievement Standards and Related Measures
- Gaining Competitive Advantage: The Need for Customer-Driven Higher Education - 1996
- A Business View: Education Reform in Oregon -1993
OBC was a strong voice in education reform in the 1990s, in particular supporting the Legislature’s adoption of the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century, which set student performance standards for mastering both basic and advanced skills. In a difficult budget environment during that decade Oregon students in elementary and middle grades saw noteworthy achievement, but reforms at the high school level were not fully embraced and results were disappointing.