A big thank you to everyone who provided testimony for SB 933 and SB 934 yesterday.

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you can find it here:

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and here:

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The journey for these bills is just beginning. The next step is a "work session" (ie. committee vote) on the bills. The chair of the Senate Education Committee, Lew Frederick, is supportive, but he won't schedule a work session without support from his other committee members

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These bills were opposed by the Oregon Education Association, the Conference of Oregon School Administrators, and the Oregon School Board Association on the grounds that they would "open the floodgates" because

• "every parent thinks their children are gifted,"
• because they would be new and burdensome mandates
• because there are "no resources" to pay for TAG .

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The first is a myth.... research has found that parents are a least as good at recognizing giftedness as untrained teachers (and most districts do allow parent referrals and aren’t flooded by requests) and the second just points to the fact that we currently don’t have any categorical TAG funding.? I wish I thought they would also be supporting more TAG funding but that isn’t going to happen. ?

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SB 933 does call for additional reports from the Department of Education, but in most cases the Department already HAS the information—it just isn’t compiling and publishing it in a helpful way. ??My testimony on the value of using student GAINS instead of scores can be found here:

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You can always find out about a bill’s text and progress on the relevant committee homepage:

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Learn more about the bills, and how to communicate with your representatives here:

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Margaret

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