Oregon students’ reading, writing, and math skills have plummeted amid the in-person learning disruptions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new data released by the Oregon Department of Education.
The official 2022 testing shows students lost ground overall when compared to the last assessment data from 2019.
READ MORE | Oregon sees drop in student reading, writing, math scores amid pandemic, assessment finds
The three candidates for Oregon’s governor seat weighed in after the ODE released its findings on Thursday, calling the results “unacceptable” and saying more needs to be done to support students in Oregon.
Democrat Candidate Tina Kotek:
On Thursday, Kotek tweeted:
These numbers are unacceptable. As Governor, I will push to make sure all kids are reading by 3rd grade, schools are expanding career technical education, and we’re all working together to help every student succeed. #orpol
Republican Candidate Christine Drazan:
"I’m furious. I’m furious because every parent knew this was coming. We knew that when Kate Brown and Tina Kotek shut down our schools longer than almost any state in the nation, our kids would pay the price. They willingly allowed bureaucrats to trade away our students’ academic success - for what? Politics. This wasn’t about kids. This was about adults and their extreme political agenda that predictably resulted in serious harm to Oregon students’ education.
Make no mistake, the bureaucratic leadership responsible for these decisions will be fired on my first day in office. No more excuses, no more hiding the facts. Oregon students need strong schools, great teachers, and local leaders that are committed to working with parents to support academic success. These test scores are yet another disaster of leadership inflicted on the people of Oregon by an incompetent administration. We need change. We need a new direction. Our kids' future, our state's future, depends on it."
Unaffiliated Candidate Betsy Johnson:
“First, let me say something very clearly. Christine Drazan is right to agree with me. As I have said since I launched this campaign, the worst thing that Kate Brown did during Covid was shutting down our schools. It’s unacceptable that our children may well pay a price going forward. We need to do more than just complain about Kate Brown’s leadership failures. We need to actually summon the will and resources to fix the problem, provide remedial education opportunities and support for this generation of kids to keep them from bearing the burden of our state’s leadership failures. That’s what I’ll do as governor. Too often, Democrats and Republicans want to fight about our problems and who’s to blame. I want to fix them.”