Winner – 2025 Excellence in Journalism Awards, Investigative Reporting

Oregonians believe in public education.

And we put our money where our values are. K-12 schools claim the largest share of Oregon’s general fund, and our spending per capita ranks 15th in the nation, according to educationdata.org.

But as statewide test scores make clear, that investment is  failing to yield the outcomes parents want for their children. By almost every meaningful measure, we are among the worst states in America when it comes to educating our kids.

At the Oregon Journalism Project, we wanted to do more than speculate about why so many of our tax dollars do so little for the 550,000 kids in Oregon’s public schools. Since May 2025, our team has been talking to people inside and outside of Oregon, researching best practices and trying to develop a better understanding of the crisis in Oregon’s public education system.

Our series, Oregon Schools: What Went Wrong seeks to answer questions that too many in power have directly avoided:

Why are Oregon’s schools failing? Who is responsible for the failure? What are the consequences of failure? And, most importantly, how do we dig ourselves out of this?

Here in one place is our full coverage of this important issue:

The Truancy Mutiny

The Oregon Legislature banned truancy citations. But Oregon’s poorest county brought them back and now posts the state’s best attendance numbers, offering lessons for the coming school year.
by James Neff

Schooled by Mississippi

Mississippi’s reading turnaround, built on “the science of reading,” holds lessons for Oregon.
by James Neff

If you are a student, parent, teacher or former teacher, school administrator or policymaker with ideas on how to fix Oregon’s schools, we want to hear from you.

Please share your thoughts and how to reach you by clicking on this link.