A few years back, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote that “the best escalator to opportunity in America is education.”
Now you might wonder, justifiably, how an East Coast newspaperman’s views relate to the challenges and opportunities facing Oregon’s schools. But Kristof grew up on a farm in Yamhill County, and from those rural roots became an internationally acclaimed author with two Pulitzer Prizes.
I make no similar claim to fame. But I know firsthand how public education transforms lives and creates opportunities for success. I’m just one example.
Growing up in a broken home on Oregon’s southern coast, my refuges were school playgrounds and classrooms. Learning opened my mind, as well as opening doors to graduate from Oregon State University and later to study law at Willamette University.
Like a lot of young people, I found myself wanting to change the world. And where better than to march into the political fray in Oregon’s Capitol, where legislators make the important decisions on how public money will be divided to address our safety, social, health and educational needs?
Working in the Capitol as a young lobbyist for OSBA, I was exposed to the pressure points that exist in all political processes. I made a lot of mistakes, and tried to learn from them.
Over the years, I’ve lost count of the disagreements and phone calls and frustrated emails and petty grudges on all sides. The white noise fades to a blur.
What lasts, however, are the relationships forged through a common purpose. Seeing good laws pass that better the common good, especially for our young people.
Nothing stands out more as I look back than 2019’s Student Success Act, which will help students for generations by investing more than $1 billion annually in their education. Passing that took incredible patience and compromise by our elected leaders in Salem, and advocacy from around the state, including from our own dedicated school board members.
Since that high point, we’ve all faced the pandemic’s challenges and a simultaneous emergence of culture wars playing out at the school board level. One of OSBA’s core strengths is that it draws from such a wide array of life experiences — from rural to urban, from the coast to Willamette Valley to east of the Cascades.
But as we know, that diversity in life experience and political views creates deep divisions. One way we have worked to counteract that is by recognizing a fundamental right to local control, ensuring that communities retain the ability to offer equitable educational experiences framed by their values and beliefs.
It’s a never-ending challenge. The work to support our students — each student, from every community — will never be done.
As I leave OSBA, I want to thank the many legislators, their tireless staffs, the succession of dedicated individuals in the Governor’s Office, and the many education advocacy organizations that work hand in hand with OSBA. I want to thank the staff, present and former, at OSBA for work that is sometimes thankless but always valuable.
I want to thank my family for their indulgence for the long hours, and it has been my privilege to see my own children thrive in public schools.
I am proud to have served for eight years on the Salem-Keizer School Board and am eternally humbled by the thousands of individuals I have met through the years who volunteer their time as school board members. You are incredible people.
Most of all, I want to recognize the more than half-million young people who attend Oregon’s public schools today. You represent the best of us, the promise of great things to come, and it is our duty and privilege as adults to provide you the same opportunities to succeed as we were given.
It is our job to keep the escalator running strongly.
Jim Green
