Pursuant to ORS 401.165, I find that severe winter weather,
including flooding, landslides and wind created widespread property damage to
the transportation infrastructure in Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Crook,
Douglas, Grant, Harney, Lane, Lincoln, Linn, Malheur, Marion, Multnomah,
Tillamook, Umatilla, Union, Washington and Yamhill counties. Severe weather
conditions that began on January 13 caused flooding, landslides, and erosion
throughout these counties, and resulted in significant damage to the state
highway system. According to the Oregon Department of Transportation, current
estimates of the damage to the highway system in these counties totals over $9
million dollars, including damage to federal aid highways.
1. The Oregon Department of Transportation shall provide
appropriate assistance in response to requests for assistance from counties
with transportation infrastructure affected by this severe weather event;
2. The Oregon Department of Transportation shall seek appropriate
federal resources to repair and reconstruct the federal aid highway system in
Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Crook, Douglas, Grant, Harney, Lane, Lincoln,
Linn, Malheur, Marion, Multnomah, Tillamook, Umatilla, Union, Washington and
Yamhill Counties.
Done at Salem, Oregon, this 3rd day of February, 2011.
/s/
John A. Kitzhaber
John A. Kitzhaber, M.D.
GOVERNOR
ATTEST
/s/
Kate Brown
Kate
Brown
SECRETARY
OF STATE
This Order creates the Oregon Education Investment Team and
charges it with creating a plan of policy and budget recommendations to
comprehensively transform Oregon’s approach to education.
Public education accounts for fifty one percent of Oregon’s
general fund budget. These investments are pivotally important for the
long-term economic, civic and cultural health and safety of the state.
Oregon has established the goals for our public education system
that one hundred percent of Oregonians earn a high school diploma, that forty
percent of Oregonians obtain a college degree, and that another forty percent
earn a post-secondary credential.
Oregon education leaders have strived over the past several years
to meet these goals. Oregon has increased its investments in pre-kindergarten
education. Clear learning standards and an assessment system to measure
progress have been codified. Schools have adopted innovative practices for
teaching and learning to help students meet those standards. Pathways between
high schools, community colleges and universities have been strengthened to
enable credit to transfer from one level to another more easily. Also, Oregon
adopted the Shared Responsibility Model to help make college more affordable
for low income Oregonians. These and many other innovations have helped
strengthen student learning.
Yet for all this hard work, Oregon’s progress towards achievement
of its goals is not moving fast enough. One critical barrier to our progress is
Oregon’s “system” of education budgeting and governance, which is a product of
incremental decisions made over many decades. No one deliberately designed it,
and today the structure of the system stands as an inadvertent barrier to the
achievement of our educational goals. Several systemic challenges exist: budget
decisions throughout public education are opaque and disconnected; incentives
created through the way Oregon distributes dollars to schools discourages
practices educators want to support; data collection is fragmented and
non-uniform; governance of our educational institutions is built around silos
making consistency almost impossible.
The Education Investment Team will engage the public, legislators
and stakeholders in the creation of a new investment and budget process for
education in Oregon.
By 2020, the end of this decade — by the time the children
entering kindergarten this year graduate from high school — Oregon must
be a state where our children
are ready to learn before they get to school; where they have the
resources and attention to learn and our teachers have the time and support to
teach; where drop-out rates are steadily falling and graduation rates are
steadily rising; where all Oregon high school graduates are prepared to pursue
a post-secondary education without remediation; and where eighty percent of
them achieve at least two years of post-secondary education or training.
Meeting these goals is the best way to ensure that we live in a state that
creates family wage jobs and career pathways that lead to those jobs. The
Education Investment Team will begin to chart the framework for how we get
there.
1. The Education Investment Team (Team) is hereby established.
2. The Team shall consist of no more than thirteen (13) members,
who shall be appointed by the Governor and shall serve at the pleasure of the
Governor.
3. The Governor will Chair the Team and will have responsibility
to develop a work plan, set the agenda and provide leadership, directions and
specific timelines for the Team.
4. A quorum for Team meetings shall consist of a majority of the
appointed members. The Team shall approve measures on an affirmative vote of a
majority of voting members appointed to the Team.
5. The Team shall lead and coordinate a process to collect, review
and evaluate the efforts of groups that have studied ways Oregon can most
effectively reach its desired public education outcomes. In doing so, the Team
shall engage public, stakeholder and legislator involvement in the evaluation
and development of new policy and budget concepts called for in this order.
6. The Team will establish, prioritize and charge Design
Workgroups (Workgroups) as deemed necessary by the Chair. Workgroups may
include members of the public, public officials, stakeholders and/or
legislators who are not members of the Team. Any Workgroup created will be
given a specific charge and timelines by the Chair. These charges will include,
but not be limited to:
a. Designing a new model for early childhood and family investment
for implementation in the second year of this biennium;
b. Seeking cost-savings and efficiencies within the K–12
system to increase the resources available for classroom teaching in the second
year of the biennium; and
c. Designing a unified, performance based 0-20 budget model for
consideration by the 2012 legislative session.
The Team will consider proposals and opinions developed by
Workgroups it establishes, and may consider proposals and opinions from any
other sources, but it is the Team that shall be ultimately responsible for
making final recommendations consistent with the charge of this Order.
7. The charge of the Team is to develop specific concepts to
achieve a comprehensive redesign of Oregon’s public education budgeting and
governance system. The concepts developed by the Team must be strategically
calculated to transform Oregon’s approach to education from silos into an
integrated and meaningful pathway to success for Oregonians of all ages. The
recommendations must include systemic policy and budget recommendations that
will most effectively and efficiently achieve the goals that one hundred
percent of Oregonians earn a high school diploma, that forty percent of
Oregonians obtain a college degree, and that another forty percent earn a
post-secondary credential. The recommendations must also include measures that
will ensure that every child enters school ready and able to learn, enters
first grade ready to read and leaves first grade reading.
At a minimum, the Team will develop a framework to achieve these
goals by developing recommendations which will:
a. Create an Oregon Education Investment Board (OEIB) to oversee a
unified 0-20 Oregon Education Investment Fund (OEIF);
b. Create an integrated early childhood and family investment
strategy;
c. Create a unified, performance based 0-20 education budget
model;
d. Develop a strategy to ensure effective assessment and
accountability throughout the public education system; and
e. Consolidate state level responsibilities for public education.
8. The Team shall produce a written report no later than May 31,
2011, that identifies the progress made under this order and outlines the
budget and policy framework called for in this Order. The report shall include
conceptual proposals for the consideration of the public and policy-makers.
9. The Team shall be staffed by the Governor’s Education Policy Advisor
and shall receive assistance of any State agency upon request.
10. The members of the Team shall not receive per diem for their
activities as members of the Team, but may be reimbursed for expenses incurred
in attending Team business pursuant to ORS 292.495(2), subject to availability
of funds.
11. This Order expires upon the enactment of the Education
Investment Fund Board’s enabling legislation and confirmation of the members of
the Education Investment Fund Board.
12. This Amended Order hereby supersedes and replaces in total the
Executive Order issued by me on February 11, 2011.
Done at Salem, Oregon, this 22nd day of February, 2011.
/s/
John A. Kitzhaber
John A. Kitzhaber, M.D.
GOVERNOR
ATTEST
/s/
Kate Brown
Kate
Brown
SECRETARY
OF STATE