Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
The Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility will recognize employers of all kinds that have successfully created family-friendly, flexible work environments. OBA encourages its member companies to apply for this prestigious national award, which recognizes employers across the country that have successfully integrated flexible policies and practices to meet both business and employee goals. For more information and to get started, follow this link.
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
OBA member company The Standard recently received the Basic Rights Education Fund’s 2011 Equality Advocate Award for demonstrating outstanding leadership on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender equality in the state. In the past six years, The Standard has contributed over $55,000 to support Basic Rights Education Fund’s efforts to ensure that all LGBT Oregonians experience equality in their daily lives. On top of that, The Standard has contributed nearly $8 million in grants and corporate contributions to Oregon-based charities, non-profits, and schools. Congratulations to The Standard on its well-deserved recognition!
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
OBA recently sent a letter to Governor Kitzhaber outlining our education priorities this session. Today, we received a letter of response and are excited to announce that OBA’s education priorities are contained within the Governor’s education agenda. Governor Kitzhaber states in his letter that he has appreciated working with OBA on many of the bills in his education package. To read the Governor’s letter to OBA, which outlines his priority bills, please click here.
We look forward to continuing our work with the Governor and our partners in education to pass meaningful reform this session that will improve governance, increase accountability, maximize teacher quality, and close the achievement gap.
Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
The Oregon Business Association has joined with partners in the labor and environmental communities to urge the passage of “Cool Schools” legislation. HB 2960 will utilize existing funds to create an innovative mechanism for performing energy efficiency retrofits on public schools.
Improving the energy efficiency of Oregon’s schools is a smart investment of taxpayer dollars. Today’s efficiency improvements represent energy cost savings for decades to come, as well as protection from increasing and volatile energy prices.
“By reducing energy consumption in our schools, we can give taxpayers a better return on their investment by putting dollars directly into the classroom, instead of wasting resources on inefficient buildings,” says Oregon Business Association president, Ryan Deckert.
Those savings are helpful in this economy, as are the jobs that will be created by the program. With hundreds of buildings in need of retrofits statewide, Cool Schools puts Oregonians to work immediately and into the future.
“The Building Trades fully support Cool Schools legislation,” says John Mohlis, representative of the Oregon State Building and Construction Trades Council. “It will provide much needed jobs for our members, who have faced staggering unemployment the past two years.”
Cool Schools will also build on our clean technology and sustainability brand strengths. Our public school buildings will be centers of awareness of energy efficiency and conservation. “Energy efficiency programs spur development of a clean energy economy right here in Oregon,” said Jon Isaacs, Executive Director of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters. “This plan creates jobs and saves taxpayers money while making schools healthier for teachers and students.”
Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
On April 11, OBA hosted a mid-session update with the Washington County delegation and Washington County business leaders. The meeting focused on legislative updates with regard to OBA’s priorities this session – public finance, education (both K-12 and higher education), healthcare, and transportation. OBA would like to extend thanks to Senators Ginny Burdick, Bruce Starr, Richard Devlin, and Suzanne Bonamici as well as Representatives Chris Harker, Shawn Lindsay, and Tobias Read for taking time of their busy schedules to have a discussion with OBA business leaders. OBA also thanks First Tech Credit Union for hosting the event.
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
Ruth Beyer, OBA Education and Executive Committee member, recently co-penned an op-ed regarding education reform. The article, which ran in the Medford Mail Tribune, is below and you can also click here to read it online.
Oregon’s Opportunity to Transform Education
By: Ruth Beyer, Margaret Kirkpatrick, and Daniel Thorndike
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
This is a critical time for education in Oregon. With the state’s slow climb from the recession and costs for essentials like public safety and health care rising fast, Oregon schools cannot count on increased financial support from the state. At the same time, and now more than ever, the quality of our educational system will determine our future prosperity.
These tough times give us an opportunity to transform our education system to focus on outcomes — for students and the state — instead of focusing solely on the final state funding amount.
So what are the problems that need fixing? Three rise to the top of the list.
First, our funding models are badly out of date. State dollars now are distributed based on enrollment numbers, not on whether particular investments will achieve the desired results. The focus should be on outcomes and proficiency, not on the amount of “seat time” a student has spent in the classroom.
We must take our education budget out of separate “silos” for pre-K, K-12, community colleges and universities. To accomplish this we need to:
In practice, these changes would mean that a student would have to demonstrate mastery of a subject or skill before he or she could move on to more advanced work. They also would mean that a high school student who is proficient in particular subjects could move seamlessly on to community college and university courses—and have those courses count toward a degree.
Second, we need to recognize the key roles for teachers and principals in these reforms and give them professional stakes in the results. We need to reward and incentivize our strong teachers while also making it possible to move ineffective teachers out of the system. We can establish more accountability and better results in the classroom by adopting meaningful assessments and evaluations, as well as offering coaching and mentoring to help hard-working teachers and principals become even stronger in their professions.
Third, the governance structure for our higher education system reduces the resources available to our universities and creates a barrier to learning and teaching. We support legislation (Senate Bill 242) now moving forward, that would free our universities from the burdens and limits of state agency status. We also think the Legislature should support Gov. John Kitzhaber’s call to combine the funding work of the State Board of Education, the Board of Higher Education and the Student Assistance Commission into one Oregon Education Investment Board.
It’s trite but true: No good crisis should go to waste. Our crisis is a weak economy and an education system that is quickly losing ground. Our opportunity is to fundamentally change that system. For Oregon to compete effectively in a global economy, we must educate our children and retrain our work force to much higher levels than the past has demanded. Oregon’s bright future depends on the transformation of our education system so it can produce an army of well-educated, highly skilled employees and citizens. We call on our legislators to begin this transformation today.
Margaret Kirkpatrick is vice president and general counsel at NW Natural and chairwoman of the Associated Oregon Industries Education Committee. Ruth Beyer is an attorney and partner at Stoel Rives LLP and a member of the Oregon Business Association Education Committee. Daniel Thorndike is corporate counsel at Medford Fabrication and a member of the Associated Oregon Industries Education Committee.Tuesday, April 5th, 2011
The greatest indicator of the economic well-being of a society is the educational attainment levels of its citizens. Marrying educational investment with research-based reforms will allow Oregonians to better compete in a global economy and is an important component of raising Oregon’s per capita income above the national average.
Today, Governor Kitzhaber will be taking a huge step forward by introducing an efficient and accountable governance system for public education that integrates early childhood development with K-12 and post-secondary education and training. SB 909 creates the Oregon Education Investment Board (OEIB), which will change governance and funding structures to achieve better results for students, more resources for teachers, and a better return on investment for the taxpayers of Oregon.
Intel’s Morgan Anderson, who chairs OBA’s Education Committee, will testify today in the Senate Education Committee and voice OBA’s strong support for this transformational change in the education system, which fits well within the package of education bills that OBA is advocating for in Salem.
The Oregon Education Investment Board will:
• Develop an outcome-based budget proposing strategic investments across the public education system to ensure integration and coordination, and maximize returns on state investments.
• Oversee streamlining and connecting early childhood services to the K-12 system and streamlining and connecting the K-12 system to post-secondary education programs.
• Direct three subcommittees to advise the OEIB: the Early Learning Council, the K-12 Coordinating Commission, and the Higher Education Coordinating Commission.
• Develop a strategic education plan for Oregon, including a plan to consolidate and assume the functions of the Oregon State Board of Education and the Oregon Board of Higher Education.
Oregon Business Association applauds the Governor’s vision, and we look forward to continued work with the Governor, parents, superintendents, and education advocates to pass meaningful education reform that will improve governance, increase accountability, maximize teacher quality, and close the achievement gap. Our future depends on it.
We encourage OBA members to urge their legislator’s support for the OEIB and SB 909.