What do you get when you mix an economic downturn, a burst housing bubble and a state that collects the majority of its revenue from income and real-estate taxes? You get a race to the bottom of the education spending rankings. As of 2006 Oregon ranked 41st in k-12 per capita spending. Any bets on where we’ll be during the 2009-10 school year?

To give an idea of just how much have things have changed in the last 10 years lets look at my alma mater South Eugene High School. When I was a student here in the mid to late 90s we had twice as may staff members as we do today. To have a class of 24 students was unacceptable large in those days. Now having a class of 24 is unacceptably small. With the rise in the number of Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), high stakes testing and the mainstreaming of former special education students teachers are expected to not just teach more kids but to specialize their lessons for more individual needs with little to no additional support.
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