Take Action to Improve ESL Equity & Accountability

By the close of Oregon’s next legislative session, nearly 800 English learners will drop out of high school*, many of whom are Asian and Pacific Islanders. Less than 50% of our English language learners in Oregon graduate from high school in four years, negatively impacting their future livelihood. APANO has been fighting to make changes statewide to achieve better outcomes especially for our ESL students and their families. We have been organizing and researching deeply over the last year with community partners. This has resulted in an unprecedented opportunity to make policy change.

This summer, the Oregon Education Investment Board (OEIB) will draft recommendations for the state education budget. The legislature will consider these recommendations when they make their budget during the 2015 session. The Oregon Department of Education already proposed increased investments and transparency of spending for ESL funds that align strongly with our values and vision.

Will you join APANO in asking the OEIB to support these recommendations for equity and accountability? Click here to sign our petition that we will bring to OEIB in August!

While we believe improvements can be made to these recommendations, it’s important that the OEIB move these main ideas forward to the Governor to continue this important discussion. Read more about the recommendations here. To kick this off, we ask the Oregon Education Investment Board to advance these proposals to invest in education equity and increase the transparency of ELL funds. Please sign our petition and pass it on to your networks! Together, we can influence our state’s priorities.

Rev. Joseph Santos-Lyons
Executive Director