My idea is to make parent education available for every person in Oregon who becomes a parent. Being a parent is one of the most difficult and important jobs anyone will ever undertake however, few come prepared with the knowledge and skill to do it well. For most, their role models were their own parents; sometimes good sometimes not so good. The first few years are the most important in the develpment of a child, however, it is also the time of lest training. It has long been recognized that good parenting skills can be taught. If parents are categorized "at risk" there are many agencies and resources to help them. Unfortunately, this is not so for the "universal" population. It has been proven that every dollar spent in the early years on early childhood education as much as $17 can be saved in future spending in penal and rehabilitation concerns. Oregon has many examples of successful programs that educate and assist parents of young children (Birth to Three in Eugene, Together For Children in Central Oregon, Family Focus in Medford, Parents As Teachers organizations, etc.) so nothing new would need to be invented. A million dollars would go a long way in extending the work that is already being done and in developing other opportunities for the universal population.

This program would fund scholarships to allow Oregon college graduates to study overseas as well as foreign graduates to study advance degrees at Oregon Universities. A condition for the student to accept the scholarship would be a commitment to be employed in Oregon for a term of 2 years for every 1 year of funding. This would apply to both Oregon students going abroad and foreign students coming here. The program could also be expanded to other scholars, artists, craftsman, etc., for short term exchanges. Benefits of this program include fostering new ideas by looking outside of Oregon, sharing Oregon values, as well as bringing a highly educated and innovative work force to Oregon. The program could be funded through a combination of endowment and industry sponsors who would have priority on employing new scholars.

My idea for Oregon is to farm AT school. Few of us live on farms or even have a few chickens in the back yard. Many schools have extensive grounds in grass and ornamental shrubs and trees. Some of this area could be used for productive small scale farming. Harvest could be sold to the school food service to fund the activity sustainably. This would be real volume production rather than a demonstration.
The school farm could be as simple as a row of potatoes for first graders to dig when they start school in the fall and a row of something for each grade. Cyclone fence makes an excellent bean trellis.
Modern farming techniques such as plastic mulch, drip tape, and small irrigation timers would allow many crops to grow with little maintenance over the summer.
Some thought should be given to crop selection. Watermelons, for instance, wouldn’t have much of a chance in my old neighborhood. Squash on the other hand would grow untouched. Squashes and root crops such as rutabagas or parsnips may be rare in the home diet but readily eaten when grown and harvested by the student. Peas planted early might be harvested before school is over in the spring. When I mentioned tree crops such as apples and walnuts to a teacher I know, she had one word: ammo. This might be a drawback.
The school farm can be a starting point for classroom activity from writing to science. The school farm will not appeal to every student, but my experience is that some students will develop real interest in one aspect or another. A good sized greenhouse is a relatively inexpensive structure and a wonderful place on cold sunny winter days.
In an ideal situation each student would have rubber boots to wear if the ground is wet. Funding may be necessary for this. The school custodian should be enlisted right from the start.
Leaves and grass clippings should be composted for use as soil amendment. Food waste should also be composted if possible. The **** population can be used to feed a poultry flock or fish farm.
Funding, (seed money?), should cover enough tools to get many hands on projects. The farm could be an optional recess activity, a class activity, or something to do after school. I feel that a key to success is to have the volume and quality to eventually sell to the food service to cover a substantial portion of the cost. I think that there would be a dietary benefit to having fresh food with a connection to the students.
Our model of universal education developed when almost everyone was connected to farming in one way or another. Farming education would have been redundant then. Today a school farm serves an educational as well as activity and dietary health benefit. Mike Hessel

where you don't have to have financial aid, or take a class to wait or a long program waiting list but a place where you can go and get hands on computer progamming training/web design/ telecommunications switch work training. DSL repair training, customer service training. A lab where you can learn right there when you want to and a place that will work with the companies out in our community to place you in a job. Have classes and programs all the time every day and night for convenient training. Have the computers open to learn, log hours everytime you come to earn certificates and have businesses/city of portland/utilities provide the training programs. Offer this for anyone at any education, economic situation and living situation.

The "I Have a Dream" Foundation-Oregon's mission is to help low-income kids succeed in school and in college. They have done this through a combination of long-term mentorships, academic and social support services and by creating a "culture of college" starting in third grade. Now, they are embarking on an expanded goal by adopting three entire low-income elementary of K-8 public schools as "Dreamer Schools." These schools will include expanded emphasis on pre-K services, college completion and deeper collaboration with participating school districts, communities, leading educational and non-profit organizations. Their ultimate goal is to substantially increase high school graduation and college completion rates for all students in each of the three Dreamer Schools. This model will then serve as a demonstration project for wider replication in Oregon. Children are our future - we need to invest in them and their future.

We spend billions of public and private dollars each year to support the education, health, and social welfare of our children and young people and yet, far too many of our young children enter kindergarten unprepared; far too many children are under-succeeding in school and, as a result, too many young people fail to complete high school or college.

The purpose of the Preschool through College (P20) project is to:
1. develop community consensus around a few major education goals from birth through young adulthood;
2. align work around those goals;
3. And, promote synergy and collaboration around filling the gaps that keep us from meeting the consensus goals.

By so doing we will create greater efficiency and accountability as well as community understanding and support. We can and must do a better job of using our resources to help young people acquire the skills needed to succeed in the 21st century, and to improve the economic vitality of our region.

Only 66% of Oregon high school students graduate on-time. The number in Portland Public Schools is just 53%. We know that these numbers are much lower in our minority communities. For these students’ future we must take action. Improvements, though, also help our state. A 1% increase in the number of children graduating from high school and going on to a college or training program will have a $1.6 billion long-term financial impact on our community.

Under the leadership of President Wim Wiewel, Portland State University has entered into a partnership with the Leaders Roundtable, Mayor Sam Adams, County Chair Jeff Cogen, and the eight Multnomah County School Districts to create a pilot project which will focus on the 250,000 students in Multnomah County.

The coalition has determined the five goal areas where we will focus our efforts. Every student will:
1. Be prepared for school
2. Be supported inside and outside school
3. Succeed academically
4. Enroll in some form of postsecondary education or training
5. Graduate to a fulfilling career

A million dollar investment in this project would achieve the following over the next two years:
1. Create a community consensus around specific metrics for each of goal area helping to align organizational missions.
2. Conduct a community-wide inventory of programs defining gaps in services.
3. Determine which programs could be replicated in order to dramatically increase high school graduation rates.
4. Create an infrastructure to duplicate the Multnomah County pilot project throughout the state.

The outcome will be a more efficient and effective use of community dollars, increased success by all of our children, and a better future for Oregon!

Randy Hitz, Dean
PSU Graduate School of Education

Oregon has 17 community colleges serving Oregonians and students from other states and countries. Each community college serves a specific geographic area and has an independent taxing district with an elected board of directors and an appointed president. These two-year colleges are funded by monies from local taxpayers, the State of Oregon, federal government, tuition, grants, estates, and other sources. The Oregon State Board of Education sets community college policies, which are administered by the Oregon Department of Community Colleges and Workforce Development. Each community college has a separate name, brand, logo, messaging, and marketing communications. MMT could play a leadership role to establish one brand and one key message for all community colleges in Oregon with target audiences. It would help to strengthen the brands of Oregon’s community colleges with target audiences statewide and locally. Through the process new, innovative, and proven marketing communications programs statewide and locally could be implemented to increase awareness and support for all community colleges. Greg Hansen

Oregon’s future economy needs to sell more goods and services abroad. More Oregon high school students need to spend a high school year studying abroad, learning the languages and cultures of those potential markets. Without spending any additional public moneys many more public high school students could study abroad. Just encourage local school districts to pay the fees of existing study abroad organizations on behalf of their students. Pilot programs are needed to show the way.

(1) Specifics: Meyer Memorial Trust should provide $160,000 each in matching funds to three local school districts willing to pilot high school study abroad programs to China for a total of $480,000. Match would be 50%/50%. Each school district would budget $50,000 for the overhead of developing and administering such a program for three year. Plus $90,000 each year for three years for 10 scholarship grants each year for high school study abroad in China. Total to each local school district would be $320,000. The MMT share would be $160,000 for each districts, times three equals $480,000.

(2) General Go Global High School Study Abroad concepts: There are existing academic-year-long study abroad programs that cost less than the per pupil spending in many Oregon school districts. For examples, using data from the Oregon Department of Education’s Open Book website for a recent year, Portland’s per pupil spending was $9,442, Salem-Keizer’s was $8,288, Beaverton’s was $7,607 , Hillsboro’s was $7,499 , and Eugene’s was $8,440. Portland based Education, Travel and Culture offers academic year abroad programs with fees ranging from to $5,500 to $7,950, not including airfare, from countries ranging from Brazil to Sweden. China is $6,950 (plus airfare) for an academic year. Portland based Andeo offers an academic year in Mexico for $6,000 plus airfare.

ASSE (American Scandinavian Student Exchange) provides the following academic-year study abroad programs: Mexico, $4,900; French Canada, $5,400; Finland, $7,550; Romania, $7,550; Germany, $7,550; Serbia, $7,550; Taiwan, $6,750; Holland, $7,550; Slovakia, $7,550; Hong Kong, $7,500; Italy, $7,550; Spain, $7,550; Mongolia, $7,500; Lithuania, $7,550; Sweden, $7,550; Vietnam, $7,500; Norway, $7,550; Switzerland, $7,550; Czech Republic, $7,550; Poland, $7,550; Turkey, $7,550; Denmark, $7,550; Portugal, $7,550; Ukraine, $7,550; Estonia, $7,550; and France, $8,650. Plus ASSE offers a 10 percent discount on all these programs for early payment.

AFS high school study abroad academic year offerings as of 2/13/09: Chile, $8,900; Costa Rica, $8,900; Czech Republic, $8,900; Dominican Republic, $8,900; Ecuador, $8,900; Egypt, $8,900; Honduras, $8,900; Hungary, $8,900; Latvia, $8,900; Turkey, $8,900; Panama, $8,900; Peru, $8,900; Paraguay, $8,900; Argentina, $9,900; Austria, $9,900; Belgium Flanders, $9,900; Brazil, $9,900; China, $9,900; Denmark, $9,900; Finland, $9,900; Germany, $9,900; Iceland, $9,900; India, $9,900; Indonesia, $9,900; Malaysia, $9,900; Netherlands, $9,900; Portugal, $9,900; Russia, $9,900; South Africa, $9,900; Sweden, $9,900; Thailand, $9,900; Belgium French, $10,900; France, $10,900; Ghana, $10,900; Italy, $10,900; New Zealand, $10,900; and Spain, $10,900.

There are many other study abroad programs currently existing and others could be created specifically to use this funding. So for little or no additional costs, Oregon could have many more high school students studying abroad. Some school district could save money by sending students to study abroad.

(3) No local school district or state in the US currently uses public funds to pay for its students to study abroad.

Oregon may or may not need to change its laws to permit local school districts to use state funds for study abroad. Pilot programs would help clarify this issue. HB 2719 in the 2009 session would have clarified the issue. It did not pass but will be reintroduced in 2011.

Graduation requirements need to be waived for students who study abroad to make this proposal public revenue neutral.

(4) The world’s economic and geo-political arrangements are undergoing rapid and sustained change.
Consider that improved transportation and communications together with the resulting global flow of financial investment funds are bringing distance economies into competition with each other, making the globe seem smaller and more interconnected; and
Consider that the global banking firm Goldman Sachs estimated that by 2050 the combined emerging economies of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) could exceed the combined economies of the current richest countries of the world; and
Consider that during the next thirty years, two to three billion people (out of a global population of 6.4 billion and growing) may join the global middle class, bringing substantial new buying power into the global market; and
Consider that in the next few decades roughly 80% of the world's economic growth will be found in emerging markets; and
Consider that the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace estimated (2008) that the economy of China will equal in size the US economy in 2035 and be twice as large in 2050.
This is the global economy that today’s students, our next generations, will have to compete in. To be successful they will need the skills and knowledge to innovate, design, produce, buy and sell in these emerging markets around the globe. For our next generations to survive and thrive in this future global economy, more of them will need foreign language skills, and at proficiency levels higher than we now usually produce. Our Portland economy will thrive to the extent that we can create new services and products and sell them in these growing global markets.
For a student, nothing sparks the generation of new ideas like living in another culture and seeing the world and all its arrangements from a fresh perspective. We need to strengthen this capacity for innovation and the sense of adventure in our young. We need to send many more of our high school students to study abroad.
While we need generally to invigorate the study of foreign languages and send high school students to study all over the globe, China, and its official language Mandarin, deserve top priority in our efforts. China is the biggest emerging market, and, for that economic reason alone, deserves special priority. But China is much, much more. As the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Institute for International Economics put it:
No relationship matters more – for better of for worse – in resolving the enduring challenges of our time: maintaining stability among great powers, sustaining global economic growth, stemming dangerous weapons proliferation, countering terrorism, and confronting new transnational threats of infectious disease, environmental degradation, international crime, and failing states.

But even that sweeping statement does not capture China’s critical importance. China may become by the end of the 21st century the globe’s dominant superpower. It could become more powerful than the US. Our next generations may need to find a way to live peacefully with that reality or to take them on militarily. Currently, China spends about $70 billion on its military compared to $713 billion for the US, or just 10% of what the US spends, and China has roughly two dozen nuclear armed missiles. As a deterrent, their nuclear missiles are probably targeted at US cities. Probably, one of those nuclear missiles is usually targeted at Portland. This is not new, and should not raise any sudden alarms. Nuclear deterrence around the globe has proven to be quite stable. But consider further, as China’s economy grows this century to be more than twice the size of the US economy, and as its investments in education and research produce a very competitive high tech economy, they will have the capacity to considerably upgrade their military. What then?
How should the US, and Oregon, respond to this rise in China’s power? Consider the perspective of University of California Berkeley Professor Brad DeLong:
Think of it this way: Consider a world that contains one country that is a true superpower. It is preeminent--economically, technologically, politically, culturally, and militarily. But it lies at the east edge of a vast ocean. And across the ocean is another country--a country with more resources in the long-run, a country that looks likely to in the end supplant the current superpower. What should the superpower's long-run national security strategy be?
I think the answer is clear: if possible, the current superpower should embrace its possible successor. It should bind it as closely as possible with ties of blood, commerce, and culture--so that should the emerging superpower come to its full strength, it will to as great an extent possible share the world view of and regard itself as part of the same civilization as its predecessor: Romans to their Greeks.
Consider our own historical experience, the US rose to global power as the British Empire declined. The British mentored our rise to global power, and thus extended their influence on the global system fro generations. We did, after all, come to their aid in two world wars. But in this past Anglo-American case both countries shared a common language, English, and much of the US political and economic culture came from the British. Not so today between the US and China. We have very different languages and cultures. Yet, this is the big challenge for our next generations. They simply are not now prepared. Today, many Chinese students study English. Only around one percent of Oregon’s public school students are now studying Mandarin, and only very, very few to fluency. We must increase that. We should, as I put it, “Give Peace a Chance” by increasing the numbers of our next generations fluent in Mandarin and knowledgeable of China from time spent there.