When Election Day lands on Nov. 6, Oregon voters will no doubt put education — meaning, public schools funding, the ability of the state to generate top-notch students and overall teacher and institution quality — toward the top of their issues list.
And in the very-close Oregon gubernatorial race, the candidates both make detailed cases for improving the state's education lot.
SLIDESHOW: Oregon's best public elementary schools
For instance, in a soon-to-be published "open letter" written for the Business Journal by Republican Knute Buehler, the candidate spend much of his 400-word space discussing education.
Buehler called the state's "classroom-funding crisis" Oregon's most pressing issue, hampered as it is by "a broken pension system and other runaway costs."
On the other hand, Democrat Kate Brown, in an article also running later this week, discussed "My Children’s Cabinet ... a system of early childhood care (that makes) sure that families, both prenatally and postnatally, have access to services like home visitation."
No matter how it's couched, both candidates are saying they believe strong elementary schools are paramount to ensuring a viable education system up and down the chain.
With that backdrop, we're presenting our annual list of 50 top elementary schools, public and private, as compiled by the Pittsburgh-based researcher Niche.com.
In this year's Oregon edition, Beaverton's public schools system contributed nearly half of the 50 top-ranked schools. The West Linn-Wilsonville district put in for nearly 20 percent. Lake Oswego and Corvallis also fared well.
Niche.com uses several factors to gauge schools' performance, making its final rankings based on the weights of marks in five categories:
- Academics, which comprise 50 percent of the grade. It's based on state assessment proficiency and survey responses on academics from students and parents.
- Teachers, which comprises 20 percent of the grade. It's based on salaries, absenteeism, state test results, and survey responses on teachers from students and parents.
- The overall district grade, which comprises 15 percent of the overall mark and is based on a "rigorous analysis of academic and student life data along with millions of reviews from students and parents."
- Culture and diversity, which makes up 10 percent of the grade. It's based on racial and economic diversity and survey responses on school culture and diversity from students and parents.
- Parent and student surveys, which in which responses are scored on a 1-5 scale "regarding the overall experience of students and parents from the school." The surveys comprise 5 percent of the grade.
Click through to see whether your local elementary school makes the grade.
The Portland Business Journal is a KGW News partner.
