Oregon is latest state to dumb down education. Talk about the soft bigotry of low expections

Oregon's Board of Education has voted unanimously to drop graduation requirements in reading and writing for students in the Beaver State. The decision puts the state's kids at risk.

Baltimore City Public Schools, which had relaxed its math standards several times since the early 2010s, currently has 13 high schools in which zero students tested proficient in math in the 2023 Maryland state assessments. Other states and schools have consistently proven that leaving standards and expectations behind for any reason will result in diminished returns in performance—and students will end up paying the price for the rest of their lives. Tony Kinnett is the executive director of the heterodox education publication Chalkboard Review, and the former STEM coordinator and head instructional coach for Indianapolis Public Schools. Follow him on Twitter @TheTonus.

The Oregon Department of Education released a statement calling the reading and writing proficiency standards "burdensome to teachers and students." Dan Farley, Oregon’s assistant superintendent of research, assessment, and data with the Education Department, said the standards simply "did not work."

There’s no evidence that suspending those standards is going to improve the academic performance of any student—quite the contrary. Had the Oregon Board of Education done 15 minutes of research, it would have found that relaxing academic performance standards has had drastic adverse consequences.