Our schools are struggling. Dismantling and rebuilding the Oregon Department of Education will help.

By any honest measure, Oregon’s public education system is one of the worst in the nation. Independent national rankings consistently place Oregon near the bottom of U.S. education performance, with one of the highest dropout rates in the country.

Meanwhile, the state spends about the national average per student. That’s a problem of leadership, accountability and priorities, all of which ultimately rest with the Governor.

At the same time academic performance falters, many Oregon families are increasingly concerned about what is being taught in the classroom. Recent reports describe instances where parents say they were surprised by surveys involving gender identity and sexual orientation being distributed to elementary and middle school students. Concerns have also been raised about how districts present sensitive topics in sex education, with some parents arguing that content they’ve seen goes well beyond what they consider age-appropriate and detracts from core academic instruction.

Parents who send their children to public school expect them to be taught to read, write, and do arithmetic, and to be consulted about curriculum involving deeply personal and sensitive topics. When families feel blindsided by material they find inappropriate, they lose trust in their schools.

The human cost of this failure is enormous. Students graduate needing remediation, while employers struggle to find workers with basic skills. The damage falls hardest on low-income students and students of color, despite constant rhetoric about diversity, equity and inclusion. There is nothing equitable about presiding over one of the lowest-performing education systems in America.

Oregon’s public schools are not failing because teachers do not work hard. They are failing because the system lacks clear goals, accountability and an unwavering focus on student achievement. Oregon cannot continue to claim progressive values while delivering last-place outcomes. It cannot demand trust while ignoring results. And it cannot continue employing the “soft bigotry of low expectations” without admitting the significant harm it causes.

If Oregon wants different results, it needs different leadership. It needs a governor that is willing to confront failure honestly, demand evidence-based instruction, enforce accountability, ensure age-appropriate curricula and put student achievement ahead of political comfort.

As governor, my number one priority above all other things would be to dismantle and rebuild the Oregon Department of Education, with a focus on education, not indoctrination. My obligation would be to the 545,000 students in Oregon’s public schools, especially those who are low-income, students of color or struggling to read and do math at grade level.

I would be willing to work with any organization, including the Oregon Education Association, that is prepared to put student achievement first, measure success honestly, accept accountability for results and be grounded in shared responsibility for outcomes instead of deference to the status quo.

That is the standard Oregon families deserve.