Senator Kim Thatcher is the ONLY Candidate who can hold School Districts ACCOUNTABLE for our $9 Billion Dollar K-12 budget.

Oregon parents deserve to know why our kids aren’t reaching our kids during this Covid-19 pandemic. As our next Secretary of State, Kim Thatcher will assign a permanent audit team whose sole focus will be auditing our public schools so that our kids get the outcomes they deserve, and taxpayers get the quality public education system they deserve.

Conversations with Kim: Time to Audit Public Schools

Oregon Public School Superintendent Marc Thielman says Kim Thatcher is the ONLY candidate he trusts to follow our education dollars to ensure they work for kids and families.

THE PORTLAND TRIBUNE

Kim Thatcher discusses the need for public school audits

By Kim Thatcher

The most important audit I can accomplish in 2021 will be to understand where our $9 billion dollar education budget is going at a time when kids are dialing into school from their kitchen table. We know that kids are only getting a few hours per week of instructional time. Children with disabilities aren’t being served their federally required instruction plans. Rural children don’t have reliable internet connections. Children in urban Portland who depend on the social safety net dollars that schools provide have unmet needs. Our education dollars are not reaching our kids and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.

The first thing I will do as Secretary of State is to establish a permanent team of state auditors whose sole job is auditing public school outcomes, education spending, and compliance with state and federal education laws. For every month a child falls behind, it takes two months to catch them up. It’s been nearly eight months since kids have seen the inside of a classroom. It’s going to require an honest assessment through audits to ensure we don’t leave a generation of kids behind.

OPINION: We need an Secretary of State who focuses on accountability