Afleveringen
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Schools may be closed for the holiday break, but there’s a lot ahead for Oregon’s public education system in 2025.
We asked three of the superintendents of Oregon’s largest public school districts — Kimberlee Armstrong of Portland Public Schools, Gustavo Balderas from the Beaverton School District and Andrea Castaneda from Salem-Keizer Public Schools — to join Beat Check this week for a roundtable discussion.
Listen in to get the scoop on their thoughts about how the state funds education, and how that impacts urban school districts, which serve complex, high-needs communities, including families experiencing poverty and students who don’t speak English as a first language.
We also broke down the debate over greater accountability in Oregon’s school systems, what it’s like to be negotiating with teacher unions in the wake of Portland’s impactful teacher strike and what classroom projects — from language immersion to early literacy — have them really jazzed about 2025.
Read more:
How shabby or shiny are your local schools? In Oregon, it depends on where you live.
After Portland teachers’ strike and statewide budget cuts, Kotek backs ‘significant’ changes to funding formula.
In Albany, a teacher’s strike reverberates statewide
Subscribe to Beat Check anywhere you listen to podcasts to get new episodes each week.
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On the evening of Saturday, Dec. 7, a series of curious and unusual red lights illuminated the Oregon night sky. They moved around dramatically, zooming up and down at speeds so extreme, so uncharacteristic, nearby pilots were left in awe as they watched it all unfold from 30,000 feet.
“I don’t even know how to describe it,” one pilot said.
“It’s pretty crazy,” added another.
In the middle of the mystery, an air traffic controller gave permission for the pilots to “maneuver as necessary left and right to avoid the UFO out there.”
Some have suggested that the lights were merely Starlink satellites, which are routinely spotted as they orbit the planet. But others aren’t so sure. Some believe those weird red lights that dazzled the night sky are part of a curious trend of uncanny events. Some believe there’s more to the story.
On the latest episode of Beat Check, Lizzy Acker, who covers Oregon weather and writes the advice column Why Tho? for The Oregonian/OregonLive, shares details of the recent curiosities in our friendly skies.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Last week, plans for the largest U.S. supermarket merger in history imploded in spectacular fashion.
First, an Oregon federal judge blocked the $24.6 billion bid by Kroger to take over Albertson’s, its next largest rival.
Less than 24 hours later, Albertsons, which also owns Safeway, pulled out of the deal entirely — and then filed a massive lawsuit against Kroger, the parent company of Fred Meyer and QFC.
The bitter breakup marks the end of a two-year saga that stood to upend grocery shopping across Oregon and centered largely right here in Portland.
On the latest Beat Check, Oregonian/OregonLive reporters Kristine de Leon and Shane Dixon Kavanaugh unpack the final twists and turns of the supermarket deal gone sour.
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For decades, The Oregonian has sponsored an annual fundraising drive, featuring local nonprofits making a difference in our community. Its part of The Oregonian/OregonLive’s mission to strengthen and empower the communities we serve.
This year, we are featuring 13 nonprofits. Once the board chooses a nonprofit, reporters and photographers find an example of how the agency has helped individuals. Each article is accompanied by a box that shows what donations, even small ones, can accomplish.
Grant Butler, a longtime editor and reporter in our newsroom, takes on the challenge of managing the project each fall. He joined Editor Therese Bottomly, who leads the board overseeing Oregonian Publishing Co. Public Benefits Inc., to talk about the importance of our campaign.
> Donate to the Season of Sharing general fund. You can also text the code Season2024 to 44-321.
This year’s Season of Sharing fund drive continues until Dec. 31. Online donations can be made at oregonlive.com/sharing or the 2024 Season of Sharing GiveLively page. Donations can also be made by mail: Make a check out to Season of Sharing and send it to Season of Sharing, c/o Oregonians Credit Union, 336 N.E. 20th Ave., Portland, OR 97232.
In this episode of Beat Check, we talk about:
The history of our fund drive and how it has changed over the decades
How the nonprofits are chosen
Hearing about the transformative power of Season of Sharing gifts
How Season of Sharing prompts other gifts or bequests
Favorite stories Butler remembers
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Roger A. Pearce Jr. spent three decades as a successful attorney in the Northwest, representing prominent people and high-profile businesses in Oregon and Washington.
He dedicated his free time to nonprofit boards and planning commissions. He spent countless hours doing pro bono legal work. He was well-liked in social circles and part of a happy marriage.
By all measures, the name Roger Pearce was synonymous with success and respect. Except for one thing:
Roger Pearce was not actually Roger Pearce.
Who is the real Roger Pearce? Why did a prominent lawyer spend 50 years masquerading under a stolen identity? And how did the truth finally come to light?
On the latest episode of Beat Check, Maxine Bernstein, who covers the federal court and crime and law enforcement for The Oregonian/OregonLive, shares the gripping story of how a prominent lawyer stole the identity of a deceased baby.
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For more than a decade, Oregon forecasters have underestimated the strength of the state’s economy — and the amount of money it collects each year.
That’s led to tax rebate windfalls for Oregon residents, who receive a portion of excess revenue under the state’s unique “kicker” law.
It’s also left state lawmakers with less money to spend on schools, health care, transportation and other budget priorities.
All of this may change now that Oregon’s hired a state economist, who is reforming the model his office uses to predict the state’s finances.
On the latest Beat Check, reporters Shane Dixon Kavanaugh and Mike Rogoway discuss the potential impacts of those changes.
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A new investigation published in The Oregonian/OregonLive focuses on the life of an Oregon girl who was repeatedly trafficked for sex and on how the foster care system had failed to protect her.
On the latest Beat Check, investigative reporter Hillary Borrud talked about the story, including how sex trafficking of children can happen in a city like Portland and why our state is failing those most at risk.
Read more:
Oregon teen repeatedly sex trafficked. How the foster system failed her
5 things to know about how Oregon’s foster system failed to protect teen from sex trafficking
Video: How Oregon’s foster system failed to save a teenager from sex trafficking
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We’re a few days out from Election Day 2024, and reporters at The Oregonian/OregonLive have been hard at work trying to decode all the results and what they mean for our region. Portland’s got a new mayor, and the new City Council is coming into focus too.
Voters chose two new progressive Multnomah County Commissioner candidates over their more moderate opponents, while the Clackamas County Commission is on the verge of a big power shift. Democrats remain in the driver’s seat in Salem, and are poised to win nationally watched Congressional races in the Pacific Northwest too.
This week’s podcast breaks it all down, plus we’ll get into the Election Day moments we’ll still be thinking about six months from now.
Related coverage:
Mayor-elect Keith Wilson says he’ll once again make Portland ‘the city that works’
Progressives Meghan Moyer, Shannon Singleton capture seats on Multnomah County board of commissioners
Janelle Bynum wins race for Congress, flipping U.S. House seat from GOP to Democratic control
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In one of the most contentious and consequential elections in recent memory, Oregon has become ground zero for one of the most intriguing and potentially important races in the United States.
District 5, a wide swath of Oregon that stretches from SE Portland to Albany to Bend, is home to a heated and hotly-contested political showdown between Republican incumbent Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Democratic challenger Janelle Bynum, who are vying for a spot in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The winner of the race, which is one of only a handful of battleground matchups this election cycle, could shift the balance of power in congress.
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The Oregonian/OregonLive's Maxine Bernstein reported on the two-week trial in federal court that brought to light a pattern of crimes by defendant Negasi Zuberi. A final twist as the case was headed to the jury threatened to hold up the final verdict.
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The senior vice president at DHM Research decodes his firm's recent polling on the Portland mayor's race, voter attitudes about downtown and more.
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At the end of September, when the federal government canceled Oregon’s first-ever offshore wind lease sale, many people were left with questions about why and what’s next.
The announcement from the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management came after Gov. Tina Kotek sent a letter to the agency asking it to stop the Oct. 15 auction. Kotek cited tribal opposition and a tribal lawsuit among the reasons for halting the lease sale.
That lawsuit was filed by the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians, which has emerged over the past two years as one of the most vocal opponents of offshore wind, demanding the bureau conduct in-depth reviews of the impacts of floating turbines on marine life and fishing areas.
Despite the lawsuit and the canceled auction, the tribal confederation has continued talks with the federal agency. Because the reality is that the turbines are badly needed to generate clean electricity and help achieve state and federal climate goals. The questions remain: how and where should these projects be built?
Brad Kneaper, Tribal Council chair with the Confederated Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw Indians and Rick Eichstaedt, the tribes’ attorney, talked on Beat Check about why his tribes decided to sue to halt the auction and what the path forward for Oregon’s offshore wind is.
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On the latest Beat Check, Oregonian/OregonLive reporters Shane Dixon Kavanaugh and Julia Silverman discuss the prospects of Portland mayoral hopefuls Rene Gonzalez, Carmen Rubio and Keith Wilson.
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The general election is fast approaching and Oregon journalists are working hard to inform voters. The Oregonian/OregonLive’s politics team is tackling everything from congressional races to local measures. A particular focus this fall is Portland’s new ranked-choice voting system.
Jamie Goldberg, who with Betsy Hammond leads the newsroom’s politics team, joined Editor Therese Bottomly for a conversation about all of the information we’re providing prospective voters as we approach the date when ballots go out.
--We cover key dates to watch for
--We talk about recent concerns regarding ineligible voters
--We highlight various tools on OregonLive for readers to find out more
Find all of our general election 2024 coverage at oregonlive.com/election-preview
All of our coverage on Portland’s new system is at oregonlive.com/topic/portland-government
The Oregonian/OregonLive’s interactive map for Portland voters is here.
Our video explainer is at here, using donuts to explain the new system.
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Connie Chung is an icon. It’s been almost 20 years since she was regularly on air, but she’s still a household name and a namesake for a generation of Asian American women.
Americans remember her as one of the faces of the news, from the 1970s through the early 2000s. She interviewed Nixon and Oregon’s one-time Olympic darling-turned-national villain, Tonya Harding and covered the events that rocked the country from the O.J. Simpson trial to the Oklahoma City bombing.
In “Connie: A Memoir” released Tuesday from Grand Central Publishing, Chung, now 78, tells her own story.
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School is back in session, but September has been warmer than usual. Thousands of students in the Portland area were let out of school early or had classes canceled earlier this month as temperatures reached triple digits and dirty air from wildfires in the region triggered air quality alerts.
With extreme weather events on the rise both during summers and winters, schools are being forced to adjust to the impacts of a warming climate, including by upgrading their buildings, swapping gas-gurgling buses for electric ones and writing new climate-focused curriculums, among others.
Julia Silverman, The Oregonian’s education reporter, talked on Beat Check about how schools are hoping to fund new HVAC systems and other climate-related changes, what approaches rural schools are taking and why climate-related learning disruptions can significantly hamper student success.
Read more about schools’ response to climate change on The Oregonian/OregonLive.com:
Portland-area schools hope city will fund more AC and climate upgrades, via clean energy tax proceeds
How shabby or shiny are your local schools? In Oregon, it depends where you live
6 down, 3 to go as another renovated high school opens in Portland
With extreme heat in the forecast, Portland-area school districts weigh their options
Students, legislators push for school districts to tackle climate change
A Portland high school student has Oregon governor’s ear on environmental justice
Young Somali American brings green Islam movement to Portland
Students nationwide have rebounded after pandemic. But not in Oregon. Consequences could be severe
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Portland City Hall is on the verge of some truly monumental changes, ranging from the radical transformation of how the city’s government operates to an historic election in November that will usher in a new mayor and expanded 12-member City Council.
The work to get here has now been years in the making. Few have followed the twists and turns of this civic saga as closely as Maja Viklands Harris.
A longtime journalist and local government watcher, Harris is the founder of Rose City Reform, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news and research site that’s become a must-read for reporters, political insiders and many of the people seeking local elected office this fall.
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new wave energy test site is nearly complete off the Oregon coast. The site, overseen by Oregon State University, will allow private developers to test devices that can harness the power of ocean waves, a technology that’s still in its infancy. The hope is that wave energy can become another major source of clean, renewable electricity akin to solar or wind power and can help power the world’s clean energy transition. Burke Hales, a professor at Oregon State University and the chief scientist at the test site, talked on Beat Check about why Oregon is at the forefront of this new technology and what the challenges are going forward.
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Last month, watchdog reporter Ted Sickinger published an in-depth article examining a loophole in the Oregon Lottery’s rules. In Oregon, it is perfectly legal to re-sell your winning lottery ticket at a discount, allowing the buyer to claim the prize.
Why would anyone do this? Well, if they wanted to avoid having the state seize part of their winnings for taxes or back child support, for example.
And why would the state allow this? Lottery officials told Sickinger they were aware of the practice of “discounting” and despite the fact other states have moved to close down similar schemes elsewhere nothing had been done in Oregon to prohibit the workaround.
Sickinger joined Editor Therese Bottomly on “Beat Check with The Oregonian” to talk about how he got onto the story and how he tracked down participants willing to talk with him. He also talked about reaction to his piece.
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The 2024 fire season so far hasn’t encroached on as many highly populated areas or forced as many mass evacuations as some recent years.
But it’s been historic nonetheless. More acres have burned across the state than in any year since at least 1992, when officials started keeping a reliable tally.
Sujena Soumyanath and Fedor Zarkin, public safety reporters for The Oregonian/OregonLive, discussed fire damage to date, dispatches from the front lines and the outlook for the rest of the season on Beat Check with The Oregonian.
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