What Oregon’s 2026 Legislative Session Did—or Left Undone—for Children and Education

A High-Stakes Budget Balancing Act

As the session began, Oregon legislators were facing the prospect of a roughly $650 million shortfall in the state budget. Economic challenges and new federal tax cuts meant Oregon’s own revenue collection would drop sharply, while the costs of implementing federal changes to healthcare and food assistance raised concerns that critical state services would be left underfunded.

To prepare for the worst, Gov. Tina Kotek and the Legislature asked state agencies to propose ways to cut 5% from agency budgets, including potentially reducing the State School Fund and scaling back many critical programs for students and families. Advocates who feared the worst urged the state to plug any budget deficit by tapping into state reserves held in Oregon’s $1.2 billion education stability fund.

Fortunately, the worst never came to pass. After the session began, state economists forecasted a less dire economic landscape than originally expected, giving legislative budget writers more projected revenue to work with. The Legislature also passed Senate Bill 1507 to partially decouple Oregon’s tax code from the federal tax code, allowing the state to recover $291 million in state tax revenue that otherwise would have been lost.

Rebalancing the $39 billion state budget ultimately required $128 million in cuts, which the Legislature largely achieved by leaving vacant state jobs unfilled instead of cutting direct services to Oregonians. By keeping this biennium’s record-high K-12 budget intact, legislators saved the state’s education reserve funds for a future economic crisis and preserved the current state funding promised to Oregon’s 197 school districts. 

While some school districts are still straining to fill mid-year budget gaps, these local shortages are not directly caused—and now won’t be exacerbated—by state funding cuts. That’s good news for now, but economic headwinds and more federal upheaval could paint a different picture next year.

“We are facing large budget deficits in 2027-29 and 29-31,” said Sen. Kate Lieber, co-chair of the Joint Ways & Means Committee. “This budget was a bit ‘minor leagues’ compared to the budgets that are coming ahead of us.”

Like the K-12 budget, early learning and childcare were spared from additional state funding cuts to programs that directly serve children and families. However, the Oregon Department of Early Learning and Care’s budget was already reduced by $45 million in the original 2025-27 budget. While legislators did not restore the lost funding while rebalancing the budget, early childhood advocates managed to secure $67 million for Employment Related Day Care (ERDC), which was projected to run out of funds by January 2027.

Future K-12 Costs Are Left Unclear

While the current session thankfully did not result in major cuts, Oregon still doesn’t have a clear view into the longer-term costs of delivering a high-quality public education to all students. Unfortunately, one effort to better understand what schools need—and better plan for the future—fizzled out.

Introduced by Sen. Janeen Sollman and Rep. Ricki Ruiz, Senate Bill 1555 set out to fix Oregon’s long-broken Quality Education Model (QEM), which provides a biennial estimate of how much money the state should invest in Oregon's schools to achieve a 90% graduation rate. The model—and the commission that oversees it—have come under increased scrutiny for outdated methodology, inaccurate calculations, and misleading analysis.

“Modeling the cost of a high-quality education is not just a financial exercise. It also differs from the state budgeting process, which aims to fund current services and is agnostic to quality,” said Anna Higgins, FBO’s Director of Policy and Systems Strategy, in testimony to the Legislature. “A cost model should illuminate the path to a high-quality public education system by estimating long-term costs in line with Oregon’s specific goals to improve student outcomes and school quality.”

Senate Bill 1555 proposed replacing the QEM with a modernized cost model that follows best practices for student learning and well-being, accounts for different needs across urban and rural communities, and keeps schools laser-focused on reaching clear goals to improve student outcomes under Senate Bill 141, Oregon’s new K-12 accountability law. The new model would have been developed by independent nonpartisan researchers and informed by input from families, educators, school administrators, and community leaders.

Most disappointingly, the bill’s failure reflects a longstanding pattern of infighting and inaction that too often stalls progress for Oregon students. State leaders had the right idea to replace the QEM, but wrote the bill behind closed doors, never building important buy-in with school districts, educators, or community groups. While many were right to criticize the process, the bill’s opponents let perfect be enemy of the good.

Community Leaders Work to Protect Students and Programs

As a strong supporter of community-driven advocacy and policymaking, FBO joined the Oregon Partners for Education Justice (OPEJ) to advocate for the cross-cultural network’s 2026 legislative agenda in Salem. This year’s agenda was endorsed and championed by two dozen community-based organizations, culturally specific service providers, and education advocates across Oregon.

With budget cuts looming, OPEJ reasserted the critical importance of sustainable funding for summer learning programs. Maintaining promised investments for this summer and beyond is key to ensuring schools and their community partners can build a reliable statewide network of high-quality programming. Community advocacy was affirmed by a new report from the Oregon Department of Education, released during legislative session, showing nearly 30,000 students benefitted from academic support and enrichment opportunities last summer thanks to state funding.

OPEJ also safeguarded against additional cuts to programs that were already slashed in 2025. These included Oregon’s Student Success Plans, which provide community-informed strategies and targeted investments to better support historically underserved students. As equity-focused and culturally specific investments have been rolled back nationally, OPEJ urged state legislators to courageously uphold Oregon’s commitment to opportunity for all. 

Beyond the budget, OPEJ stood in solidarity with immigrant rights advocates at a time when immigrant students and communities are under threat. “Many of us serve students directly,” wrote OPEJ partners to the Legislature, “and it has become abundantly clear that federal immigration enforcement actions are impacting learning, school attendance, and students’ well-being.”

Led by OPEJ partner Latino Network​, House Bill 4079 now requires public schools and universities to notify families and community partners when federal immigration enforcement officers enter school property. The Legislature also passed Senate Bill 1538 to ensure state law explicitly states that Oregon public schools may not discriminate against students based on immigration status or citizenship.

Many community leaders also rose in opposition to Senate Bill 1572, which included a provision to expand educators’ discretionary authority to discipline, suspend, or expel a student from a classroom if they are deemed to be disruptive. In public testimony, OPEJ partners reminded state legislators that exclusionary discipline is a “permission slip for bias” that disproportionately harms students of color and students experiencing disability. 

“The bill’s effect will be to erode the confidence, curiosity, and comfort that students need to learn, including those who are not removed from the classroom,” said Aryn Frazier, Executive Director of the Center for Black Excellence. “Nearly every piece of research makes clear that exclusionary discipline works against this state’s goals to increase attendance and engagement, improve math and reading scores, ensure high school graduation, and remove the predictive nature of race, class, and ability on outcomes.” 

Christy Reese, Executive Director of FACT Oregon, offered a different way forward. “We should not be pitting children against each other,” she told state legislators. “We must invest in what we know works: evidence-based interventions, staff training, mental and behavioral health supports, and partnerships with families and communities.”

What Will State Leaders Take On Next?

Those who read political tea leaves know a short legislative session often forecasts what lies ahead for the next long legislative session. With more time to develop new policies and draft a new state budget, state leaders and advocates will likely tackle some major education issues in 2027.

K-12 funding and spending are sure to top the agenda. Legislators will have the opportunity to revisit how three key puzzle pieces in Oregon’s education financing system fit together: a new long-term K-12 quality cost model, a new K-12 budget for the 2027-29 biennium, and a modernized funding distribution formula that equitably allocates the state’s K-12 budget to Oregon’s 197 school districts. Further aligning K-12 financing with Oregon’s new K-12 accountability and improvement system should deliver a more coherent, focused, and higher-quality public education system for students.

Whether they passed or failed, other short session bills point to issues of ongoing interest for state legislators. House Bill 4154, led by Rep. Lamar Wise, will require more accurate and frequent public reporting about K-12 attendance statewide. The bill was originally championed by the late Rep. Hòa Nguyễn in 2025, and strategies to boost student engagement and school attendance are likely to remain in the spotlight.

House Bill 4050, sponsored by Rep. Emily McIntire, would have commissioned a study of statewide collective bargaining for educator salaries. While the bill earned unanimous bipartisan support in committee, the bill stalled during the budget process. Still, as state lawmakers dive back into K-12 financing next year, they will find a fundamental disconnect: The Legislature is responsible for setting public education funding levels, yet has no say in the costs set by locally bargained labor agreements between school districts and unions. 

Despite never passing out of committee, Sen. Christine Drazan’s Senate Bill 1572 also earned attention for a provision to reinstate a requirement that Oregon students demonstrate proficiency in critical skills—including but not limited to reading, writing, and math—to earn a high school diploma. Pausing the requirement has left Oregon’s diploma vulnerable to questions about student achievement, sparking calls for more meaningful and trusted graduation requirements that definitively assure families, employers, and post-secondary institutions that Oregon students are ready for college and career.

Beyond the K-12 system, Oregon is preparing new blueprints for early learning and higher education. In the Legislature, Rep. Pam Marsh championed House Bill 4124 to conduct a comprehensive study of Oregon’s post-secondary system with recommendations for a more sustainable future. Meanwhile, Gov. Kotek launched a new Early Childhood Care and Learning System Roundtable to improve and expand affordable and high-quality childcare and preschool across the state.

If successful, these efforts should strengthen our shared vision for children from cradle to career, and ultimately ensure all Oregon youth—no matter their identity, zip code, or life circumstances—are supported across the whole public education continuum.