January 31, 2018
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INSIDE
The
Week in Review
This page
Sponsored by:
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S PORTS
Arts &
ENTERTAINMENT
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Portland Community College students and staff cut the ribbon to mark the official opening
of the Dream Center on the Rock Creek campus. The new resource is geared to help
immigrants and refugees focus on empowerment, support and staying enrolled in school.
Dream Center Opens
New resource for students facing barriers
M ETRO
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A long-held dream to help
immigrant and refugee stu-
dents facing unique barriers by
providing them with resources
that focus on empowerment,
support and staying enrolled
in school, has come to fruition
with the opening of the Dream
Center at Portland Community
College’s Rock Creek campus
in northwest Portland.
Aimed at helping undocu-
mented and Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
students and their families, the
first-of-its-kind center at any
C ontinued on P age 4
Graduation Rates Rise and Fall
Gaps persistent
despite recent gains
d anny P eterson
t he P ortland o bserver
New data shows the graduation rate is im-
proving in Portland Public Schools except for
black and African-American students, which
as a group saw a three percent decline in how
many students finished high school last year.
The figures released from the Oregon De-
partment of Education, also show that state-
wide, the black and African-American gradu-
ation rate increased by 1.5 percent during the
same period. For Portland, the overall graduate
rate increased for the eighth year in a row, by
2.5 percent, jumping from 76.7 to 77.9 percent.
Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero said that
was “encouraging.”
But Guerrero acknowledged persisting
achievement gaps between historically under-
by
O PINION
C LASSIFIEDS
C ALENDAR
F OOD
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served populations, a trend that’s also reflected
state wide.
“Clearly, we have more work to do to accel-
erate student outcomes and narrow achieve-
ment gaps,” he said.
In the Portland district, the economically
disadvantaged students’ graduation rate only
improved by 0.3 percent, while statewide the
rate improved by 2 percent compared to last
year.
A 2015 report by economists at ECONor-
thwest estimated that Oregon is losing out on
nearly $2 billion of revenue per year because
of its lack of programs and progress in closing
an achievement gap affecting Latinos, African
Americans, and Native Americans in public
schools.
Other reports have shown high quality pre-
schools, mitigating summer learning loss with
year-long education programs and hiring top
performing teachers can help close the achieve-
ment gap for disadvantaged groups.