Educators Join Hundreds of Volunteers Supporting Measures 66 and 67 to Talk to Voters on MLK Holiday

WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- With little more than a week to go until the ballot deadline, educators joined more than 700 supporters of Measures 66 and 67 hitting the streets Martin Luther King Jr. Day  to talk to voters.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081015/NEALOGO)

"It's important to fund education, health and public services and it's not right that some corporations pay just ten dollars in taxes," said Deena Grossman, a music teacher at Peninsula K-8 who talked to voters in Portland's Brentwood-Darlington neighborhood.

Measures 66 and 67 safeguard nearly $285 million for K-12 education by raising the corporate minimum tax from $10 to $150 for the first time since 1931 and increasing the tax rates on household incomes above $250,000. The measures, if passed, will protect $24.4 million for Oregon's community colleges (preventing tuition and fee increases) and $39.9 million for the Oregon University System (keeping higher education and professional training accessible).

Students will likely face larger class sizes if the measures aren't passed. Oregon already has some of the largest class sizes in the nation.  In 2007/08,  the state ranked 49th in terms of class sizes, according to a report by the National Center for Education Statistics.

As class sizes balloon, teachers have less time to devote to each student. Teachers can try different instructional approaches and assignments with fewer students; the larger classes grow the more cookie cutter the approach.

For more information, visit www.oregoned.org/yeson66&67.  Follow OEA on Facebook: www.facebook.com/OregonEA.

For more information, contact Cynthia Kain, 202-213-5971, [email protected]  

SOURCE Oregon Education Association