Lars Larson: Oregon stops punishing adults for telling kids to skip school

By Lars Larson
NW and national radio host,

The Northwest Nonsense

I’ve been citing laws in most states that require kids to be in school. In most, those laws make it illegal for adults to encourage kids to SKIP school.

It turns out that Oregon got rid of that law 5 years ago. I was wrong.

In 2021 lawmakers, led by a 2 to 1 democrat party advantage decided to stop punishing parents, or anyone else, for letting kids skip.

In the 5 years since, students regularly skip school, encouraged by teachers and schools to take to the streets protesting Donald Trump, the climate, oil, the police and, of course, enforcing immigration laws.

I think it’s worth pointing out that both Oregon and Washington rank among the worst in America for school attendance.

Northwest states, not surprisingly, have some of the worst school performance numbers in the country.

As Woody Allen famously said, “80 percent of success is just showing up”

Oregon school kids don’t show up, most don’t succeed…but they make great foot soldiers for political messages.

And now, there’s no law punishing adults for encouraging them to skip…and no law that requires reading, writing and ‘rithmatic to get a diploma.

They and we will be paying the price for that deficit for a long time.

(https://www.oregon.gov/ode/students-and-family/healthsafety/Documents/SB817Guidance.pdf)

That’s the Rose City Rap. Join me at noon on KXL for 4 hours of Honestly provocative talk. I’m Lars Larson