A student at risk of leaving high school, another learning a trade and a third taking a college-level class may attend different schools in different parts of Oregon. All three could benefit from the same voter-approved program. Nearly a decade after Oregonians approved that program, state auditors say the Oregon Department of Education still needs a better way to determine which investments help students succeed.
The High School Success program, created by Measure 98 in 2016, sends grants to high schools for dropout prevention, career and technical education, and college-level learning opportunities. Voters approved it in response to chronically low graduation rates, seeking to help more students earn a diploma and prepare for work or further education.
The question facing the state now is how clearly it can account for that investment. In a follow-up audit released Wednesday, the Secretary of State’s office found that the education department had fully implemented just one of eight recommendations auditors made in 2024. Progress on the others varied. One recommendation with an earlier deadline went unmet: the department did not deliver a report to the Legislature by the 2026 session explaining what was working and what challenges remained.
Most of the unfinished recommendations are due by June 2027, and department leaders say they expect to meet that deadline. Auditors could not establish whether the agency is on course, however, because it has no documented process for tracking its work on the recommendations. They also found no designated internal oversight body responsible for reviewing that progress.
For Oregonians, the findings reach beyond an agency’s list of unfinished tasks. High School Success grants support three broad types of programs, each intended to meet a different student need. Knowing that a school offered career training or college coursework is one part of the picture. Determining whether particular approaches helped students, and whether other schools could use them effectively, requires information the auditors have urged the department to collect and assess more carefully.
Their 2024 recommendations called for the state to connect school strategies with student results, identify effective investments and pinpoint obstacles that the Legislature could help resolve. Auditors also wanted the department to examine whether its grant eligibility rules match the purpose voters gave the program and to develop a way to evaluate the programming those grants support.
That work could shape what the state learns from schools across Oregon. If a school finds an effective way to keep students on a path to graduation, the department needs a method to document and share it. The same applies when a school overcomes a common barrier to offering career training or college-level classes. Auditors recommended a statewide plan for passing along those lessons; the new review found that work is still among the recommendations awaiting completion.
The missed legislative report was a separate, earlier obligation. Lawmakers were supposed to receive an account during the 2026 session of the program’s successes and unresolved challenges. Without it, they did not receive the update auditors had recommended while the broader improvement work continued toward its 2027 deadline.
The follow-up audit also calls for closer supervision within the department itself. A documented tracking process would show which corrections have been completed, which remain underway and where work has stalled. An internal oversight body could review that information regularly and address problems as they arise. Auditors found that the department currently lacks both.
Secretary of State Tobias Read said students deserve programs that deliver results and taxpayers deserve to know whether their money is making a difference. His office plans to continue monitoring the department’s response.
The audit does not conclude that High School Success grants have failed students. It finds that Oregon has more work to do to measure what the grants accomplish and to show that promised improvements are being completed. The department has until June 2027 for most of the outstanding recommendations. By then, the issue will be whether the state can demonstrate, with a clear record of its work, how a program voters approved to expand students’ opportunities is performing in Oregon’s schools.