SB5516 appropriates $11.36 billion for K-12 public education through the Oregon Department of Education for the 2025-27 biennium. The funding includes $9.85 billion from the General Fund for the State School Fund, plus additional amounts from lottery revenues and other state funds.

The Oregon State Senate passed SB5516 on June 5, 2025 by a vote of 26 to 3. We have assigned pluses to the nays because education is not the role of government—it is the responsibility of a child’s parents. Schools can and should be privatized, without any need for public funding that steals from taxpayers (e.g., property taxes) and drains the treasury. If not dismantled, the government’s monopoly on preK-12 education will continue to displace traditional private schools and homeschooling in favor of universal state-sponsored schooling. The best “school choice,” by far, is for parents to choose not to place their child’s education in the hands of the state. Educational freedom cannot be achieved by forcing other citizens to give up their hard-earned tax dollars for all that now entails a compulsory, failing, and government-run school system.