[gentle music] Welcome to the class of 2025.

This is a project about 27 kids, but it's not just about where these kids are headed, it's about where public education in Oregon is going.

These kids are important, not just because they're seven year old children, but also because the state has set a goal that 100% of students will graduate from high school starting with the class of 2025.

Oregon currently graduates about 68% of its kids.

That puts Oregon in the national basement because of widespread achievement gaps based on race and income.

Closing those gaps is a Herculean tax for teachers, parents who look after these kids.

Nicely done.

Beautiful.

ROB: Today, those kids are in the third grade.

I'm Rob Manning, a radio reporter at Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Three years ago I set out to find a group of kindergartners I could follow for 13 years.

I found them at Earl Boyles Elementary School in Portland, Oregon.

The students here represent challenges that many Oregon schools face, poverty, hunger, homelessness, and family instability.

There are at least 20 different languages spoken in this area.

Many kids have fewer than a handful of books at home.

We're gonna do two more.

ROB: I chose Earl Boyles Elementary because it's trying everything to set them on course to graduation.

Is 100% graduation achievable?

Blogs, a kid.

A kind.

A kind of animal.

ROB: When I first met Oswaldo in kindergarten, he was learning to write the alphabet.

Now he's in third grade.

Research shows you can predict whether a kid will graduate high school by how well they're reading in third grade.

It's when students should move from learning to read to reading to learn.

Kids who start school at the lowest 20% reading level tend to get stuck there.

Sound.

[students vocalizing] ROB: Oswaldo is in that high risk group.

By the time you get to third grade, you really start getting into content and so you hope that they have that fluidity in reading by the time they get there.

What's the word?

STUDENTS: After.

So that they're able to read for content, go in deeper into that critical thinking skills, be able to apply it to different concepts.

But unfortunately a lot of our children aren't there yet.

[gentle music] So we're in outer Southeast Portland.

The Earl Boyles Elementary School neighborhood.

It's mostly multifamily apartment buildings, pretty small units, some single family homes around.

Really diverse.

Hey, good to see you.

Hey Oswaldo, how's it going?

Come in.

Thanks.

What book is that?

"Star Wars".

Can you read me just how it opens?

The Republic is at... Up and... Palpatine.

I am both confident and worried because I know he's so smart, I know him and he is extremely intelligent.

I'm worried because of his reading.

We are just pretty much in a working class neighborhood.

Everybody is just kind of making it, I think, and my husband's not here tonight because he'll be at work till 10:00 tonight.

You wanna put it on the table over there?

Okay.

ROB: Parents like Andrea have learned they can turn to Earl Boyle for help Could be like, how do I deal with this tantrum to I don't have enough to eat this week.

Or I'd like to learn English, anything, you name it.

And there's somebody there that is going to point you in the right direction if they can't help you themselves.

ROB: Josh's parents are stretched with five kids ranging from preschool to high school.

Ava's mother works at night and has had trouble getting Ava to school on time.

Raiden's single mom struggles with work, going to college, and raising two sons.

Teachers and volunteers went house to house to find out about problems beyond the classroom that become learning barriers.

And if we have opportunity to truly partner with our parents and to figure that out before the child enters the door, we're able to remove those barriers.

So that sounds like more work for teachers.

It definitely is more work for teachers, but you have to realize where mediation is a lot of work for teachers.

We're here.

I wanted to just show you.

ROB: Inside the school, teachers work behind the scenes tracking and sharing data so they can intervene when students trend downward.

We wanna make aggressive gains, not just a couple points.

And so we want to push them.

Consequently, it's gonna push us to become better teachers.

ROB: For example, they've figured out that teaching English as a second language to the whole class instead of pulling out second language students is a model that helps all students.

That's about students coming from poverty too.

The lack of exposure to academic language.

Their language and vocabulary started to increase, and you could see that in their skills, in their writing, in their reading skills, math, and not just our second language learners, but for all of our learners.

What do you think about reading?

I really like it because I get to only do it by myself.

What are some of the things that you have learned by reading?

Superman hits a lot of bad guys, but they don't show all of his superpowers.

Kids like Austin get extra help through a year round academic enrichment program inside Earl Boyles called Sun School.

That same program acts almost like a social service agency.

We're able to partner with places like Oregon Food Bank to bring in a weekly food pantry so families will be able to get food to take home.

And we also have various parent programs that do anything from parenting skills and how to deal with the stress of being a parent all the way to how to winterize your home so you can save money on bills in the winter.

How do you know that what you've got in place is working?

If I look at the sum and to the low risk kids, they're outperforming our district data in the sum and low risk, in reading and math.

Even with our class of 2025, there still is a gap there, but I know we're being effective because I'm seeing that gap close for children over time.

ROB: This is the first year the class of 2025 will take standardized tests.

The results will paint a more definitive picture of how they're doing, but in the past, third graders at Earl Boyles have lagged behind the state average in reading and math.

As far as I know, no one has ever done a long term education report like this before, following a group of kids from K through 12.

Will our 27 kids all graduate from high school?

We'll find out in 10 years.

I think I will graduate, I think I will get a job, and I think I will be successful with my job.

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