The Salem-Keizer School District is launching an effort to persuade lawmakers and the Oregon Department of Education to correct what the district’s leaders believe is a systemic, decades-long undercount of more than 100,000 of the state’s poorest students.

At stake is at least $290 million that they say districts are due to help students from low-income families, who historically learn to read, pass advanced math classes and graduate from high school at much lower rates than their peers from financially stable homes.

To support its case, the school district, via its law firm, commissioned an analysis of Oregon’s funding formula . They found a correlation between underfunding of high-poverty school districts and academic outcomes for students of color, a protected class under Oregon

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