Achievement compacts — agreements between the state and its 197 school districts on goals for student achievement in a given year — have not turned out to be the useful tool their supporters had hoped. Instead of helping districts choose what works and eliminate what doesn’t where student learning is concerned, they’ve become little more than onerous busywork.

The state got into the compact business back in 2012, when the Legislature approved a law requiring that districts complete them. Community colleges and state universities must have compacts as well.

Each school district compact includes such things as reducing the rate of chronic absenteeism and upping the rate of children going on to college.

Now the Oregon Education Investment Board, which created the compacts in the first place, is being asked to go back to the drawing board. The compacts currently include 12 goals and progress on each must be reported for nine different demographic groups. Nancy Golden, the state’s chief education officer, and the OEIB agree that the result is that schools and school boards are unable to focus on any of them.

But there’s a split on the board about what new compacts should look like, according to The Oregonian newspaper. Some members at Thursday’s meeting want to continue to emphasize school districts’ efforts to offer college-level coursework in high schools, while others, including Golden, prefer to shift attention to ensuring that kids can read by third grade and that they graduate from high school within five years.

Golden is right on this one. While taking college courses during high school may be a real help for some students, third grade can be the magic year for all students. If a child cannot read at grade level by then, he’s four times less likely to graduate from high school by age 19, and if he’s poor, that number jumps to 13 times less likely. High school graduation, meanwhile, is about as critical as being able to read.

If Oregon is to make serious improvements to education, those two measures, reading and high school graduation, offer proven results. Compacts should reflect that fact.