Leslie Carson's call for better understanding of how Oregon's bastardized revenue system impoverishes both rural and urban schools is well argued, although I think most of my rural neighbors will find it hard to believe that their schools "haven't taken the hit" of those in Fortess Portland. Not far from where I live, the McKenzie school system is closed again today, just as was yesterday and will be again tomorrow, not for spring break, but for "budget cut days." This unfortunately is not a unique experience, either in the McKenzie district or in most of Oregon these days, rural or urban. Comparing stories of relative victimization from Measure 5 gets us nowhere, as Carlson notes. But so does the idea of again redistributing already inadquate resources, which seems to be implied in her column. Politically impossible as it may seem, the only way out is ultimately going to require some modification of Measure 5 or, even less likely, a general tax increase. Rural school districts stlll suffering from declines in timber revenues are unlikely to tax themselves like the far-sighted (and generally wealthier) voters in Multnomah County. It's asking a lot for them even to be mutually sympathetic.

In my experience people in rural Oregon whole heartedly believe that they are subsidizing Portland. Witness Ted Ferriolli in the Oregon Senate saying that his district should keep it's timber revenue to fund his district's schools. He claimed that his school district was getting ripped off by pooling that money and sending it off to Portland.

The challenge of fixing school funding in the state in the current pool and redistribute structure is that people in the rest of the state see this as a problem of "Salem stealing from us and giving it to Portland."

I believe that if we went back to a system where local districts funded themselves people might be willing to put more money forward, as they couldn't continue to blame Salem/Portland for their funding woes.

Hell, to pass the Measure 5 repeal you could even run a very cynical campaign in central/eastern/southern Oregon where you said, "repeal measure 5, let us keep our money". Never mind that students in those districts would be the ones to suffer.

When Portlanders complain that they subsidize rural Oregon schools they conveniently forget that it is the land use policies favoring Metro Oregon that contribute to depressing property values Rural Oregon (which in turn, prop up land values for Metro Oregon).

Throw in an end to the CIM/CAM mandate while you're at it and I'm sure that Rural Oregon will gladly give up the school funding equalization requirements.

How soon we forget what really happened.

In 1990, when Measure 5 passed, it was passed by the Portland Metro area. I believe that the only Counties outside of the Tri-County area that also passed it were Wasco and Jackson, but nagging at the back of my memory - that might have been one north coastal county too.

Measure 5 turned property tax supported schools with local control into income tax supported schools funded at the State level.

I'm sorry for my urban neighbors if they passed a measure that has bitten them in the rear, but hey, let's not re-write history. We in rural Oregon just aren't responsible for this mess. We are especially not responsible for what is happening to the Portland Schools.

Furthermore, we have a Constitutional right (Oregon's constitution), to be treated just like everyone else. As Measure 5 was implemented, it took several years for funding parity to be achieved - and it still isn't there for Education Service Districts. We were underfunded on a per student basis for years in the early Measure 5 era.

Some of what was said in this piece then I find factually challenged. The only variation in per student income district by district across the state is the numbers of students in special ed (higher payment rate), and there is some funding for frontier schools (like Paulina 50+ miles out of Prineville, a little 2 room school doing K-5).

Some of you will argue that it just costs more in Portland. Hmmm. I wonder if you have figured on the costs of getting materials to Central Oregon, the cost of running a 2,990 square mile school district (yes, the kids from Paulina really do a 100 mile round trip per day to the High School), and so on.

Life just ain't fair, but this one doesn't stand up to the false perception projected in the headline, "Portland ships the rest of the State $300 million per year". Omission of part of the truth is the same as committing a lie.

Not that truth and facts ever mattered.

No one should really argue that rural and urban Oregon aren't joined at the hip, but from the Central Oregon perspective, the way this is conveyed is sometimes funny and sometimes tragic. Portland, with the power of money and votes, runs the State. If the State isn't running Portland's way, it is likely because of something Portland did - like Measure 5.

Ok, so Pancho's post serves as a case in point. The metro area exports money and people shit on us for it. I don't mind paying for another town's schools, but I really don't want to get insulted while I do it.

Oh, and I think the Farm Bureau may take issue on your comments about land use only benefiting, what is correctly refered to as, the Metro region.

And Steve's post is absolutely correct. The metro area passed M. 5. It has bitten us in the ass. We should get rid of it.

Steve also doesn't understand what leslie is saying. It isn't that the formula is unfairly giving out to students, it's that the Metro area puts more money into the formula than we get back. As you noted, it's because we generate more in taxes than rural Oregon as our wages are higher.

Again, I'm sending you money and you insult me while you're at it. I would like for us in the metro area to go ahead and cut you off. You'll still insult us, but our problems will be fewer.

Rorovitz,

Were you channelling Col. Nathan Jessup in your last post?

"I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said "thank you" and went on your way."

-- Jack Nicholson, "A Few Good Men"

Well in this vein there has been a recent revival on talk radio of proposals to combine Oregon and Washington and split them down the Cascades to form two new states.

FWIW, Rorovitz, I'll wager this proposal finds more support in Eastern Washegon than Western Oreshington. Maybe it's time you started trying to convince YOUR neighbors.

Panch,

Nice quote. That was funny.

Hey, I couldn't agree more that people in Eastern, Central and Southern Oregon would support it more than people in the Metro region. That's because people in THOSE parts of the state are misinformed, and people in THIS part of the state don't realise how much crap people in THOSE parts of the state say about us.

Last legislative session I had the opportunity to attend multiple legislative town hall meetings in non-Portland legislative districts. At almost every single one, people stood up and said, "if we can just keep our money here our schools would be fine and Portland's would close."

And by posting in this thread I thought I was talking to people in the Portland area.

I'm with Jeff on this one. I hate to deny children a good education, but if their communities don't support public education, then why should we have to pay for something they don't even want. Measure 5 needs to be repealed, or something.

I appreciate Leslie's point, but instead of letting others suffer while ours do well, all the kids suffer. Why do we try to make the rest of the state be like us and share our values? Listen to what they say about us. They don't like us and don't want to be like us. They hate us trying to get them to share our values. They read arguments like Leslie's and get offended.

Why don't we cut our losses and go back to the way it was? The current arrangement isn't working.

I once had a person tell me that the idea of cutting the state funding scheme and having us keep our tax revenue in the metro area, "violated every single progressive ideal".

I disagree. I think it only violates the idea of trying to force others to be like us. And I'm not sure that's progressive.

Geo-political boundaries seem a rather arbitrary obstacle for a true progressive, no?

If you can argue that there is a moral obligation for Portlanders to subsidize school children in Enterprise, why stop at the Snake River?

Couldn't you make a similar argument for rural Idaho schools (if Boise doesn't adequately "subsidize" them)?

Portland should be able to keep it's tax revenues as long as its willing to stop using its legislative clout to employ statewide mandates in land use and education policy.

Give Rural Oregon the local control determine its own destiny, and we may learn from each other yet.

Pam,

Oh, that's a great post,

"Blaming rural Oregon or Metro centrist thinking won't solve the problems for all students in Oregon until an equitable funding formula is devised and all school districts offer the same services in each of the 269 school districts in our state."

You think we can do that? It's an empty throw away line. You don't like generalizations, but we're talking about the real challenges that keep us from getting that perfect formula. Then you give such a broad and meaningless statement like that. Well no s*** that's the problem!

I argue, and others here seem to agree, that when you've got a state as ideologically split as ours, it's damn near impossible to get this agreement. What's so wrong with allowing local control for people to solve their own problems?

Pat,

Nice dis. But kind of off.

I think people in Portland are totally fuzzy about this. I think the people I've heard in what we can call "not Portland" are misinformed or misleading.

I heard a person in Astoria say that Portland steals money and they subsidize our schools. I heard Kelly Wirth say in Corvallis that "Eastern Oregon" subsidises Portland. (that one really blew me away, fortunately Lane Shetterly corrected her.) And I've heard people in Bend, Pendelton and many rural parts of the Willamette Valley voice similar misinformed things.

Disagreeing with Pam is different than using short hand labels. Again, nice dis, but argue agains what I said, not some other poster.

And for the record, I've been very careful not to fall in the usual Portlander trap of calling Beaverton, Hillsboro, Oregon City, Wilsonvile and the rest of the metro area Portland while calling the rest of the state Eastern Oregon. Doen't that buy me a pass on getting hit with the "you're putting people in a box" line.

As I look back up this thread, I realize that in calling me out for being loose with how I assign fuzzy thinking, you've used the wrong critique of my words, thus committing fuzzy thinking yourself. I'll go ahead now and put you in the "Pat the Fuzzy Thinker" box.

Pancho, Good point. I would add that Portland should first get off their fantasy train and stop the play money schemes. Otherwise, with Portland skimming 80 million from basic services (schools) by way or Urban Renewal and tax abatement abuse this year (more every year)they will need to extend and likely raise the Multnomoah County income tax in order to feed the monster they have created. With new UR devlopements stacking up expect that drain to double with in the next few years, demanding even more backfilling to pay for basic services. With urban renewal districts increasingly needing their new services to be subsidized by the rest of the city for decades to come (until debt and abatements go away)folks will be growing real tired of picking up the tab for Developers and luxury condo owners. Word appears to be traveling fast and more PR from the 200 PDC employees and 109 Portland planners won't mean squat.
Looking to Salem to fill the huge fiscal holes they are creating is not going to fly either.

Pam concludes a post with: "The Portland Schools have sat on valuable property that needs to be sold, over benefit their employees and run near empty schools of 200 or less. School closures are long over due. It's a mess. Blaming rural Oregon or Metro centrist thinking won't solve the problems for all students in Oregon until an equitable funding formula is devised and all school districts offer the same services in each of the 269 school districts in our state."

It seems to me that Portland District 1J (There are several other school districts in Portland.) has over the years developed some unique problems with managing and spending its funds.

As long as Portland's management and spending problems go unresolved, they are going to need an unlimited funding formula.

What amazes me is this attitude that Oregon is the only place going through this mess. Show me a Rural area doing well in the US? Show me schools doing well. I hate to say it, but small rural town life is Dead in the US. Now as a Portlander who values all lifestyles I wouldn't mind helping those rural communities try and find another way of surviving, but not if they hate my guts because Lars Larson tells them that Portland is to blame for their depreciating lifestyle. Its an easy exuse to blame the urban areas. Rural Oregon needs to move past the exuses and either change or continue the slow decline. The old forestry lifestyle is NOT coming back. Get to building the tourist infrastructure already.

Cab, When you said, "The old forestry lifestyle is NOT coming back. Get to building the tourist infrastructure already."

You may have stepped in why "Lars Larson tells them that Portland is to blame for their depreciating lifestyle"

You see it is the Portland tiny mind which thinks they are fighting old forestry by stopping all forestry. By seeking to take more entire swaths of forest away from any forestry altogether. Even when it is proposed to be done at a fraction of the regrowth rate. I'm sorry but that is stupid.

"Get to building the tourism infrastructure????"

Portland minds think light rail is a tourist attraction. The Portland mind stops Pelican Butte, Smith Rock, the Columbia River Gorge and Mt. Hood from having fine facilities to accomodate the real tourism we could have. And no the Cascades, the Gorge, Central Oregon Klamath basin, and all of our drinking water would not be lost for our grandchildren. That is also Portland Stupid. Blame Portland?
Gosh, what did we do? Hey how about a Tram? More Urban Renewal developments are on the way. Nearly all of downtown is now in an Urban Renewal District. The new $165 million light rail transit mall will really be keen. Just imagine the flourishing businesses along the mall and tourists flocking here to visit the transit mall. Tourism infrastucture? We got it. We now have bike lanes everywhere, including where no one even walks. I wonder all over the region during my work and pass mile after mile of bike lanes and sidewalks on both sides of the street with not a soul on them. Where's the tourist? Where's the walkers and bikers. Could it be we have a retarded system? I think they call that balanced transportation. I was on North Interstate yesterday and today. Wow! What a sight! Are you kidding me? What is that supposed to be? When looking down Interstate the bulk of the entire width is the light rail infrastructure in the center and bike lanes on both sides. What for? There are no trains (just the occasional MAX) and no bikes. AND NO PARKING.
Is that supposed to be good for business or good for tourism or just good for some Portland reason? A long time ago when Eastside MAX happened I thought our light rail would be something. Things are so stupid now they are talking about putting trolleys in Damascus, a Tram up pill hill, Commuter Rail from nowhere to nowhere and more light rail just like the stupid wasteful fantasy lines we already have.

But that's OK because the "old forestry is not coming back"?????????? Wow! That felt good.
Richard from the Pearl

Little follow up.

Donald Mazziotti, Executive Director of the PDC will be leaving his position as head of the city’s influential urban renewal agency.

Half of the PDC 200 employess, half of Portland's planners and Gill Kelly should be next. Along with a broad investigation of both agencies.

Jeff Alworth wrote -

"Before Measure 5, Portlanders had a commitment to schools that made PPS one of the best districts in the country. That pretty much mirrors the orientation Portlanders feel to public policy: we'd rather see more of our taxes go to public sector so that schools, social services, public transportation, etc. are robust and healthy.

Rural Oregon has been on a jihad against these very things since about 1990. They wish to spend nothing on the public sector, and continue to elect rabid anti-public legislators to try to torpedo any legislation that supports public ed, transportation, social services, etc. in Salem."

HMMM - Jihad???? Let's see, since 1990 in Crook County we passed a bond levy to build a new high school, upgrade the old high school to be a middle school, convert the middle school to be an elementary school, and improve the other schools. We passed a levy and built a brand new state of the art Library. Doesn't sound like a "jihad" against "schools, social services, public transportation, etc." to me!!

I find it interesting that no one has gone back and looked at the original data that this thread is based upon. It documented in 1999 - before our economy went in the toilet - that Portland put out a total of $285 million more than it took in from State coffers, for education, and then covered other categories. Portland got more in transportation dollars than it paid in, but that was the exception. But these numbers, written by the biased Portland Chamber of Commerce, don't seem to tell the whole story.

Two examples that show the bias of these figures and the way they were calculated -

The authors complain that Portland produces 42% of the students in the Higher Education system, but only gets 40% of the budget to Portland based University and Community colleges. Wait a minute! When someone from Prineville sends their son or daughter to Portland for their education, we send along suitcases full of money! We pay rent in Portland, we pay tuition in Portland, our children buy clothing in Portland, our children buy food in stores and restaurants in Portland - my God we spend money in Portland! So, this exercise in tracking some kinds of money but not others is really deceiving.

And, then the authors complain that in 1999 Portland saw $560 million go to Human Services, but only $440 million got spent in Portland. HMMMM. That really smells bad to me. The State Hospital is in Salem, and so is the prison - Portland likes to export its worst. But that's not the whole story. Human Services should cost less in Portland, because they are close by. Mental Health, health care, etc. is more expensive in rural areas because of transportation costs and general lack in specialty people. We again ship a lot to Portland. Burn cases from all over Oregon get funneled to the Hospital in Portland. Family follows and finds lodging in Portland, eats in Portland, and so on.

This Chamber of Commerce article quoted at the top of this thread sort of falls apart under close observation - it just doesn't tell the whole story.

I believe it is factually challeged.

And one last response - Cab wrote,

"I hate to say it, but small rural town life is Dead in the US."

Cab, why has the population of Deschutes County gone up 17% since 2000. Why are the three Counties of Central Oregon the fastest growing Counties in Oregon? Why has the population of Crook County doubled since I moved here in 1990?

Dead? You just don't understand. I feel at an unfair advantage Cab. I read the Oregonian, but you can't get the Central Oregonian or the Bend Bulletin. I can turn on my TV and see all the Portland stations, but you don't get our news. Central Oregonians know what is happening in Portland, but you don't know what is happening here. I'm really sorry you are deprived, but its not my fault. Please don't assume you know anything about us over here in rural Oregon, but please allow some light to shine on the fact we here know lots about Portland and the valley.

Really Cab, dead?

Thanks Steve, it's refreshing to read a rural Oregon perspective on this blog.

Steve:

I take your post about the growth of the Bend area to be proof that rural Oregon is vibrant. Could it not perhaps be that as a metropolitan region, Bend is becoming urban, with massive growth and massive traffic problems, to boot? In other words, I have always considered the Platonic version of rural America to be small, tight-knit communities, with vast open spaces. Bend seems a far cry from that vision.

Those areas are NOT rural any longer, get it? They changed and are adjusting to the realities of the market. Those who change like those areas in central ORegon will do well, those who won't will degrade. Central ORegon's growth is coming from tourism and retires, not land exploitation. That area is a perfect example of a once rural area CHANGING to meet the times. Its a fantastic success story, other areas of the state should pay attention.

Thanks to the last posters for working towards a definition of Rural. Too often in this thread people are calling all things not Portland rural. I agree that Bend is far from rural. I think Pendelton is rural. And Baker City. Certainly Enterprise and Joseph are. French Glenn? Rural.

I want a definition that's clear so I can put people into that definition and then draw wild generalizations about them. Otherwise I feel like I'd be disapointing Pat.

Rural/urban red/blue arguments are pointless because all we're arguing about is the degree of the problem we are ALL experiencing.

The education system is malfunctioning everywhere in Oregon (we here all seem to agree on that, right?) and many people, myself included, think it is in danger of getting worse, perhaps rapidly.

Yes, there's wasteful spending in many school districts, but good people with good intentions are fixing that as best than can everywhere in the state. Is anyone ready to argue that there's so much wasteful spending that if we eliminated it all we'd have -- across the entire state -- reasonable class sizes, enough teachers, up to date books, open libraries, adequate facilities, PE classes, enough classroom materials, and maybe enough resources left over for music and other extracurriculars that I value highly but can accept that others might not? If you want to argue that, stop reading right here, because what I say next will be meaningless.

Oregon education has short term problems and long term problems. The biggest short-term problem is that we have a shortage of funds. That problem can not be fixed because it requires increasing revenues and approximately one-half of our politicians will fight tooth and claw against raising more revenue.

So we are going to have to ride out the short term problem and concentrate on a fix for the long term problem: that Oregon's revenue structure is inherently -- inherently -- unstable. It must be stabilized. If it isn't, we're just going to continue jerking generations of kids around, and we're going to remain a jerkwater state.

Oregon's approach to raising revenue is unique in the U.S. I personally don't know enough about other states' tax structures to identify system I'd prefer to emulate here, but it's clear the one we have isn't working.

I'm not arguing for a sales tax. I'm not saying we have to have video slots, or an increase in the minimum corporate tax, or that we have to undermine Measure 5 or eliminate the kicker -- though all of those things will have to be discussed eventually.

I am saying the fundamental problem we have is much larger than red/blue, and the solution will have to be more than patching this and mending that. What's the fundemental problem? If we don't agree that our revenue system is unstable AND MUST BE FIXED, then we're all just spinning our wheels here.

Do we need to change Oregon's revenue structure, and make it more stable, so that we're not watching education funding yo-yo constantly? That's the discussion I think we should be having.

b

(I live in SE Portland. I am the PTA president of my daughters' elementary school.)

Brian:

I have not seen "education funding yo-yo constantly" where funding out of Salem is concerned. I have seen the city of Portland and Multnomah county bail out Portland district 1J on several occasions with temporary local funding. That kind of money is going to yo-yo. In the intermediate term it actually exacerbates the problems of a budgetary basket case when such one-time money is repeatedly spent on wages and benefits which grow annually with inflation and step increases.

Portland district 1J is the budgetary basket case in Multnomah county. The other districts in Portland and Multnomah county have wisely refrained from using the lion's share of their temporary funds to roll up as budget obligations in ways that Portland district 1J has been doing.

I tried to deliver this post to Rorovitz outside of Blue Oregon, but the email bounced, so here it is for all to read -

Rorovitz - In your last post on the "Joined at the Hip" thread, you talked about defining rural Oregon. I spend a fair amount of time attempting to correct stereotypes and wrong thinking about rural Oregon, and wanted to warn you of a pitfall, a danger if you will, in your line of thinking.

Rural Oregon is diverse. I don't mean that as a loose term, but as a vibrant description of what we are at our core. We've got cattle ranchers whose children are making tires at the Les Schwab headquarters here. We've got farms run with satellite photography and computer directed plowing paths. We've got creek and river restoration projects that are rapidly restoring stream flows. We have innovative work groups finding new ways to use existing resources like Juniper trees. We have the old, the young, the educated, the uneducated, the poor, the drug users, the Robber Barons, the upwardly mobile, the downtrodden, and everyone else in between. We have old timers and new comers.

So beware, just about the time you think you've got it pinned down, rural Oregon spills out to be something yet again you hadn't thought of. I like to think of it this way. If you were to go to a scenic vista up in the Ochoco's and hold a picture frame at arms length in front of you, there would be no angle you could hold that picture frame at where you would be satisified that the picture seen in the frame was a true representation of what you can really see. We are wide framed, not narrow.

I enjoy your comments on Blue Oregon. Keep it up. We all are learning new stuff.

Chuck Sheketoff wrote -

"The tri-county area's contributions to the unemployment insurance system bolster the economies of rural Oregon communities - the rural communities are "takers" while the tri-county area is a "giver" - that's the way it works and the way it is supposed to work IN ONE STATE."

Come on, wake up! Sure we are one State, but you have really got this give/take thing wrong. What would the Port of Portland do without the natural resource products that go through there? Wood, grain, finished products that come from rural Oregon. Here in Prineville sits Les Schwab tires. The imported tires go through the Port of Portland then by truck (soon to be by rail) to the acres and arces of distribution center under roof here (I think about 40 acres now, but it keeps growing).

On the specific issue of unemployment - there is a higher percentage of self-employed people in rural areas that don't pay into the fund. I am a real estate appraiser, and I wish I could have unemployment insurance, but being self-employed I can't. Same for farmers, long-haul truck drivers, ranchers, real estate agents, etc. So of course it looks like urban pays more than rural.

The reason why Portland has wealth and money, is that a lot of it was extracted from the rural part of the State and funneled through Portland. I don't mean that as a negative, or that anything illegal or unethical has happened, it is just the way the geography of the State works - Portland is the downhill end point for much of what happens in Oregon. While it is true that due to the way taxation works the tri-County area may per capita put out a little more than it takes in, it is also true that rural Oregon feeds Portland in every way.

We all suffer equally under the weight of how the Republicans have run this State into the ground. This year is the first year after 14 years that Democrats control one chamber in the State Legislature. What have the Republicans done? Taken all their marbles and refused to play. They don't work on solutions for Oregon - they continue to make our problems worse. We need to find ways to elect more Democrats.

The place we need to elect more Democrats is in the rural areas. In rural areas there is a lot of resentment about how we have been treated in the past and currently by our valley neighbors. As was discussed previously on Blue Oregon, some of that resentment comes from perceptions not necessarily tied to facts. But it is very real that resentment exists.

From the standpoint of someone working to build a stronger Democratic Party on the Eastern side of the State, I need to tell my allies in the valley to STOP shooting yourself in the foot. Everytime you pose issues as "poor tri-County hurt by giving money away to rural folks" you do yourself damage and make it harder on rural Democrats. Everytime we hear that the Portland Schools are cutting something we never had or lost years ago - it makes it harder here.

There are many differences between rural and urban Oregon. The school funding issue just isn't one of them. We need to fight this together and not separated.

Steve,

Thanks for the message you tried to send. I'll look into that.

Hey, I totally agree with your assessment on the diversity of rural Oregon. I'm not so sure how much sarcasm shows up in a setting like this. I think not so much for Pat, and I'm really opposed to using the sideways wink thing. (ie, ;-), for demo only)

I think one of our problems, and one I try to play on here, is that we too often define the metro area as Portland, even though it isn't, and we call things not Metro rural. Which in some cases they aren't. I have a friend who lives in Cove who can't stand how people who tend to live in the Metro area describe Bend as Eastern Oregon. Steve for instance lives in Central Oregon there in Prineville.

But it's really important to note that what I think we've identified here is that there is an intense regionalism that gets played up in Oregon where some folks push buttons to divide people. It's really easy to play the "Portland" vs. everyone else card.

OK, so if that's out there, how do we start to overcome that? Pat identifies the Portland Paradigm. What is that?

I remember a thread in the last month ago, or so, that talked about defining what it means to be a democrat in a paragraph. So what does it mean to be a Porlander, Metro region-er, or a non-Metro region-er. (I doubt that last one will catch on as popular slang.)

Rural Oregon is diverse. I don't mean that as a loose term, but as a vibrant description of what we are at our core...We have the old, the young, the educated, the uneducated, the poor, the drug users, the Robber Barons, the upwardly mobile, the downtrodden, and everyone else in between. We have old timers and new comers.

So beware, just about the time you think you've got it pinned down, rural Oregon spills out to be something yet again you hadn't thought of. I like to think of it this way. If you were to go to a scenic vista up in the Ochoco's and hold a picture frame at arms length in front of you, there would be no angle you could hold that picture frame at where you would be satisified that the picture seen in the frame was a true representation of what you can really see. We are wide framed, not narrow.

Posted by: Steve Bucknum | March 4, 2005 08:51 PM

<hr/>

Thanks, Steve, for unveiling the real picture. There is plenty of diversity in today's rural Oregon - more, I would guess, than there probably was a couple of decades ago - but it takes a while to unearth. I've lived in Beaverton (6 years, early 90s) and on the Central Coast (8 years, to date), and I can tell you that it takes a couple of years of living in, not just visiting, a rural community before you really clue in to what it is comprised of. Even after we moved here, I only saw the stereotype at first. It's a deeper diversity than meets the eye, and deepening every day with that progessive influx that Pat correctly cites.

I also appreciated your comment, Steve, that "Everytime we hear that the Portland Schools are cutting something we never had or lost years ago - it makes it harder here." While I do think the rural attitude is by no means an anti-Portland "jihad," it's sure hard to empathize with a metro school district losing an honors band or kindergarten Spanish program when we're down to one music teacher for the whole of K-12 and are lucky to have Spanish offered in the high school grades...until the next budget cuts, that is.

Let's remember the power of volunteerism in rural communities as part of the equation. The big-ticket urban fundraisers may be the ones that get the limelight in the Oregonian, but there are hundreds of people in small communities busy holding silent auctions and spaghetti dinners, writing grant proposals and marshalling support for after-school programs that supplement the bare-bones curriculum. It's not all whining about what we're not getting from Salem or from Portland -- it's also working to maximize what little we have and to help as many kids as we can to have as many opportunities as we can eke out. And, in small communities, you can see the impact of what you do very directly, which mobilizes volunteers even more. Been there, written those grants, seen those results. Volunteers don't substitute for school funding, of course, but we don't take the lack lying down and wait meekly for a bail-out by urban districts' tax revenues. It'a about the kids and what they need. We do everything we can to go out and get it for them, wherever and however we can. (And, in that process, I've not heard one thing from anyone here suggesting that we're in the position of fundraising because we're "subsidizing Portland." We have enough to worry about keeping our own schools afloat without parceling out blame 180 miles away.)

Cab has a point when he states that we as rural communities -- especially on the coast! -- need to develop a strong tourism infrastructure and admit that large-scale logging as we knew it isn't coming back anytime soon. (BTW, Richard, I would guess he was talking more about communities like Coos Bay cultivating cruise traffic and sport fishing than he was about building bike paths in the Pearl, on this score...) This is an uphill ideological battle. Here in Reedsport, for instance, there are whole swaths of the long-term residents' community that still cling to the imaginary reopening of an IP paper mill that shut down in the late 90s and took with it the jobs of 25% of our population. This, even though the property is presently on the market and the existing mill has now been scheduled for demolition. Reality, and change -- and the tax revenues that come with them -- come only slowly and with difficulty. The shift in facts happens, while the shift in lifelong expectations takes a little longer.

The demographic shift we are experiencing plays into it as well. An increasing percentage of the population on the Coast consists of seniors in search of an affordable, pleasant location in which to retire. Our lower real estate prices -- at least, so far, on this part of the Oregon Coast -- are part of the draw: their housing dollars are worth more here. But when school-related bond issues come up, there is little vested interestm as opposed to the family wage base of a generation ago. "I've put my kids through school already. What do I care? I'm on a fixed income and can't afford any new taxes that don't give me back anything." And, with families of school-age kids leaving the community to follow employment opportunities elsewhere, that pocketbook-vote is tough to offset.

This is a long way of saying that Leslie's original conclusion stands: it's not about rural vs. urban, it's about finding a way to ensure that all of our kids get a decent shot at a decent education. It's a battle we have to fight together. It's a battle that means less of the teaching-to-the-test programs currently in vogue -- I would rather my fifth grader have a good command of the basics than an in-depth knowledge of Feudal Japan, thank you very much -- and more basic funding to offer a broad curriculum and a sane student-to-teacher ratio. It's a battle that emphasizes academics over sports programs, rather than the too-prevalent reverse. And it has to be a battle that recognizes that obtaining a quality education ought to be more about your desire to learn and grow, than about where you happen to live.

CraneMom,

That was a very interesting post. I think I learned quite a bit from it. Thanks.

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