Funding changes to be examined

An examination of how K-12 education funding takes place will be conducted by a 28 position panel set up by the Obama administration.  The mission of the panel is to determine the effectiveness of funding at all levels.
Here in Oregon, rural school districts as well as natural resource managers know that the time is long past due that we examine how we pay for our children to be educated.  Rural school districts have always depended on timber sales to fund the K-12 education programs.  The problem with this way of paying for education is that the economy is not steady or reliable.  When housing starts are down, timber prices go down and place pressure on district managers.  In turn, these managers place pressures on natural resource managers to cut trees to pay for school systems.  When natural resource managers are asked to cut trees to pay for education programs, the environment loses every time.  One small example of why this is important to consider from the stand point of natural resources only, would be the effect on the Spotted Owl population.  A Spotted Owl will fly up to 190 miles to find a mate.  However, a Spotted Owl has two requirements that need to be considered when managing forests.  The first is that they will only nest is old growth stands where trees within those stands have been blown out at the top by a lightning strike.  The second is that a Spotted Owl will not fly over a clearing greater than about 100 yards.
When economic pressures dictate the management of forested lands, managers can be forced to make decisions that are not sustainable in order to fund schools.  If our ultimate goal is to get students to be productive members of society we must pay careful attention to the surrounding environment to ensure that on graduation, a rural student has a healthy environment to live and work in for generations to come.