I like Jeff Merkley's proposal on education and his over-all approach to it. I also like the fact that he has accomplished certain important items such as the $28 million for advanced research. Not only do we need to fix our K-12 system, but we need to get more funding in our university for R&D and Science so we can attract both students from out of state and keep many of our smart kids from going out of state to get advanced degrees in science and technology.

Whoever our next Senator is, we need to make sure that the cost of a college education is addressed. As a college student, I'm struggling as college tuition skyrockets every year with no end in sight.

I see that Steve Novick talks a lot about Head Start and K-12, but seems to be leaving out the needs of college students.

I like the plans that Jeff Merkley is offering. He seems to understand that Pell Grants are key for college students in order to decrease the tens of thousands of dollars in debt that we face after graduation.

Lewisandclark...

There is only so much money to go around. C.A.M.P. Program has grown from 50 to 100 Illegal aliens each year, not only get free tuition but, room, books, tutoring, medical, dental at either OSU or Chemeketa.

Head Start? Again mostly illegal aliens, as every help wanted ad requires reading/writing/speaking in a foreign language to apply and americans know english.

Bilingual K-12? 61,000 ESL Students @ $2,750.00 each = $167 million, every year, for 5-7 years. Immersion costs $150 ea.

Oregon has the money to help our most truly "needy" American: College Students, our future.

Merkley had a chance to change this and did not, looks like Novick would do the same.

Can I vote for a Democrat who is focused on the needs of American-Oregonians?

As a college student, this is an issue of significant importance to me. I'm really pleased to see Speaker Merkley address the astronomical increase of college tuition costs. Speaker Merkley's forward looking education policy will help thousands of American students, and returning war veterans, gain access to higher education which is one of the most important opportunities we can provide. I was highly disappointed to see that Mr. Novick didn't address the issue of college tuition at all. College education is an integral part to ensuring a strong economy in Oregon and throughout the entire nation. Our next US Senator must be committed to making college more affordable, opening the doors of opportunity to our students.

Good Points. I don't know much about Mr. Novick, but Jeff's background seems to be quite extensive and wide both from a legislative perspective as well experience in government. Any support from the government to push the education agenda forward will stimulate the economy. Look at India. Its university institutions were entirely funded by the government. For instance IIT which has produced world class engineers and now CEOs of fortune 500 companies. Many of these bright minds came to the US to get advanced degrees and now many have either gone back or started companies in India to stimulate the Indian economy through the IT sector. Oregon is such a great place to live and a magnet for folks who want to start families and live here. A stellar eduction system will provide a stimulus.

Merkley's plan sounds closer to what Ron Wyden said today at his Marion County town hall meeting at Chemeketa CC. Sounds good.

Thanks for the reader alert.

Where did this statistic come from:

"Bilingual K-12? 61,000 ESL Students @ $2,750.00 each = $167 million, every year, for 5-7 years. Immersion costs $150 ea."

A friend and I were talking the other night about rhetoric saying "to become a citizen, everyone must learn English" but never about the mechanics. Are there enough classes in the US currently for every legal resident to learn English, or are there waiting lists? Has this guy taught English to non-English speakers, or is it all ideology?

What is meant by "immersion"--throw the kids into an English speaking class and if they can't speak English to communicate with others in the room, tough luck? Why is the cost so much lower (did he really mean $150, or are there some zeros missing? Is immersion to be taught by certified teachers? What about community college classes to teach English to adults who don't speak English--should those teachers never speak another language around students?

Take it a step further--should Catholic or other churches never have any services in a language other than English? I don't mean just Spanish services, but what about Slavic churches, or Muslim services, or for that matter Jewish services in Hebrew rather than English?

Torridjoe, whose mother are you refering to? Jeff or Novick's? My personal opinion on private vs public education system is that it is a choice to be given to the public -- but as a society and purpose of government, high quality education needs to be available to everyone. More of our tax dollars should be targeted towards that purpose vs protecting our oil interests around the world and we need representatives in Washington that support that agenda not just in words but in action.

Both have some excellent ideas. The federal government plays a tangential but important role in education. Changing the punitive focus of NCLB is the most important task. Far too much time is now spent focusing on standardized tests. Of course it is important that our students be “competitive” with those from other nations. However, education goes far beyond basic skills and concepts.

The tendency is to ignore subjects like art, music, personal finance, and technical education that give us well-rounded citizens and more creative decision makers because we don’t have standardized tests to measure many of the important outcomes. The only thing kids learn from taking standardized tests is how to take more standardized tests. It may be useful, but it isn’t something we can afford to waste precious time and money on.

Bush and his cronies have pursued the worst aspects of standardization while ignoring a few places where some standardization might reduce costs and confusion. (Do we really need 50 sets of math, science, or English standards? I may be wrong, but I think 2 + 2 = 4 pretty much everywhere.)

Also, the feds need to provide both a platform and financial resources for innovative programs. Not just because we get “best practices” that can be shared (though that’s important), but because K-12 schools are hard-pressed to find the time and money necessary in order to allow new ideas to take root. Again, forcing these innovations to fit into a “standardized testing” model in order to be relevant crushes outside the box thinking before its benefits can be realized.

OK, how likely are there to be 60 votes to repeal NCLB? Is Ron Wyden talking about repeal or about fixing it?

lestatdelc ... Broken record time here. You mention funding to rural communities. I assume you're referring to the extension or reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act (county timber payments funds). Merkley is hardly doing this to benefit rural communities.

As I have pointed out here several times, the 25% of the SRS funds that are supposed to go to rural schools in timber-dependent communities are almost completely hijacked and distributed to schools in the state's most populated (and wealthiest) communities: Portland Metro area, Salem, Corvallis, Eugene. The rural schools get so little from this that most superintendents in smaller districts care little one way or the other about the act's continuance.

Merkley is doing this to fill the coffers of districts around his own legislative district. It gets him lots of votes. If he gave a hoot about the rural schools, which are not generally doing well financially, he would have changed the way the funds are distributed a long time ago. He's had more than ample opportunity, and he has the authority to make a difference.

Lestatdelc ... Your post somewhat confuses me.

First, you mention "any unsubstantiated claim." On the December 5 post on this site, "Deal Reached To Extend Timber Payments," I posted a fairly substantial amount of evidence to show what has been happening to these payments and to refute the basis for the hijacking of the funds intended for rural school districts in timber-dependent communities -- specifically that the Portland area is somehow "subsidizing" the rest of Oregon. You might want to go back and review it.

I'm not necessarily advocating cutting more trees, though it's probably not a bad idea. My point is that the U. S. Government made a deal with the counties regarding to BLM and O & C lands when it took control of them back in the early 1900s. The current timber payments under SRS at least make good on that agreement for now (or at least they would if the payments were going to the people those payments were intended to benefit). There is a reasonable economic argument for continuing the program in the absence of allowing timber cut: that U. S. citizens are purchasing a public good (environmental preservation). The fair price of this "purchase" is the amount that would be received by the counties on the lands were timber to be allowed. Though I would rather see some reasonable timber harvest because of the economic ripple effect that would come from private sector activity, in the short run continuing this program as is would be OK -- as long as the education funds are redirected to their intended targets and there is a little more equity in the distribution of the other 75% of the monies to benefit the communities where the timber is located.

From your comments, I have to assume that you think the purpose of this program is to enrich the people of already wealthy areas with little or no connection to the timber industry and which have healthy, sustainable economies based on other industries. Based on his lack of willingness to address this situation, one can assume that is Mr. Merkley's view. Otherwise, he would have done something to change things by now. He certainly hasn't lacked for opportunity. We certainly disagree on that one. And I can assure you that SRS would NEVER have been enacted had the actual distribution of funds been made known to those in Congress at the time of the law's original passage.

As to my "axe" to grind regarding the candidates, I have no preference for Merkley versus Novick, or anyone else in this race. My "agenda" is to see the SRS funds (or what little is left of them after more than half a billion dollars has been ripped off) spent for their intended purpose: to try to help small rural schools that used to depend on the timber industry. These schools are suffering enrollment declines, losses of programs (and I don't mean the Freshman water polo team or the Chinese immersion program), and funding losses that result in fewer textbooks, computers, and quality teachers.

As much as I would love to see Gordon Smith defeated (for many reasons, including the fact that he, too, hasn't done anything to correct the sorry situation discussed above), I haven't seen anything from either Merkley or Novick that indicates any real concern for anyone who lives more than twenty miles off I-5 or south of Eugene.

Based on your shrill, knee-jerk defense of Merkley, I have to assume that your agenda is to push his candidacy even in the face of any evidence that he may need to become more familiar with issues and at least explain some of his views in more detail.

Kari …. You seem to be the one who is “foot-stomping” and frothing at the mouth here.

There are three points of debate at issue here. First is the purpose of the program. I can’t tell if you and lestatdelc dispute that the goal of SRS was to direct funds to schools in timber-dependent communities. Are you asserting that the Oregon delegation’s goal was to use rural education as a subterfuge in order to direct large amounts of money to relatively wealthy school districts in urban communities with little connection to timber? I would hope that wasn’t their intent, but I can’t disprove the possibility. However, I would direct you to the abstract and text of PL 106-393 (I'm trying to make a link work here. I hope it works. I haven't done this before!) Phrases like “rural schools” and “counties in which the lands are situated” would appear to indicate otherwise.

The second point involves the “Portland/Salem area subsidy” used as a rationalization for hijacking the funds intended for rural communities and redirecting them through the equalization formula to the urban communities mentioned above. In my second and third posts on the “Deal Reached to Extend Timber Payments” discussion item, I went into substantial detail regarding comparisons of local school district property taxes collected in relation to Portland Metro area school districts’ current operating budgets and percentages of general fund spending in the Portland/Salem area versus income tax collections from that region.

To disprove the “Portland subsidy” assertion, one must show that 1) local school property taxes paid do not exceed the school districts’ current operating budget; and 2) that Portland/Salem residents are getting back approximately the same percentage of GFB spending as the percentage of income and other personal taxes they pay.

To reiterate the previous post, Portland Metro districts collectively pay less than 29 percent of their school districts’ current budgets. Therefore, they are not subsidizing anyone with their property taxes.

As for income taxes, taxpayers in Portland/Salem pay 56% of the state’s personal income taxes (which are 85% of the General Funds Budget (GFB)). Do they get back all or at least most of this? Yes. Residents of those four counties receive about 55 percent of the State School Fund (SSF) distributions under equalization. They make disproportionate use of the Oregon University System and the community colleges as well. The three-county Metro area alone accounts for nearly half of the in-state attendance at OUS schools. The community college picture is similar. And this doesn’t account for the tremendous economic development benefits received from having two OUS schools and three of the state’s largest community colleges located in the area.

As for the non-educational parts of the budget, Portland/Salem accounts for 68% of the state employment; these jobs also pay thousands more annually than state jobs located elsewhere around the state. (DAS survey, 2007) Even excluding the jobs located in Salem, Portland area gets nearly 40 percent of the state jobs.

You might make a case for a small K-12 educational surplus from the tri-county Metro area of about 7%. However, this almost exactly equals the deficit found in Marion County, which pays about six percent of the state income taxes, but receives around 13 percent of the SSF distributions. (At around $230 million this year, The Salem-Keizer District is the single largest recipient of SSF distributions. Its taxpayers pay only about 16 percent of their district’s budget). Portland folk may be subsidizing Salem. They aren’t subsidizing anyone else. You can find the data to support these assertions on the Oregon Department of Education, Oregon Department of Revenue, and various county Departments of Assessment and Taxation web sites. If you want to continue that these are “unsubstantiated” data, you’re contending that employees of state and county government can’t collect or report data. If that’s true, we should do away with large chunks of state government.

However, let’s assume for a moment that Portland pays all the bills for everyone in the state. Everyone outside of Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, and Marion Counties is a freeloader. Even if true, it still wouldn’t be relevant here. The U. S. Congress voted to fund a program to benefit a specific group of citizens. The people of the Portland/Salem area are NOT part of that group. You can twist logic to your heart’s content and you still won’t be able to justify re-directing SRS funds to them. The Secure Rural Schools Act would never have seen the light of day had legislators been told in advance where those funds would end up.

The third point seems to be the one that upsets you, Kari, the most: that Ron Wyden did little to correct this situation after he became aware of it. When I contacted Wyden’s office about this, his aides acknowledge that he had a chance to correct this and did not. He did, indeed, ask the Oregon Legislature to change the way these funds were dealt with. However, it was at best a modest effort. As soon as people from Portland area school districts complained (See the Oregonian op-ed piece in December 2001 entitled, “State needs to keep timber receipts in school fund”), Wyden backed off immediately. My conversations with county commissioners in Lane and Douglas Counties support this.

Could he have done more? Easily, though he probably would have lost a few votes. I spent weeks talking with Congressional aides, including those to Senators Murray, Cantwell, Murkowski, Feinstein, Craig, Tester, McCain, Domenici, Bingaman, Coburn, DeMint, Burr, Kennedy, and Conrad, as well as several aides to U. S. House members. Their almost unanimous response was that Senator Wyden controls this legislation. If he wants to change it, he can do so with little or no impact on any final vote to extend or reauthorize. He’s not the only one responsible; Smith hasn’t done diddly either. But it’s clear that Wyden is and always has been driving this bus.

I also spent more than an hour discussing this with Frank Gladics of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, one of Congress’ most knowledgeable people about this program. He confirmed my belief that this change could be made in one or two short sentences. It’s not hard. If Senator Wyden really had an interest in changing this situation, the ball is clearly in his court. Clearly, he has no interest in seeing rural schools benefit from funds they were clearly intended to receive. I’m sorry if this conflicts with your perception of reality, but I have neither seen nor heard any substantive evidence to convince me that I’m not on solid ground.

As for Jeff Merkley, I stand by my assertion that he has had many opportunities to clean up this mess. He hasn’t in the state legislature, and he won’t as U. S. Senator. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be elected. This is only one issue.

One point I forgot to mention in the post above. Kari, you note that Wyden introduced legislation in the Senate and it was stopped in the house. I might give him credit for effort here, except that the real test of a politician's intent is what he/she does when there is a real chance of success. A standard gambit is to create the appearance of support when, in fact, they don't really support something. Sponsoring, even voting for, a bill that has no chance doesn't give you points when you fail to make the same effort when there is a virtual certainty that the legislation will pass.

You're right that Wu, Blumenauer, etc., would not support the loss of funds for big schools within their legislative districts. As a stand alone bill, they had no reason to.

However, at the time of last year's extension and this year's extension/reauthorization effort, things are very different. The members of the Oregon delegation opposing changes necessary to send the education funds to their intended targets have much more to lose. The question no longer is, "Are we going to simply give up money for our schools?" It is accompanied by another question: "Are we willing to lose the part of the funds that go to the counties -- millions of dollars in some cases?" Given the alternatives, Wu and his confederates are going to decide that a lot is better than nothing.

One can measure Wyden's REAL support by his effort (or lack of same) at times when the change can be easily made. If he had any real interest in seeing small rural schools receive these funds, he's in the perfect position to do something about it.

At some point, you have to look at actual performance as the measure of true support. I've stopped evaluating them on what they say. I'm interested in what they do when success is possible, even likely. Much as I admire Wyden in general, he absolutely failed the test this time. You can spin it any way you want, but the facts speak for themselves.