Education Debate : Pro-Industry Text Creating Din in Oregon

For 24 years, Deanna Dyksterhuis and her husband have been growing blackberries, wheat, sweet corn, table beans and peppermint in the rich soil of the Willamette Valley, and also nurturing a growing concern over the effects of environmental regulations on farmers and loggers.

“We’re at a point,” said Dyksterhuis, 43, “where a lot of people are passing laws, making rules and regulations that interfere with our ability to produce food and fiber. We could end up where we’re not producing enough, and nobody’s going to understand why.”

So, she thought, what better place to try to change attitudes than in the schools?

Little did Dyksterhuis imagine the firestorm of controversy she would help provoke in Oregon by setting out to gain support for a fourth-grade social studies text that, in her word, “spotlights” producers.

Those same producers also provided money for the text, so it is little wonder, environmentalists say, that the book contains a drawing of three-wheel all-terrain cycles roaring over sand dunes, portrays wilderness areas as a threat to the economy and schools, and describes three ways to eliminate coyotes as pests.

Environmentalists are now seeking to block state approval of the text as pro-industry propaganda.

It is perhaps the most heated education issue in Oregon in recent memory--far hotter than sex education, creationism and other controversies--and has shaken the fault line of fundamental conflict in a state where wilderness values run as strong for many as timber harvesting does for others, where Portland prospers while rural, resource-based communities die and many blame environmental restrictions for their death.

The state Board of Education is scheduled to act today on whether to approve the book for Oregon schools. Whatever their decision, larger school districts approve their own texts (Portland has rejected the book) and smaller ones may use it as a supplementary text. It is in use in 26 school districts already, including Corvallis.

“It has a great deal of appeal for children,” said Shirley A. Woods, assistant superintendent of the Corvallis School District. “It’s of high interest to children because it contains letters written from children.”

‘Symbol of Conflict’

“The textbook has become the symbol of the conflict between agriculture, timber and business and environmental organizations,” said Dave Nelson, executive secretary of the Oregon Seed Council, a trade association of grass seed producers that contributed $2,000 toward the book’s production. “Opponents looked at who supported (the text) and concluded it was propaganda.

“Then the supporters took up the cause and said, ‘We’re not going to let those rascals run over us.’ It’s become a rallying cry for both sides.”

“It’s part of a broader pattern that has been going on and will continue to go on: Portland and the rest-of-the-state,” said John A. Charles, executive director for the Oregon Environmental Council, which is opposing use of the text. “There’s always been a rural-urban split . . . but in the last six years, the (timber) economy’s been so lousy, but Portland’s doing OK, and that coupled with the poor state of farming nationwide (has contributed to) the overall conflict of declining agriculture and increasing urbanization.”

It was against this background, and because of it, that “Get Oregonized” was published. The book’s origins date back about four years, to an effort to increase agricultural issues in school classes “to create a better understanding of where food and fiber come from,” said Dyksterhuis, who is active in Oregon Women for Agriculture.

Began Raising Money

An Oregon State University professor, Rod Fielder, suggested a textbook, and Dyksterhuis began raising money for one. The Oregon Wheat Commission gave $9,000, the Federal Land Bank $6,000, the Oregon Beef Council $3,000, Associated Oregon Loggers $2,000 and Willamette Industries $4,000. Other contributors included Georgia-Pacific Corp., Oregon Women for Timber, the Oregon Department of Agriculture, Oregonians for Food and Shelter, Stimpson Lumber Co., Union Carbide Agricultural Products Co. and Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation.

“We went out to all the people we deal with,” Dyksterhuis said, “bankers and suppliers and companies, and asked for contributions, no strings attached. There’s nothing wrong with industry supporting it. A lot of things are supported by industry.”

In addition, a number of school districts contributed teacher time for the research and writing of various chapters; the Port of Portland contributed a chapter on itself and urged Portland schools to adopt the text.

The 289-page text initially came under fire from Sonja Grove, a Portland teacher, a board member of the Oregon Environmental Council and a member of the Oregon State Textbook Commission, which approves texts for use in state school districts with fewer than 15,000 pupils.

‘So Anti-Environment’

“This is so anti-environment,” Grove said in an interview. “Always the conclusion is, ‘We’re sorry we have to spray herbicides, but it has to be done. We’re sorry we have to burn fields, but it has to be done. We’re sorry we have to harvest timber, but it has to be done.’ Nothing that it’s damaging. It goes on and on and on.”

Among the passages cited by opponents is one on clear-cutting of trees--the cutting down of every tree in a given area as opposed to more selective cutting. The book says, “The clear-cut lets the light in and gives foresters a place to start a new stand of trees. Clear-cuts also provide plenty of food for wildlife.”

Environmentalists oppose clear-cutting for the loss of wildlife habitat and siltation of streams, among other reasons, but no objection is mentioned in the discussion of clear-cutting.

In discussing the setting aside of forests in wilderness preserves, a fictional forest ranger says: “You have to remember when land is set aside as a wilderness area, it will produce no wood products because no trees are cut.” An exchange with three children follows:

Susan said . . . “my mom says that all people benefit from our timber. . . . Whenever a tree is cut down and sold for lumber, some type of tax is paid. The owner of the timber pays this tax to the state. The state then pays the money back to the county where the trees were cut.”

“I heard that our schools get money from cutting trees,” said George.

Forester Bob said, “You are both right. So you can see that everyone gains from a well - managed forest. The state and county gains in taxes paid to them. All of our schools in Oregon depend a lot on the wood products industry.”

Said Charles of the environmental council: “It treats natural resources as commodities and leads the reader to believe that natural resources that have no commodity value have no value at all.”

Close Scrutiny

As a result of the environmental attacks, the text has drawn extraordinary scrutiny that has revealed a host of grammatical and factual flaws, such as a river flowing the wrong way.

Fielder, the “Get Oregonized” editor, was unavailable for an interview. But Woods describes him as “a very ethical man.” The Portland Oregonian has quoted him as defending the text as a long overdue approach to the state’s resources.

“Our intent was to give as balanced a view as possible,” The Oregonian quoted him as saying, “but I think it would be fair to say we attempted to achieve balance from the point of view of agriculture and forestry rather than from a super-conservationist point of view.”

“It goes to the broad concern that . . . as we weave down through history, education on agriculture, education on timber, education on business is being skipped through and not taught,” said Nelson of the seed council. The council has battled environmentalists over field burning to control disease in anti-pollution debates known as “Breathers vs. Burners.” “We thought that, gee, this is a good idea to reintroduce into education some good economic information about the state.”

Would Like to Go Further

As for Dyksterhuis and her husband Jerry, 49, they believe the book may not go far enough. “There’s lots of things not in the book we would have liked to see. There’s a lot more good things that you could say about clear-cutting.”

“Because of the environmental movement, the whole state’s dead right now,” said Jerry Dyksterhuis, citing Oregon’s weak economy.