“Things look different here.”

With this official advertising slogan, the State of Oregon hopes to explain itself to the rest of the nation and the world.

Someone sure got this one right.

Here, we live in willful ignorance that a society will lose vital services when it chooses to impoverish the government that serves it.

Here, we prefer to believe that all the money we need is lurking in a cranny where a power elite is keeping it under wraps. (This tooth fairy platform almost took a buffoon to the governor’s mansion.)

A reader suggested that the following slogan would seem even better suited to the times: “Oregon: We have huge hidden funds – come help us find them.”

Virtually every state is struggling with budget shortfalls as the recession refuses to release its grip on the economy. But lots of states are raising resources to protect key assets they’ll need once the economy recovers.

Oregon? It’s selling the family jewels.

This state’s determination to impoverish its collective self has turned it into a venue for an unprecedented distress sale – where valuable assets are sold off because the owner cannot afford to keep them.

Among the most important assets we’re selling are our finest teachers. In effect, we’ve put them on the auction block – at the very moment when our long-range prosperity depends on the brains of our workers, not their brawn.

Just last week, opportunistic California school districts swept into Portland to conduct a job fair for Oregon teachers. Their unabashed purpose: to hire away as many of our best teachers as they can.

And why not? Californians have raised the resources to buy teacher talent. In January, Oregonians gave some thought to the subject for a while but then said, “Nah!”

(My reader’s second Oregon slogan idea: “Shorter school years – more quality time on the streets!”)

You can’t fault our southern neighbor for poaching. It needs between 5,000 and 10,000 new teachers this year to keep up with a booming enrollment and a voter-approved law that limits class size to 20 students in many grades.

Why would California schools hire a young novice right out of college when they can buy a master teacher from Oregon with 15 years experience?

(Still another slogan from my reader: Oregon – We’re ready for a new millennium. The 1900s.)

Oregon’s anti-tax, anti-spending cabal says it believes in free markets. They just don’t seem to think free markets influence Oregon teachers. How wrong they are.

You’re an Oregon teacher trying to pay off your student loans. Your district has just opted for the shortest school year in the nation. Do you shrug off the loss of up to 24 days of pay? Or do you think you just might follow the silent hand of the market place and show up at that California job fair?

Recently in Portland, teachers showed up at the rate of one a minute – a rate that amazed the recruiters.

And, boy, are those recruiters well armed! They’re offering moving expenses and signing bonuses of up to $10,000 to Oregon’s best teachers. (Yes, I said, “Best.” You think they want our worst?)

To top it off, California schools offer an annual salary that on average is $8,000 greater than what Oregon offers.

That giant sucking sound you hear is the sound of excellent Oregon teachers exiting a state that seems to see no connection between draconian spending cuts and the dumbing down of public education.

The brain drain is well under way. Reportedly we’ll lose 1,000 teachers by May and another 1,000 next year. But in this budgetary environment, don’t be shocked if the real number dramatically eclipses that estimate.

There’s a shabby little secret in all this. Many of Oregon’s anti-tax apostles are really quite willing to weaken or destroy Oregon’s public schools, which they derisively call “government schools.” For years they’ve wanted education to be performed by (taxpayer subsidized) home schooling and private schools

Such an event would mean the demise of what Thomas Jefferson called the “common schools” – public schools that provide a common educational experience in an egalitarian, democratic society. In his view, such schools give citizens from all walks of life the intellectual equipment to govern themselves wisely.

From the looks of it in Oregon, Jefferson’s ideal is already on its way out the door.

Listen. There’s that sound again. Former Congressman Les AuCoin is an Ashland writer and professor of political science at Southern Oregon University.