Table of Contents Timber, Condos, Glamping? States Debate Land Use to Fund Schools This stand of state trust land forest near Washington’s Merrill Lake is logged to provide revenue for schools. The Pew Charitable Trusts SEATTLE — Checkerboarded across the landscape of the American West are thousands of parcels of state-owned land that collectively cover an area larger than North Dakota. They include vast swaths of forest and prairie, fracking wells, coal mines, luxury housing developments, parking lots, cell towers and solar panels. Known as state trust lands, thes...