By BOB GRIFFIN
Despite significant disparities in funding and adequacy, Florida dramatically outperforms Alaska in the quality of high school graduates. This is despite having a higher poverty rate than Alaska and twice the rate of students who speak English less than “very well”.
In 2024 a Rutger University study ranked Alaska as the second most adequately funded K-12 system in the US with a score of 95 out of possible 100. Florida was rank last with a score of 12.
In 2023, 28.4% of Florida high school graduates passed at least one Advanced Placement (AP) test, ranking 4th highest in the US. Conversely, Alaska ranked 40th with only 12.4% of high school graduates passing at least one AP test.
A common misconception is that Alaska’s poor school performance is solely due to low-performing rural schools in predominantly native communities. While there are notable challenges in some rural schools, urban schools in Alaska also show lackluster performance.
The 2024 NAEP 4th grade reading scores for upper/middle-income white students in Alaska were statistically indistinguishable from the reading scores in Miami Dade Public Schools in Florida, where 94% of the students are ethnic minorities, two-thirds are from low-income families, and over half speak a language other than English at home.
So, what is the key difference between the Florida and Alaska education systems? In two words: Healthy competition.
The Alaska K-12 education system is essentially a government-controlled monopoly. Though there are some options for parents, such as charter schools, local government school boards often openly hostile to charters routinely restrict their authorizations and enrollment levels well below public demand. Alaska is one of only five states in the US where local school boards have sole authority to authorize charter schools and limit their capacity. Consequently, only 5.5% of Alaska public school students are enrolled in charters compared to 13.3% in Florida.
Additionally, 13.4% of Florida students attend private schools, with over 70% of them being low-income students who receive government assistance for their private school tuition. In Alaska, private school enrollments make up only 3.3% of all students—a figure that is one of the lowest in the country and predominantly comprised of students from upper-income families.
When healthy competition exists, there are incentives to innovate and improve to attract patrons. Monopolies, on the other hand, have no incentive to improve and tend to devolve into low-quality and overly expensive enterprises.
In summary, the stark differences in educational outcomes between Florida and Alaska can be attributed to the presence or absence of healthy competition within their respective education systems. The competitive environment in Florida fosters innovation and improvement, whereas the monopolistic system in Alaska lacks the necessary incentives to excel.
Rutgers Study:
Bob Griffin is on the board of Alaska Policy Forum and served on the Alaska Board of Education and Early Development.
