By DAVID BOYLE
The Anchorage Education Association and the Anchorage School District have been negotiating a new contract since November. An analysis of the going-in position shows that the teachers’ union wants an amazing 15% across-the-board base salary increase for its nearly 3,200 members.
This union, an affiliate of the National Education Association, includes classroom teachers, non-classroom teachers, nurses, librarians, psychologists, librarians, physical therapists, and occupational therapists.
Just the 15% base salary increase would cost the district an additional nearly $37 million.
This salary increase would be for all AEA union members, regardless of their job performance. For example, a mediocre teacher would get the same pay raise as an outstanding and effective classroom teacher. There is no difference in compensation between the good and the not-so-good.
Has anyone else received a 15% salary increase not related to merit in the past year?
But there’s much more in the goody bag for the union members. The union also wants an additional annual 5% of salary for any member that has a doctorate degree. This would be an increase from the previous contract of 3%.
A member that has a master’s degree would get an additional 3% of salary annually. This was 1.25% in the previous contract.
Perhaps the worst part of rewarding a member with advanced degrees is those degrees don’t have to be in the person’s current subject area of teaching. The union wants to delete that requirement from last year’s contract.
One could get an advanced degree in gender studies; puppetry; or diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and get a substantial bonus.
This does not help improve student achievement.
There are other factors in the teacher’s union proposal that increase the cost to the district. The total increase in salary type items is $47,078,879.
One of the highest costs to the district is health insurance. This year the district pays nearly $66 million just for the teacher union members’ health insurance. Now the union wants an additional $6.9 million by requiring the district to increase the annual per member premium from $22,800 to $25,200. Health insurance is unsustainable. It would be much more cost-effective for all district employees to be placed on the State’s “Alaska Care” plan.
The AEA wants to increase the number of its members qualifying for health insurance by allowing the part-timers (.50 full-time equivalents) to enroll. This would add another nearly $1 million to the district’s cost.
All these insurance premiums go to the Public Employee Health Trust, managed by, guess who? The teacher’s union!
Notably, in the last Legislature, Rep. Sarah Vance sponsored House Bill 21, and Sen. Shelley Hughes filed Senate Bill 110 that would have allowed school districts to put their employees in the state’s health insurance plan. The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District and the Ketchikan Borough School District both supported this legislation, knowing that health insurance costs were unsustainable.
Similar health insurance legislation that was filed in past legislatures received support from four of the big five school districts. Only the Anchorage School District did not support the bills.
The union also wants to play a role in establishing state law by limiting the pupil/teacher ratio. Because the district is losing so many students the teachers union will probably be losing members. Thus, the union has decided to put limits on the number of students per teacher. This would increase union membership and power.
Here are some of the pupil/teacher classroom ratios the union wants to limit, and the penalties assessed to the district:
| GRADE | CLASSROOM SIZE LIMIT | COST TO DISTRICT |
| PreK | 18 students | $250/student/month |
| Kindergarten | 20 students | $250/student/month |
| Grades 1-3 | 22 students | $250/student/month |
| Grades 4-5 | 25 students | $250/student/month |
For example, if a third-grade classroom has 25 students, the teacher would get $750 more per month. That would be an additional cost to the Anchorage School District (taxpayers) of $9,000.
Here are the pupil/teacher classroom ratio limits the union wants on secondary classrooms and the increased cost to the district:
| INSTRUCTION TYPE | TEACHER WORKLOAD | COST TO DISTRICT |
| General Education | 140 students | $50/student/month |
| Physical Education | 200 students | $50/student/month |
For example, if a high school teacher has more than 150 students in his Algebra classes for five class periods (averaging 30 students per class), that teacher would receive another $500/month, at a cost of $4,500 to the district.
These are just a few of the class size limitations the union wants to force on the district.
The district has done an excellent job of costing out the entire teacher union contract proposal, so taxpayers can see the projected total cost to the district.
That total cost is more than $97.4 million, an increase of 26.9% over the current contract and at a cost of $33,493 per full time equivalent worker.
That’s roughly 57,245 Permanent Fund dividends.
The total cost by line item of the additional cost by the teacher’s union can be seen here:
You can listen to the contract negotiations online and see the Anchorage School District’s and the teacher’s union going-in proposals here.
It is clear the Anchorage teacher’s union sees the loss of students as a threat to its monopoly over the district. That’s why it supports the massive spending in House Bill 69, with no accountability for increasing student achievement. It needs the spending to maintain its power.
You can voice your opinion to the Anchorage School Board.
You can also voice your opinion to your state legislator on HB 69. Send your email to [email protected].
It’s either that or lose what remains of your Permanent Fund dividend.
David Boyle is the Must Read Alaska education writer.
Teachers are treacherous within their own ranks. It is called,”Eating their young”. All new un-tendered staff will be sacrificed on the “Alter of Personal Greed.
Is never about the children, only how the children are used.
Cheers, Johnson-Ketchikan
Al you are correct it’s about the unions and money not the children because if it was about the children the results would be different.
Tear down the education department and start over with the parents deciding school needs.
Why do Democrats ALWAYS use children to get what they want with negative out come? But that idiot Dunleavy will probably dig into the PFD and give it to them, I don’t have kids in school I shouldn’t have to pay for it.
Caution before simply transferring employees to the Alaska Care plan. There are other, better plans that effectively manage costs and successfully keep their monthly contributions under the Alaska Care rates – all while avoiding the political entanglements that are inescapable in a State run plan.
I have a really great idea. Say, “NO”!
Where’s it gonna come from? The homeowners of Anchorage-unless the Politburo passes a sales tax for it.
You keep voting the Politburo back in, and can’t be bothered to vote in large numbers.
This is a self inflicted wound.
Sooner or sooner, the legislature will raid the Corpus. They can’t help themselves.
The PFD is dead, just like a zombie it hasn’t stopped moving yet.
If this is “Alaska First”, God help us when Alaska comes last.
Yes masked the PFD will wind up in the unions and politicians pockets.
The average Alaska will be screwed.
Please parents and guardians, please consider removing your children from the public school system. You can do better if you do nothing else. Public schools and the public sector unions are failed institutions. We can argue about police and fire, and I will agree. However, these organizations are infected, and the resources these men and women of the police and fire generate are used to elect political zealots, and religious nut jobs who worship an invisible god called moral and intellectual superiority. A false god! These faithful zealots worship a roadmap of policy and procedure that is justified through circular reason. The argument you always hear is that we had good intentions. And we know who the real god is. It is their pensions that ultimately are indemnified by the residents of Alaska with no pensions. How these unions were able to take control of the lives of Alaskans is no mystery. Organized crime 101, psychological conditioning, and a promise of better days ahead. Do your schools look like better days ahead? They look like a place where success is traded for failure to me.
These people need an Elon Musk audit.
Where will the money come from?
How about a 50% reduction of the administration then use the savings from a bloated ASD administration.
Or we could get DOGE TO AUDIT THE ASD.
Just another 100 MILLION ~
Shut the tap off or shut it down
~ridiculous!
How about this. No to all your demands.
When Alaska school grades get up there with some of the best, then raises should be allowed. In a time of decreasing school population across the State, along with lowered standards, the only thing that should be negotiated is an annual cola adjustment. Put the teachers in the State medical program and review the retirement program altogther.
Poor babies.
They do not think they are getting paid enough.
.
Well, if that is the case, go get a job where you are getting paid what you think you are worth. Simple, really.
Not that it’s right, but the Governor, state commissioners, and legislators received raises well above 15% just over a year ago. They seem to recognize the corrosive power of inflation in their own lives…..
Wow, if this isn’t a reason for home schooling and private schools. The teachers unions act like politicians. We need to focus on quality education for our children and the union teachers are focused on pay and benefit without students achievement and quality teachers.
NO NO NO NO MORE MONEY. AUDIT FIRST. A MUSK QUALITY AUDIT
We need an Anchorage School District and Municipality of Anchorage Doge along with pulling your kids out of ASD for home schooling, etc. These people are only out for themselves.
The union teachers are mostly democrats I believe, so they should be on Obamacare, or like I like to call it, Murkowskicare, since she was the deciding vote.
To Eaglexit sponsors: What’s the plan for setting up Chugach Regional Borough so these vermin can’t contaminate the new CRB school system… there will be a brand-new CRB school system, absolutely, totally, completely separate from Anchorage School District, yes?
.
The $100M is probably a done deal, which means it’ll come from somewhere like city sales tax, higher fuel tax, city income tax, higher fees, home-schooling fees, surtax on property tax bills.
.
Seems reasonable to expect the union wants this done before Eaglexit, before the legislature stiffs productive Alaskans with sales and income taxes, before the federal Department of Education goes away, making individual states accountable for what their education industries produce.
.
Remember, approval of the $100M lies with the corrupt School Board, whose members unanimously agreed to steer million-dollar school-district contracts to union-only shops. (https://mustreadalaska.com/anchorage-school-board-votes-for-construction-monopoly-by-labor-unions/)
.
Remember too, both sides know they’re insulated from accountability and angry voters because Alaska’s grand-jury and election systems are FUBAR’d.
.
But Eaglexit, an 80’s style mass exodus, school boycotts, all leading to school-bond defaults… might be just what it takes to crash their house of cards, yes?
Id10ts! Just say NO! Education system needs to be scrapped and rebuilt with old values and methods. Citizens should require an audit of the district and it should be a 3rd party and publicly accessible.
No raises for teachers until performance based standards are enacted. STUDENT performance standards based on testing. Math. Reading comprehension. Science. History. Weed out non-performing teachers. Reward the best performers. More influence for student advocates, less influence for the NEA/AFT. And zero trans ideology in schools. Until we actually put students first (and not some trite NEA catch phrase) there should be no raises for teachers.
Unions started out as a good thing. unfortunately they have become a legal mafia……
Someone has to step up and tell the teacher’s union to take a hike!
Unions have evolved into a thing that believes there is never a limit on how much you can fleece the rest of the population to meet their demands. We have a failing school system with an unwieldy overhead and the people working for the districts absolutely refuse to do anything to help themselves, except to demand more money.
To put it in perspective, teachers asked for a 15% raise because the Death Star wanted to add 2 classes and go to an 8-period day. High school teachers would teach 6 classes instead of 5, which is a 20% increase in students, papers, meetings, and parents to deal with. 152 kids on your attendance is one thing, but 180 +/- is another. Yes, it would all be jammed into an 7 1/2 hour day.
As a soldier in the war on improving education, I don’t agree with throwing money into the blackhole which is the obscene ASD budget. Rather see it go to some sort of school choice program, or leave it in the PFD.
For those that want to tie teacher salaries to test scores, you need to take a look at the family dynamic or lack of as well. Test scores don’t tell the whole story, and I fear it would just lead to teaching to the test anyhow.
Mit
I have a thought. Fire. Each. And. Every. One. Of. Them.