By DAVID BOYLE
The Anchorage School District is working with Anchorage State Sen. Loki Tobin to steal your Permanent Fund dividend and give it to the school districts.
Sen. Tobin is supporting legislation to increase the Base Student Allocation by an astounding $1,963. She says that’s to inflation proof the BSA since FY2011 and the schools need that increased funding to maintain their current excellence.
Actually, Alaska’s public schools are losing thousands of students to homeschool parents who seek better education options for their children. The districts must compensate for this loss of students by increasing the per student state funding for the remaining students.
Legislative Finance calculates that for every $100 increase in the BSA, there is a $25.7 million increase in state funding.
That would increase state funding to K12 schools by more than $504,491,000. And that increase would continue year after year through the state’s funding formula. This would not be a one-time cost.
In terms of last year’s dividend payout, that would be 359,000 PFDs.
But that’s not all. The Anchorage School District also wants the state to increase transportation funding due to its increased costs. Remember, the district increased its costs with a huge pay increase for bus drivers.
The district wants to increase the current $481 per pupil funding by $324, which would be $805 per student. That would be more than $34 million in state funding for the Anchorage School District.
Note that the ASD does not transport all its 42,431 students. It doesn’t provide transportation to any of its charter students, although it receives state funding for them.
Approximately 15,000 students are transported by ASD. With the new funding of $805 per student, the district would receive more than $2,000 per transported student.
If the state’s transportation funding is increased to $805 per student, the total cost would be $102,984,455, using student numbers for 2023-24.
That’s another 73,950 PFDs, based on the payout of $1,404.
So, the BSA increase and the transportation increase would take the PFDs of 432,950 Alaskans.
It gets even more confusing. In the last legislative session Sen. Tobin sponsored SB52. which listed a BSA increase of only $1,000 for school year 2023-24.
In February, 2024 the Anchorage School District said it could get by with an increase of $110 in the BSA.
And the Alaska Association of School Boards said the BSA needed to be increased by $860 for school year 2023-24.
On Dec. 17, the Anchorage School Board passed a joint resolution stating the need for increased state funding.
The district hopes to get the Assembly to also support the joint resolution with a vote at its Jan. 7 meeting.
What do you think? Should the K-12 education industry take thousands of PFDs to pay for a mediocre system with no accountability for results?
You can get your “3 minutes of freedom” at the next Assembly meeting, Jan. 7.
David Boyle is the education writer for Must Read Alaska.
What about the children? ( I mean my pension).
Exactly!
Current excellence? ASD test scores & vastly inflated administrative staff demonstrate that what they need is NOT more money, especially considering that 90% of the per student allocation goes to staff salaries & benefits. Money is NOT the answer nor should it be the reward for
incompetent leadership, irresponsible spending, & a jobs program for people with a degree that is tragically easy to obtain. The number of truly great educators has plummeted over the last decade while the number of administrators with questionable character, integrity, & agendas that fail to prioritize our children is completely disgusting.
I was the President of the Anchorage Council of Education/AFT and the Alaska Federation of Teachers in the 1980s and early 1990s when I worked for the Anchorage School District. I quit after ten years of district service when I realized that Public education was a failure. It deserved an “F” then and still does. More money has always been the call from the District and it will not get better results. The real answer is the money should follow each student and parents should decide where their children get their education – private vs public. I heard all of the arguments then for why public education was the answer….this was easily deconstructed as the best education is that which parents choose not the dictates of the public system. Our state legislature should grow some and move the legislation forward to change the entire system. They say “that you can’t use public money for private schools”. This is not true when public Alaska student loans go for religious based colleges without restriction when the funds go directly to parents and students who then decide where they spend it. The same should apply to K-12 education…..Time for a change!!!! Where is our legislature on this issue. As the only past-president of a statewide teachers union to support parental choice in education – vouchers are the only thing that will fix education. Every community should be able to create and innovate. Charter schools are not the answer they were the diversion in the 1980s to try and avoid vouchers. Time for real wholesale reform and not through the FAILED public system. Where is the leadership on this “states issue”?
I totally agree nick. It’s always the call for more money (for the children) of course. I’m sick of it. These high school graduates can’t even do basic math and they are clueless to history. I’m amazed every time I have an interaction with young people. These damned hand computers are not helping either, people have completely lost the ability to reason. We live in a shit show. Hopefully we can reverse this but I’m doubtful.
C’mon, Nick. You’re breakin up our little family.
Thank you sir. I wish more folks would take the time to really reflect on where we are and how we got here and then have the courage to challenge the status quo.
So, who are you? Nick Begich Sr. is dead!
Well it saves a lot of confusion with respect to my son Nick III. Most people who live in Alaska now arrived after 1972. We would all appreciate your comments on the actual issue of the article.
Nick, your comments are 100% correct. Access to education is the #1 priority for our youth.
The resources available belong to the children in the trust of their parents to shop for the best available educational service. The state has no authority or business to restrict educational services through a monopoly.
The federal Department of Education needs to be eliminated along with all the associated regulations.
The State of Alaska must issue vouchers for every child, without any strings attached, that their parent(s) determine where they attend schooling.
The resulting free market will create competition and result in educated subsequent generations.
You can’t live with leftists. Everything they touch turns to ash and they have no conscious. One way or another they need to be purged.
OUR PFD does not belong to the schools..They are a part of the 75% they take out, They need to stay within their budget..IT IS NOT THEIRS to take..
$$$ does NOT improve education..Get back to the basics; Reading Mat, English etc..,,Teaching the lastest WOKE education is NOT Education. Consider all the $$ they spent on the new WOKE education on books, and other school Woke aids needs to be subrtracted from their budget..Imagine the amount of $$ they spent to replace the books that NEEDED to be replace due to lost damaged books.
Liberal elites believe in communism. That means they take all the money and redistribute it in the name of…Diversity, Equity, Inclusion. In their mind you’re a serf with no rights, you’ll do as you’re told (and like it!)
They’re not supposed to get that much (75%)!
As shrinking students base attending and with school buildings closure as we can not fill them. Let alone the city of Anchorage citizens are leaving. They want more money. They always want more money. Like all lib run districts and cities spend spend and grow an unaffordable situation where no one can live.. A Ghost town. Why can’t people wake up when they vote these people in office. Personally I think the LT Governor should do an audit on the city and school district.
No. Throwing away good money after bad is no answer. Let them first show they are doing GOOD with the money they have. Thus far, they haven’t. Also, MY PFD doesn’t need to be spent on Anchorage schools, where I don’t have children. No, no and NO! All they have done so far is try to indoctrinate them into leftist ideology rather than educate. Again…NO!!!
All I have to say is to AUDIT!AUDIT! AUDIT! By a non-partisan accounting firm. ASD really needs an Audit.
You cannot have free money dangling like bagged meat from a branch and not have scavengers of every stripe showing up in camp at night trying to take it, and that includes other hunters who claim, “But I was the one who shot it!” This is why the best thing that can happen to Alaska is for the Permanent Fund to disappear. The flies, maggots, bears, wolves, scumbags, etc will disappear with it.
I disagree, only because when the PFD goes it won’t satisfy them. We’ll face a hypothetical income tax, or More tariffs like the Port of Anchorage one.
Maybe they could quadruple liquor and nicotine products tax, lol. It’s not just tobacco taxed, Zyn (tobacco free nicotine pouches) are too.
…….when the PFD goes it won’t satisfy them………”
The remaining parasites are never satisfied, but parasites will always exist. The keys with the PFD going away is that many of the social parasites will leave Alaska as if their tail feathers were on fire, it will stave off income and sales taxes a bit longer, and the ideological fight against the Universal Basic Income (UBI) drive must be waged and won as yet another field of battle in the war against communism/socialism. Think the end of the gold rush here in the 1930’s, which was a government created economic collapse similar to what environmentalism is trying desperately to do to fossil fuels. If I got a nickel for every time somebody told me that they’d leave Alaska if they took the PFD away, I’d buy Greenland. A reduced population reduces needed social services, which is the biggest glutton of the budget, thereby reducing spending or getting more for your current social spending. The current education spending goes further with 10% to 15% few students, regardless what the parasitic lobbyists and propagandists try to portray.
We all know it’s the school district admin that’s the problem
I would challenge the teachers to stand up to their administration and go on strike for fairness.
I have relatives and friends who are teachers and the common thread is the admin department.
The teachers are at the breaking point and they all know where the money is going.
The teachers should strike against the admin department with some demands to really fix the school district issues.
Teachers stand up to this mess and help open the taxpayers eyes to the broke system.
We the people need a parent group to investigate where to money is and how it’s spent on fat admin salary’s with not enough money for the classrooms.
Where is the teacher support for student assaults classroom behavior and the constant threats to their jobs and Careers?
This government institution is broken and has been for quite some time and they get more money out of the taxpayer day after day year after year for what less good grades. We need to do over and we need the teachers to stand up against the administration and tell the truth about how the administration holds them down and runs the schools like a prison system.
Where is the support for the school teachers and all the crap they go through on a daily basis.
Please, school teachers speak up draw line in the sand help us taxpayers, correct the problem.
…. “schools need that increased funding to maintain their current excellence.”
What is she smoking? Provide the statistics, data, and success stories, lady, that shows where seemingly endless money already thrown to education funding has produced “excellence”.
Why do we not tie funding to results? Seems to me that every time we hear there are less students, the price goes up dramatically. And then the test results come out, and so many kids are failing. How about we start teaching math, reading, hard science, real history, sprinkled with PE and a few real life skills, and then talk about more money. And really teach, meaning that kids actually learn, rather than babysit all day and then get paid.
Adding to your life skills idea – Drivers Ed as an elective – including standard transmissions. And an AP class for driving large manual vehicles. If our students could leave high school with the equivalent of a CDL some could find good jobs.
This needn’t damage by competing with current workers – green drivers won’t replace skilled ones.
Bring D.O.G.E. to Alaska.
If Tobin wants to push this I say we play a Defund the public schools game. 2 can play at this.
It’s for the teachers unions, every time they say they want respect or to help the students it’s a lie.
I’m not afraid to give the schools money I want results, I want kids that can pass a basic college entrance exam the first go. I want kids that can count change back at the grocery store without a calculator is this to much to ask. ? Our future depends on intelligent hard working young people.
No…..the schools don’t need them (PFD). The teacher’s unions want them. Expect a fight.
I’m not giving up my PFD so some pink and green- haired pre-teen punk can study wokeism, CRT, climate change, and DEI.
Me neither!
Thomas as you stand to defend your PFD the APFC is trying to relieve themselves of bylaws requiring Public official BONDS at their next meeting in Feb. to change to no bonds . If you really what to complain about something to preserve your PFD reflect on that , besides the 67 people that work at the APFC make on average of $328,000.00 per year per person, that ‘s a employee yearly budget of 22 MILLON plus!!!
When the original APFC was established they had only 10 employees. with a budget of less then $937,000.00 including travel cost! This next year they all got raises & they gave themselves a $250,000.00 budget! Were you aware of this? Liberty Ed
If people living in Anchorage want to give up their PFDs for their failed system, that’s on them.
The rest of us who understand the law are sick and tired of Lawbreakers stealing it every year in any way, shape or form.
Manda read my response to Thomas above!
As long as the PFD goes away before instituting income or sales taxes, fine. I am astounded by the “conservatives” OKAY with instituting taxes to pay a dividend.
Hear! Hear!
The PFD is dead and we all know it. The legislature won’t stop until it’s gone.
They they’ll go after the Corpus. They can’t help themselves.
First improve the test scores. Then spend less time talking hormonal moody teens that they’re really trapped in the body of the opposite sex. Once that’s done, then we can talk about adding to school funding. EFF the NEA and AFT.
Thanks for the heads-up, David.
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Best guess is smoke, mirrors, lies, delphi meetings, and BS aside, the owner-operators of Anchorage’s education industry are in a tizzy over the growing possibility their money supply may slow to a trickle, dry up altogether.
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Suppose Eaglexit happens –and– sponsors can’t be swindled or strong-armed into paying some sort of protection racket for Anchorage education industry “services”.
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Suppose Eaglexit left-behinds see what’s coming, do another 80’s-style exodus, leave the city economy in a shambles, businesses unable to pay taxes, city without tax money to pay bond interest plus union contracts, city tilting into municipal-bond default.
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Suppose productive residents remaining after Eaglexit, after exodus, just can’t be sales and property-taxed enough to support education industry officials, plus the rest of city government, in the manner to which they’ve become entitled, think they’ll stick around if they can’t pull off an “-exit” of their own?
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Suppose DOGE and Congress succeed in abolishing one of America’s top money-laundering enterprises, the Department of Education, or reducing it to a shadow of its former opulence, drying up the flood of state education-industry subsidies to a drip from which only the most influential may sip.
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Suppose Trump Justice Department and IRS officials were persuaded to investigate Anchorage’s education industry under “Deprivation of Honest Services” 18 U.S. Code § 1346. Anchorage School Board’s already on record, voting unanimously to kick contracts over $1M to closed shops, so whether or not contracts are deliberately inflated, with kickbacks, to exceed the Board’s $1M threshold, who knows?
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Bottom line: Pick your battlespace, you might have a decent chance at winning, keeping PFD’s, restoring a decent education system, watching these perverted, corrupt, child-mutilating groomers get tossed into federal lockup …with inmates who don’t like child predators.
Audit time,,,
This article infuriates me. The school district is always always wanting more money.Makes me sick!
Automatically take the PFDs from all the voters who voted for Sen. Loki Tobin for as long as she is in office + 10 years. Also include all the folks in ANC who considered Loki a friend or neighbor or related to her.
Next take the PFDs from all the democrats in Anchorage just for grins and giggles.
That should cover it.
Throwing money at this low expectations or, at least, low results educational system appears to enrich administrators and “educators” (tongue in cheek for that description) without equally enriching student learning. I’ve been out of school for a long time, mind you, but my observations of our under 40 YOA (50 maybe?) graduates forces me to accept that diplomas are awarded based on time served rather than learning accomplished. I don’t know what these people are teaching our kids but it’s not math or English or critical thinking skills. FYI…if you’ve made it this far into this comment you either have an extraordinary ability to concentrate (for a more recent product of our school system, a real overachiever) or you graduated many decades ago. Congratulations in either case. I think we need to accept that the real problem with our educational system is that the focus of those in it is on extracting maximum income and benefits as they count the days left to an early and lucrative retirement. Kids come second if they enter the picture at all.
Alaska, mostly Anchorage, votes for these spending Democrats. You live in the septic waste you vote for. Unions want their slice of the pay.
1000s of PFDs for a mediocre system with no accountability- nothing more needs to be said
Alaska ranked 48th for education choice, ahead only of North Dakota, Massachusetts, and Hawaii. According to the Heritage Foundation ranking, Alaska is among the most expensive and lowest-performing states, with only moderately transparent governance of school districts, an unfriendly regulatory environment, and little education choice.
I think it would help to keep the size of the PFD from shrinking too much, if we got rid of collective bargaining for public school teachers and state employees. Unions are OK, as long as they are “benign” unions (with no collective bargaining powers) rather than coercive, belligerent and adversarial unions armed with such powers.
A “benign” union would just have an advocacy function, but would not threaten strikes or force mediation and arbitration. Pay rates would be determined by free-market bargaining only.
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I have a cynical theory, that the left-wing hierarchy of teacher’s unions, don’t really want proper discipline for unruly students, because if the teacher’s had a more orderly classroom with attentive students, the teachers would feel more contented, rewarded and fulfilled on the job, and would not need as much of a pay raise in order to retain them and attract new applicants. Less pay raise, means less money going into union coffers. In my opinion, the unions want maximum money going into their coffers, so as to better support left-wing candidates.
“do less withMORE!!” Its he union(democrat, BIRM) way
Mr. Boyle, please see the attached. I suggest a similar review should be done of ASD before allocating any more funds to that entity.
‘https://www.americanexperiment.org/has-the-public-school-system-become-a-jobs-program-for-administrators/
Mark R, Thank you, I will review the document. The ASD also has functions that detract from its primary mission of educating all students for life. One of those would be the DEI office; another would be the use of education funds for the medical function. A school district CANNOT be everything to everybody.
OK, so… exactly what does the schools spend their money on? Tell us that first before we allow the schools to tap into more money.
Exactly how many Principals, vice Principals, guidance counselors, and social workers does an individual school require? When I was in HS, it predated computers on every desk, but somehow my HS of over 1,000 students was able to get buy with one Principal, one Vice Principal, and three multipurpose guidance counselors/social workers. Five administrative positions, 1,000 students. These days, a school of 300 has how many vice Principals? How many social workers?
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Want to know why schools are so expensive, look at management.
‘https://educationdata.org/public-education-spending-statistics?hl=en-US
The stats don’t lie. Education is a loss in Alaska – the return for the money spent is nauseating. ASD should be producing graduates that go on to become physicians and rocket scientists with the current allocations.
Too bad we can’t ask old Jay Hammond, the father of the Permanent Fund, how he feels about spending the earnings on improving our schools vs. big screen TVs, snow machines, and cut-rate airline tickets.
I knew the guy, and I know what he would have said.
The grift that keeps on giving – the Alaska Public School system!