By DAVID BOYLE
This week, Gov. Mike Dunleavy provided legislation, HB76 and SB82, to improve Alaska’s education system with accountability for results. He believes that good policy should be implemented before money is thrown at perceived problems.
So, what are the returns on our investment in K-12 education?
Here is a graph that shows the relationship between inflation, Alaska funding, and NAEP 4th grade reading and math scores since 2013:
There appears to be an inverse relationship between spending and student achievement. We can do better, and we need to do better for our kids.
Let’s look at this omnibus K12 education bill. Note the accountability requirements.
The legislation increases education opportunities for parents with open enrollment and increased charter school growth.
Here are the major fiscal policy changes, some of which are changes to the K12 funding formula, making them future funding as well.
Changes to the Correspondence (home school) program:
- Increase funding for correspondence (home school) students from 90% to 100% of the student count (increase of $43M). This ensures that home school students are given full equity.
- For those correspondence students identified as “special needs” and those who enroll in CTE (vocational education), they will also receive that funding. This provides equity for home school students and places them on an equal basis with their brick & mortar students.
- Increases the CTE factor from 1.015 to 1.04 in the K12 funding formula (increase of $31M). This requires the districts to provide plans and reports to the Department, thereby ensuring accountability for the funding.
Changes to the funding of transportation. Because of the increase in the cost of providing student transportation, the state will increase funding by 20% at a cost of $14.5 million. Much of the increased cost is due to energy and increased bus driver wages resulting from the Covid “pandemic.”
The governor proposes to increase funding for nine residential schools by $4 million.
School bond debt reimbursement program is extended to 2030.
Gov. Dunleavy also expands the Alaska Reads Act from K-3 to K-6 and increases funding to $21.9 million. The Act has already shown promising improvement in the K-3 students as shown in this chart:
Many in the education industry have complained that the current funding is not adequate to teach our kids how to read. That begs the question, what are the kids being taught if not reading?
Dunleavy’s bill also increases educational opportunities for all Alaska children by providing open enrollment regardless of zip code. This empowers parents by allowing them to enroll their child in any school within the state-charter, neighborhood public, or correspondence school. The only limitation is the school’s capacity.
So, an Anchorage parent could enroll their child in a MatSu neighborhood school, charter school, or correspondence school. The only hitch is that the parent would have to provide transportation. But districts are also required to establish a student transportation plan as part of this policy.
To provide transparency on school capacities, districts are required to publish on their websites student enrollment data to include school capacity, vacancies for each grade, the number of applications, acceptances, denials, and the reasons for denial.
Better yet, school districts are required to accept students throughout the year as capacity allows. This is extremely important to military families, as not all relocations occur during the summer
Dunleavy wants to expand public charter schools so parents on the waiting lists can get their child to those schools. Unfortunately, the school districts have a stranglehold on the authorizing (startup) of charter schools.
Many of the best schools are our public charter schools but we don’t have enough to support the demand.
The governor wants to fix that problem and help more parents get to the best public schools in the state. Who can oppose that?
The Governor’s legislation proposes to allow the State Board of Education to authorize charter schools anywhere in the state. Additionally, it would allow the University, local municipalities, and any state agency to authorize charter schools.
Surely, school districts will oppose this part of the bill because they do not want to lose their monopolies over even the charter schools. The local districts would be required to operate these charter schools.
Senate President Gary Stevens of Kodiak agrees with the education monopoly, “As I said earlier this week, removing an elected school board’s local control and giving it to an unelected state board to establish charter schools is a no-go.”
The best local control are the parents, not a so-called “elected school board” that bows to the wishes of the teachers’ unions. The finest example is the president of the Anchorage School Board, who was the former president of the Anchorage teachers’ union.
Finally, to improve teacher retention and recruiting, Dunleavy has proposed a teacher bonus program that would provide payments of between $5,000 and $15,000 per year to teachers, depending on the remoteness of the district. These bonuses would be restricted to full-time teachers occupying a position requiring teaching on a regular basis. It is targeted at classroom teachers.
Alaska must do something different to improve the current K-12 system. We are not getting a return on our significant investment of resources.
The battle lines are drawn. We have the “status-quoers” who want to keep throwing more and more money at a system that is failing many children.
Senate President Stevens said that tying educational outcomes to funding needs will not turn this crisis around, “but only exacerbate it.”
And then we have the “reformers” who want to change the system by providing more educational opportunities for all Alaska children.
“We must recognize parental rights so parents may choose the best education path for their child. Focusing on the successful education of all students by meeting their unique needs is the number one priority,” said Sen. Mike Cronk of Tok/Interior.
It seems that the “status quoers” are focused on the institution while “reformers” are focused on parents and students.
Just like an older vehicle, one must make a decision: Should I keep throwing money at the junker and hope it runs for another nine months? Or should I invest my hard-earned money in a new vehicle that will last for many years, thus a greater return on my investment?
Read the bills here:
David Boyle is the education writer at Must Read Alaska.
Absolutely, throwing more money at the problem hasn’t done anything positive. The results have proven that to be a fact. I don’t expect common sense to win in Juneau. The system in Juneau is exactly like the current school system. Neither work for the good of the people or the state. I hope they prove me wrong.
Just burn the whole mess down.