Gov. Mike Dunleavy delivered a blunt message to Alaska Association of School Boards President Lon Garrison, in a sharply worded letter accusing him of distorting the reasons behind Dunleavy’s veto of $200 from the $700 increase to the Base Student Allocation.
The letter, addressed directly to Garrison, pushes back on what the governor described as “false and offensive” accusations that his veto reflected a lack of support for Alaska’s students, parents, or educators.
“I served as a school board member and president… I care deeply about educational opportunity, but I also understand the fiscal realities our State faces,” Dunleavy wrote. “Your criticism conveniently ignores the basic fact that Alaska cannot spend what it does not have.”
Dunleavy emphasized that his decision was driven by broader fiscal responsibilities, including declining oil revenue and increasing pressure across state services, not a disregard for education. He pointed to the Legislature’s move to fund the BSA increase by slashing Permanent Fund Dividends and draining millions from the Higher Education Fund, and questioned whether AASB supported that trade-off.
“Governing is about balance and responsibility, not empty advocacy,” he wrote. “I must protect the fiscal solvency of the State—you do not have that obligation.”
The letter escalated from a defense of the veto to a broader attack on the AASB’s positions and leadership. Dunleavy accused the organization of resisting education reform while continually demanding more funding.
“You have made it clear: more funding and local control matter most,” he wrote. “Your organization offers only the tired refrain of ‘more funding,’ with no accountability, no innovation, and no results.”
The governor criticized the association’s opposition to policies such as the Alaska Reads Act, charter school expansion, and homeschool options. He also called out Alaska’s dismal national ranking in academic achievement.
“Alaska ranks near the bottom, 51st in the nation, in academic achievement according to NAEP scores. Does that bother you? Do you care? Where is your outrage about that?” Dunleavy asked.
Dunleavy reminded AASB that his administration has overseen substantial new investments into education, including $1.5 billion above the statutory formula since 2019, from both federal and state sources. He questioned whether the AASB had ever even acknowledged that funding increase.
“You should be honest with the people of Alaska: your priority is not better schools or higher student achievement. It is to maintain the status quo at all costs, regardless of the cost to our children’s future,” Dunleavy wrote.
The governor ended the letter with a pledge to continue advocating for system-wide reforms and to hold groups like the AASB accountable for misrepresenting his administration’s actions.
“I will also do a much better job at informing the public of how you and your organization misrepresent your purpose and my actions,” he concluded.
Read the entire letter here:
That’s one heck of a letter. It should be taken as a wakeup call for school boards who have infinite time for LGBTQ+ advocacy and Trump-hating, while clamoring for more money, all while doing n-o-t-h-i-n-g to improve learning and student test scores. In reality, these school boards’ performance has been so bad that this should be a swift kick in the pants or the gonads.
everyone always blames someone else for the problems and issues. I don’t have any kids, watched the politics after voting in every election but the results are the same. non voters complain about this that and argue that greta is the cause of this and that.
every person has choices. I live below my means, still here after 42 years. watched the smart big spenders shoot the load and slink out of here for greener pastures. watched all the big shot politicians reap the rewards of Provosts and senior positions in government to feather the retirements.
all valid in my book, how capitalism works. my issue? quite blaming someone else, put on the big adult pants and grow a pair. those sitting in line at the McDonalds drive thru with the $90K trucks and BMI’s of 40 plus have enough money to support schools, lack the intelligence and competitive self awareness to solve any issues, just complainers.
I have no issue with home schools but in the 70’s saw SAT and 4.0 graduates do quite well. no one was home schooled and we all survived, worked and paid taxes to support the kids in school. rainbow and home schooled kids are a delusional attempt self realization that your own life has no merit, your values and ethics have no marketplace.
some people live like turtles and others embrace life and live like octopuses. sadly humans are a species reject, look at the current debates on demographics, population loss and climate change.
Please don’t lump in homeschoolers with the rainbow clown world kids. Your comment on that part alone is highly naive and misleading. MOST homeschool families are conservatives and are educating their kids with superior morals, Christian values and higher academic standards. MOST of the rainbow crowd are in the public school system. Educate yourself before you go on a hostile old guy rant.
Just think how the people in this state feel about funding the dumbest kids in the country when they don’t have kids in school, DO YOU CARE?
That would be a first.
Where was all this for the last 7 years?
Well said Governor, I support you 100%
Has Governor Stands Small finally, belatedly, started to regrow his spine?
Where was this vehemence in him four or five years ago, and since?
The glass is neither half full, nor half empty with you and Masked Avenger. It’s broken on the floor under the kitchen table.
No, I simply am willing to recognize and acknowledge that, most of the time, most of our glasses are mostly empty. Governor Dunleavy has been, for most of his term as governor, one such mostly empty glass.
I would hazard a guess that the number of comments from the same folks saying the exact same thing numbers well into the triple digits. Virtually every time Dunleavy does something it’s the first time for these people who either aren’t paying attention or have no memory.
Or, perhaps, those of us making such comments HAVE BEEN paying attention, and are willing to take political cowardice to task while not being blinded by narrow partisan prejudices.
Perhaps, but if that were the case you wouldn’t be saying the exact same thing every time.
Too little too late Governor. You can share your pathetic legacy with Governor’s Schefield, Cooper, and Walker. Stands Tall, stood small, and not at all.
Guessing the Alaska Association of School Boards would like to rethink it’s position on banning certain literature. Letters from Gov. will be top of the banned list.
Well done Governor!
Thank you, Governor!
Response to Governor Dunleavy’s Letter to AASB President Lon Garrison
From the Front Lines of Alaska’s Public Schools
Every now and then, while juggling contracts, evaluations, and the real work of representing Alaska’s public school staff, I see another political broadside from people who wouldn’t last a day in a BSP room—much less in a rural classroom, a cafeteria, or on a special education bus route. So, here we are again, watching Governor Dunleavy accuse the Alaska Association of School Boards (AASB) of protecting the “status quo” while he vetoes $200 in base student allocation that our schools desperately need just to function.
Let’s be clear: the governor’s letter isn’t about reform. It’s about deflection.
🔹 “Be honest with the people of Alaska”? Okay—let’s be.
The $200 BSA veto is not pocket change—it’s the difference between keeping support staff and laying them off, between hiring a needed paraprofessional or increasing workloads for already maxed-out teams, between updated materials and duct tape.
If we’re going to talk about fiscal honesty, let’s talk about the legislature passing a responsible, bipartisan education funding plan and the governor choosing—unilaterally—to undermine it. That’s not “balance.” That’s sabotage.
🔹 “Where is your outrage?” You’re looking at it.
We are absolutely outraged that Alaska ranks near the bottom in academic outcomes—and we’re just as outraged that the governor refuses to adequately fund the very systems needed to improve those outcomes. We are outraged that teachers and classified staff work second jobs, that rural schools can’t find special education personnel, and that mental health supports are being slashed. That’s the real status quo this administration protects.
If Dunleavy truly cared about reading scores and student outcomes, he wouldn’t attack the very districts, boards, and frontline workers who are doing the hard work with fewer and fewer resources. Instead, he’d listen to the professionals—teachers, paras, custodians, specialists, and school board members—who have been begging for stable, predictable, and sufficient funding for years.
🔹 Innovation? We live it every day.
Don’t mistake local control for lack of innovation. Rural districts in Alaska have been building aviation academies, welding programs, tribal language revitalization efforts, and trauma-informed school cultures—often in spite of state-level neglect.
The people advocating for the BSA increase aren’t defending inefficiency—they’re defending children’s right to a functioning classroom with qualified staff and basic resources.
🔹 Real leadership doesn’t start fights with school boards.
Instead of working with educators, this administration prefers to pick fights with them—whether it’s over curriculum, student rights, or funding formulas. Calling the AASB dishonest for defending the integrity of public education is a transparent attempt to distract from the real issue: this governor does not want to invest in public schools.
If you truly believe in reform, Governor, let’s talk. But if your plan is to gut the system, silence local boards, and hand our schools over to private contractors and “ESA innovation zones”—you’re not reforming education, you’re defunding and dismantling it.
We stand with AASB. We stand with local boards, superintendents, and school employees who are fighting to hold this system together in the face of political attacks and economic neglect. If the governor wants to “inform the public,” we’re ready for that conversation.
We’ll bring the truth. You bring your record.
Thanks for the teachers union perspective, we’ve heard it all before, the only answer to ” how much do you need?” Is ” more! More!! More!”ad infinitum
blah, blah, blah,…, blah
And you have failed. The results are proof. We are at the bottom despite all the money spent. Do not cry me your river about the rural school either. I have been a public school educator, a small business owner, and I homeschooled K-12 on a minute fraction of what is being spent per student each year by taxpayers. My students are now college educated productive citizens and were educated on less than 2k each per year. Our public school unions are power hungry controllers of educators with little care about education. The educrats are about power and control, little about education. Most teachers do care and I will champion good educators who want to teach but whose hands are tied by bureaucracy and disgusting social engineering and the latest and greatest expensive ‘programs’ they are forced to implement. Get rid of the top heavy bureaucracy, being forth educational choice, competition, charter schools, and other options that can be chosen to fit families and students. Get rid of the unions except for the purpose of bargaining on behalf of teachers. NO LOBBYING. Allow parents the rightful autonomy to make the best decisions foe their kids.
The Governor is spot on. You are only more of the failing same. Get off of your high horse and face the reality. Money does not grow on trees. Tax payers do not want to pay for something that is continually failing. The old system no longer works. Amen Governor Dunleavy you are spot on!
You “education” establishment bureaucrats always remind me of the monster plant from the movie “Little Shop of Horrors”, which could only speak two words, which it did incessantly: “FEED ME!”
“We’ll bring the truth. You bring your record”… did you mean that as a joke?
Right out of the gate you appear to have forgotten that Dunleavy was a teacher and can definitely last several years in a rural classroom. Cafeteria, too. No doubt in whatever that undefined acronym you reference as well.
The real odd piece though is that no one with ASD should ever want to deride anyone else’s record. Truly an unwise choice there, numbskull. If anyone ever said that ASD ‘kinda sucks’ you should take that as a compliment and thank them for not having referenced objective benchmarks. Your remarks do help in one area though and it is that you complain and perform poorly at the same time. No one likes that.
Suck it up, buttercup. ASD long ago lost the right to complain about anything or anyone. Eventually the parasite that infests our ASD will be excreted and based on your comments you’ll be in that same stool. Might be a good idea to bail out on your own PDQ, eh?
Teacher Union Fatigue.
Spot on, Mike! 51st in the nation, just give us more money, who needs reform?
Excellent governor! Thank you for the words of all Alaskans!
Well said Governor Dunleavy!!
I second that as I was just about to type the same words 😅.
If Kevin McCabe’s informative column is factual all Alaskans should be alarmed. Under Dunleavy the state went from receiving hundreds of millions of dollars a year in oil audit revenue to a few million a year. We have an administration that cannot adequately staff an agency that potentially brings in hundreds of millions of dollars a year lecturing on budgets.
The school boards, specifically the Anchorage School Board, have not always been feckless like they are now, but they sure have been for at least four decades now. Dunleavy did a good job of summing up their problems, but there’s nobody smart enough at ASB to understand their own problems.
Governor Dunleavy, please understand that the education system as a whole is clinging to CKLA curriculum that has made our students fearful and depressed. Its lack of successful reading performance is turning our children into substandard readers. Please insist on an additional phonics program to teach them the sounds and names of letters. I listened to “Sold a Story”. What’s happening in our schools is a distraction. The real issues are greed and power. Please help our children. Stop the Transgender hospital in Soutjeast. Protect the little ones Governor.
To Whom It May Concern,
It troubles me deeply to say this, but I must speak plainly and truthfully. When myself, Betty Jo Moore, and Scott Egger submitted our Petition for Redress of Grievances, we did so not as political agitators, but as citizens—concerned, informed, and compelled by duty to our fellow Alaskans. We acted under the full light of the Alaska Constitution and the U.S. Constitution. That petition came from the soul of “We the People.”
And yet, neither Governor Mike Dunleavy nor Attorney General Treg Taylor appeared before the Legislature to respond. They did not speak to our grievances, they did not offer an explanation, and they did not stand up for the laws of this State. Instead, they were silent—absentee and inactive—while the concerns of the people went unacknowledged.
That silence is not neutral. That silence feels like betrayal.
It is the sworn duty of both the Governor and the Attorney General to uphold and enforce the laws of Alaska. That includes the bonding statutes that protect the people’s trust. That includes honoring every citizen’s right to petition the government when something is wrong. And something is wrong. We’ve brought forward the facts, the law, and the evidence. They can’t claim they didn’t know. They were put on notice. And they did nothing.
Their inaction has real consequences. It sends a message to every Alaskan that laws can be ignored, that oaths don’t matter, and that the people’s voices don’t count. I can’t stand by and let that happen. I was raised to believe in accountability, in truth, and in standing up—especially when it’s not easy.
I say this to both Governor Dunleavy and AG Taylor: your silence on our petition, and your refusal to appear or respond before the Legislature, is not just disappointing—it is unacceptable. You had the opportunity to speak up for the rule of law and instead, you chose to stay silent. That silence has done damage. It’s not just neglect—it borders on gross negligence.
We do not seek power. We seek justice. And we will not be brushed aside.
Sincerely,
Edward D. Martin Jr.
On behalf of myself, Betty Jo Moore, and Scott Egger
702 Lawton Dr.
Kenai, Alaska 99669
“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” —2 Corinthians 3:17
Can someone else bring us up to speed here? Anyone else know anything about what Ed is sharing?
Interestingly, the Association of Alaska School Boards gets its funding directly from the State of Alaska, local governments and the federal government. According to its tax returns, the AASB collected $5,896,741 from these government entities in 2022. So, the State of Alaska and local governments fund the AASB through school district dues. In effect, the State may be using your PFD to fund the AASB which in turn demands more and more money from the State to pay for K12. Link to AASB tax return: ‘https://pdf.guidestar.org/PDF_Images/2023/920/098/2023-920098760-202431859349301403-9.pdf?_gl=1*1sxm6gt*_gcl_au*MzIyOTA0ODg1LjE3NTEzODM0OTc.
So, if your local school board belongs to the AASB, you are supporting the AASB. Here is a list of the local school boards that belong to the AASB: https://aasb.org/membership-directory/
Interesting that the Gov doesn’t just veto the the revenue that Alaska gives them…🤦♂️