Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who was a decades-long teacher and school superintendent before going into politics, pulled no punches at a press conference on Wednesday, telling reporters that Alaska has tried to fix its bad education system by increasing the base amount that school districts get from the state coffers per student, known as the BSA. And yet, school districts don’t respond with improved outcomes at neighborhoods schools.
The press conference was unusually long, running for an hour. The governor was unusually animated. Reporters asked about 20 questions in all, on things like Cook Inlet gas shortages and other topics. But Dunleavy’s heart was set on helping Alaska students, and that was clear from the outset.
“We’re deeply involved in an educational discussion right now, which personally I think is fantastic,” Dunleavy said, calling education one of the most crucial issues of our time. He described the urgency around education as feeling like “the last couple of days of the session,” presumably because of the intensity of the energy in the Capitol right now.
“And that’s the way it should feel, that we’re involved and we’re engaged in heavy-duty issues that I think can help Alaska, certainly can help our kids and help our teachers.”
Dunleavy has been pushing a bill he offered that has bonuses for teachers for up to $15,000, but the education industry is rejecting those bonuses and instead wants lump sum payments to districts to use however they want, in the form of a base student allocation increase.
That increase has been suggested by Democrats and education industry lobbyists at anywhere between $300 to $1,500 per student more than the current BSA, which gives districts $5,960 for each student. Districts also collect local taxes and get major support from the federal government, and spending on students in Alaska is over $20,000 per student per year.
Dunleavy turned his attention to charter schools and a recent Harvard study of these schools, which are part of the public school system, and are not private schools, as some education union members have characterized them.
“Unbeknownst to a lot of folks, because this is the first study that’s ever been done that measures outputs through the NAEP scores — lo and behold, we’re tops in the nation! You would think you’d hear parade music and people dancing in the streets,” Dunleavy said.
“But in some sectors, this has cause a problem because it doesn’t fit the narrative.”
Then, he verbally channeled the thinking of the education industry: “How could this be? How could Alaska be performing well? This is going to screw things up because we have our usual approach to education in Juneau: Don’t do much about it until the last couple of weeks. Turn up the heat. Declare it a disaster if a large sum of money is not deposited somewhere. And then once that happens, everything goes back to normal, things are good now.”
But things aren’t good, Dunleavy told the small band of reporters in the conference room on the third floor of the Capitol.
Part of the funding issue is that Alaska is in a demographic challenge — losing student population.
“We need more people. We need more kids. We need better performance … And I gotta tell you, for the life of me, I am stunned at this idea that you have the best performing charter schools in the world … Any moment I’ll be called to go talk somewhere nationally about our charter schools,” Dunleavy said.
But the educational establishment is trying to torpedo his education bill in favor of the fixed increase to school districts that education unions prefer.
In the end, Dunleavy said, if he just shoved money into the BSA, “I would be lauded as a hero.”
“But I didn’t run on that ticket … I didn’t knock on people’s doors and say ‘Hey this is Gov. Dunleavy, I’m running for governor and I want to give a ton of money to the educational establishment, and we’re not going to worry about your kids, they’ll be fine. I didn’t run on that.”
Dunleavy had held forth at the microphone for over 8 minutes, and was now reminding reporters that he has more educational experience than any other previous governor.
“In some corners that’s a problem. Why? Because I know education. I know it inside out. And I can tell you this, and I would bet my retirement: If you just put money in the BSA, there will be no change of performance. Because we’ve done that year after year,” he said.
It’s time to target to problems like getting more money to classroom teachers, and helping grow more charter schools.
“This idea that people are speaking on behalf of the parents, the teachers, and the kids of charter schools, that aren’t part of charter schools, [and saying] that charter schools are somehow a negative? That’s insane. We know we have performance issues in our neighborhood schools,” he said. “It’s not the parents’ fault. It’s not the kids fault. These schools have become politicized over the decades. It’s a fact,” he said, adding that if Alaskans want more charter schools, they should be able to have them.
The entire press conference can be viewed at this link:
https://www.ktoo.org/video/gavel/governor-dunleavy-press-availability-2024021085/?eventID=2024021085
