Among the provisions of House Bill 57, a once-simple bill that was about cell phones in schools, is a new mandate that would have the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development track every student for 20 years after he or she graduates from high school.
That amendment is part of the committee substitute of the bill that came out of the Senate Finance Committee.
Liberty-minded Alaskans have said it’s a creepy amendment that has the Department of Labor and Workforce Development reaching into Alaskans’ personal lives.
Section 7 of the committee substitute bill says, the government will “gather data on the progress of each high school graduating class in a district by collecting career, postsecondary education, and residency data on each student in the graduating class; the department shall gather the data required under this paragraph every five years for 20 years after the high school graduation date of each high school graduating class; the department shall publish a biennial report on the data gathered under this paragraph; in this paragraph, “district” has the meaning given in AS 14.17.990.
There is no rationale given for why Alaskans need to be tracked for 20 years by the government.
That amendment is in addition to the tracking that is also added in Section 1, “The department shall collaborate with the Department of Labor and Workforce Development under AS 44.31.020 to gather data on the progress of each high school graduating class in a district by collecting career, postsecondary education, and residency data on each student in the graduating class. The departments shall gather the data every five years for 20 years after the high school graduation date of the class.”
The bill’s amended language creates a “legislative Task Force on Education Funding,” which is most certainly to be stacked with progressives who want to find a way to increase state funding for school districts and unions.
House Bill 57 has become stuffed with multiple provisions, but the biggest one is an increase to school district funding, taking the per-student allocation from the state from $5,960 to $6,660, and another 10% added to pupil transportation costs.
The bill has been held over until Monday on the Senate floor for a final vote.
The rational thing to do is find out who inserted that requirement and ask them why it was added to the bill
Yup.
That was my first thought, too. WHO PUT THAT OVER REACHING GARBAGE IN THAT BILL ???
Or maybe all of the skeptics are afraid of the results of the 20-year study? Facts can be difficult things to face.
I agree with Bob. If you want proof of how good or bad these grads went through life after they received their diploma, do a study. 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 years later. Your great-grandkids can publish the results and put it on your tombstone.
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Here lies Les Moore. Should have studied more, not less. No Les, no more.
While Aldous Huxley says, “I told you so,” George Orwell rolls over in his grave. Cretins. Cretins every one that votes for this.
Typical of Progressives to come up with a fascistic approach to resolving a problem of their own creation. Just get back to the basics of teaching English, arithmetic, reading, writing, and spelling; stop peddling your Bull**** propaganda in the public school system in AK.
When I was a kid in FAI, the Iowa Basics program was the gold standard. Consider reversion to that standard and stop the perversion of public education in my great home state.
Just another reason to veto it.
Big Brother is watching you, Alaska. The surveillance state.
The next revision of the bill will include mandatory RFID chips inserted into every infant at their first (mandatory) vaccination.
This should be an ABSOLUTE NO GO. Complete invasion of privacy.
Gosh, the biggest problem with this idea is that vast numbers of Alaskan high school graduates leave the state for various reasons. While the results vary, the results of this survey, if only partially completed, will not be uplifting.
I am a graduate of an Alaskan high school. Although I have had some success by remaining here, looking at others from my college days, I have to think I would have done better by putting this place in the rear-view mirror.
My view: Put every dollar intended for this study into teaching young people how to actually read and write.
That’s exactly why they’re not teaching, r/w/arithmetic..dumming down the student will acheive their goal of herd stupidity. Their goal is for students to follow without KNOWING the truth and trying to keep the insurrectionists down.If the student doesn’ know how to think for themselves, it’ll be easier for them take over control of everyone…
That would be a complete and utter violation of the 4th in the Alaska Constitution.
There are other things they should be tracking: How well students are learning while in school and how well classes are being taught. They should also be tracking how well teachers do so they can get merit-based raises.
I think it’ll be fun to see what becomes of the young men and women who are the products of Alaskas public schools.
Maybe we can see what happens to public school graduates vs private school?
But then again I think we all know the level of education our kids are currently receiving….if this ever becomes a thing I don’t think we’ll ever be able to see the true results.
Every student in Alaska should tell the Alaska Legislature to FO in no uncertain terms.
A constitutional right to government surveillance must also be mentioned in the same section of the Constitution where it says Alaska must bankrupt itself to fund the teachers Union. What section is that? It’s not jumping out at me. Veto! Veto! Veto!
Oh good grief! Another self-serving idea by the education establishment.
This one is especially asinine, as it
A) establishes another useless money-wasting task force and
B) is not require to produce ANY results for 20 years!
No results expected means no changes or improvements in edcuation required and business as usual with the added bonus of snooping on Alaskans private lives.
20 years of continuing neglect by Alaskan Educators who want their money now suggests a bad divorce in is progress.
The Alaskan educators should be proud of their elementary and middle school students achieving real measurable grade level performance.
Wasting 20 years tracking an uneducated individual is another tragic waste of taxpayer money.
Put real education performance standards in this education bill or admit these NEA teachers cannot teach and start over with an entirely education system.
So where they gettin the money
Does this bill have fiscal note?
It’s a completely phony fiscal note that says it will cost zero. https://www.akleg.gov/basis/Journal/Pages/34?Chamber=S&Bill=HB57&Page=00951#0951 – sd
I have a better idea. How about we track the cell phone signals that visited Epstein’s island in and out of the Maxwell’s submarine. If we are going to track people, it should be the ones that are elected to office but for some reason can’t be held accountable for their poor spending habits. Those are the people that should be tracked.
This has to a joke!
20 years?
Why not do this tracking while they in school learning? That’s why they are there, right?
What a stupid idea!!
Ask Rep Justin Ruffridge (R), He authored Amendment 3 which failed 28 to 9 on April 11 2025. This stupidity is just one reason we are looking at 14.6 billion budget. Good work Alaskans. The whole nation is laughing at us. What a bunch of rubes.
Remember when AK was 5 years behind on what goes on in the lower 48, now maybe 18 months or 24-chickens are coming home to roost soon.
Just spend more gang. More of the same idiotic ideas.
Article I – Declaration of Rights
22. Right of Privacy
The right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed. The legislature shall implement this section. [Amended 1972]
Nothing more to say ,,,, Liberty Ed
Who introduced this amendment?
Could people be forgiven for finding various, resourceful ways to defy, disobey, disrupt, defund, or otherwise make this “law” unenforceable?
Warrantless state surveillance?
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You mob really want to push that on Americans?
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Stupid bast… fools can’t even track illegal aliens, Medicaid fraud, food-stamp fraud, voter-roll fraud.
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So it shouldn’t be too hard to stop this before it starts.
Every day they attempt to increase the control they have over us. Every year they want just a bit more. We are not tagged animals meant to be tracked and traced. Give up a bit more freedom? Pay to lose that freedom? What happened to the beautiful free state I grew up in? SAD
Alaskans have no constitution because they wont stand up and defend it. Get your face out of facebook and start cruising the state legislative website and monitoring your reps. Or just shut it. What a bunch of cry babies.
More and more proof that the second you are born in America, you have become incorporated. For a state who fails to recognize its own state documents and licensing as valid proof of anything, this is not a shocker. There are always strings attached on anything: PFD, public school, library card, homeschool allotment, etc.
I think that this is a good idea but there needs to be some changes of who they track.
Delete “High School Students “, insert “Every State Politician” while in office and for life after leaving office. Also all of their financial holdings.
I doubt they would vote for it.
Do you think this addition to the bill is to make the whole thing unpalatable? What else is in the bill that someone doesn’t want passed?
Why is it that (D)ems are constantly looking for ways to spy and implement methods of surveillance on Americans and Alaskans? This isn’t kooky spending formula schemes. This takes them deep into none-of-your-effing-business territory.
I can tell you right now, and you don’t even have to pay me. The smart ones moved out of state. Alaska is rapidly sliding into a Socialist state, dominated by government. We’ve passed the point of no return. The smart ones and those with means have fled the state.
Stupidity on parade! How about tracking the current endless, wasteful spending from these ticks?
Or track the mega bucks buying the election fraud and politicians? I say no per diem or pay after 90 days in juneau. Heck, 60 days.
Yep, they’ll be hot on your heels!
For folk who screech regularly about accountability, it would seem that gathering metadata that reflects on various aspects of school “success” would be a no-brainer.
Apparently you really arent interested in the benefits of education…
Where is all the outrage from Libs who said DOGE was the Big Bad Wolf?
C’mon, how are they even going to get the info they are seeking to track, unless its given freely.
I don’t know many kids that would voluntarily submit any life tracking info, and the State would lose on constitutional (State and Federal) grounds. Just a money grab. They’ll take the money tagged for this effort and spend it on something else.
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