By BOB GRIFFIN
Alaska was ranked the second most adequately funded school system in the US by a 2024 study from Rutgers University. The rest of the story — the study actually understates how well neighborhood schools are funded in Alaska.
The Rutgers study compared funding adequacy and equity for K-12 systems in 48 states. Here’s a more detailed explanation of the technique the researchers in New Jersey, (who have no reason to make Alaska look good or bad) used to reach their conclusions:
The principal metric used by the Rutgers authors to assess funding adequacy was the level of “fiscal effort” — or how much a state’s overall economy was dedicated educating kids. It’s not surprising that The US spends about double what Poland does per student. The US has a per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) roughly double that of Poland. The same principal applies between different state economies. The study makes the assumption that wealthier states are capable of paying more than poorer states.
The Rutgers study found that Alaska dedicated the equivalent of 4.77% of state GDP to K-12 direct expenditures in 2022 — 35% higher than the US average of 3.53%. Wyoming was slightly higher at 4.83%. Florida was ranked last in the US at 2.78% — despite having some of the best education results in the nation. Alaska had an overall funding adequacy score of 95 out of 100 in the study — including factors for how equitably school resources are distributed to low-income districts. Florida had a score of 12 out of 100.
As detailed as the research from Rutgers was, the study failed to account for the impact of 23,000 Alaskan students who are enrolled in very low-cost correspondence allotment programs.
According to figures from the National Education Association, Alaska spent $2.77 billion on K12 in the 2024-25 school year or $23,570 per student in Average Daily Attendance (ADA). The correspondence school students (who made up about 19% of the statewide ADA), cost the state just $5,364 per student, for a total of just $123 million.
The other 81% of the students in brick-and-mortar schools accounted for the remaining $ 2.65 billion in expenditures. That’s an adjusted per student expenditure of $28,002 per student in ADA, or $700,050 for every 25 students. Not much of that $700K is making it to our educators. The average taxpayer cost, including pay and benefits, of a classroom teacher for those 25 students is around $120,000.
If all 23,000 correspondence students were to somehow return to local neighborhood schools, during the previous school year, it would have triggered an additional $178 million in state formula funding — bringing K12 expenditures to $2.95 billion – 5.37% of our $54.9 billion of our 2024 state GDP.
Alaska has by far the highest percentage of correspondence students in the US — more than triple the US average of 5%. No other state comes close in the cost shifting benefit Alaskan brick-and-mortar students get because the large number of low-cost correspondence students.
With the adjustment for low-cost correspondence programs, there’s only one state that spent more per student than Alaska in 2024-25: Massachusetts. According to the NEA, the Bay State spent $29,296/student. Because Massachusetts has a state per capita GDP more than $15,000 higher than Alaska, they ranked 35th in the US in the Rutger study at 3.18% of a state GDP going to K-12.
Not only is our contribution to K-12 one of the highest in the country, our increase in per student spending has been nearly double the rate of inflation over the last 20 years. Again, using figures from the research team at the NEA, Alaska has increased ADA per-student spending from $11,588 during the 2004-05 school year to $23,570 in 2024-25. That’s a 103.4% increase — without adjusting for exceptional growth of enrollment low-cost correspondence students. The increase in Alaska inflation was 59.7% during that period.
Cost of living in Alaska is not a good justification for our high cost of K-12. According to the most recent data from US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Alaska has the 13th highest cost of living in the US at just 1.7% higher than the US average. The relatively reasonable cost of Alaska housing helps to offset higher costs in other parts of the Alaska economy.
Energy costs for Alaska schools are certainly higher than most states. According to a 2021 ISER study, Alaska schools spent a total $41.4 million on energy costs in 2019. That was 1.67% of the $2.48 billion in K-12 expenditures that year.
With our brick-and-mortar schools expending an average of $700K for every group of 25 kids — our low performance in student outcomes in Alaska is certainly not from a lack of adequate or equitable funding.
Bob Griffin is on the board of Alaska Policy Forum and served on the Alaska Board of Education and Early Development.
