By MICHAEL TAVOLIERO

Alaska’s K–12 education system is collapsing under the weight of a bloated, centralized bureaucracy. Per Bob Griffin’s “Why aren’t teachers more upset?” June 30, 2025, MRAK piece, despite spending nearly $3 billion annually, about 5% of the state’s GDP, Alaska ranks near the bottom nationally in academic performance. 

How many times and over how many years have writers at Must Read Alaska sounded the alarm? We have all diligently exposed the truth that Alaska’s education system is collapsing, not because of a lack of funding, but because it’s become a taxpayer-funded money tree for special interests instead of a pathway to student success. And yet, despite these warnings, how many Alaskans have looked the other way, stayed silent, or failed to act? The real shame isn’t just in the system’s failure. 

It’s our collective complacency that allowed it to happen.

Griffin adroitly points out, in the 2023–24 school year, only 19.6% of K–12 education expenditures went to classroom teachers, according to the National Education Association. That means over 80% of the state’s education budget was diverted to non-instructional spending, including administration, facilities, and bureaucracy. 

Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposal for direct teacher bonuses rightly targeted this imbalance, acknowledging that the current system shortchanges educators while rewarding inefficiency.

The Alaska Education Reform and Local Control Act (see MRAK, February 21, 2025, “Alaska Education Freedom and Local Control Act Would Establish Parent Education Accounts And More”) offers a twofold solution: massive cost savings and improved academic outcomes. The numbers are revealing. Alaska spent $576 million to pay 7,315 teachers in 2023–24, while total K–12 spending reached $2.93 billion. A reasonable administrative and managerial expense for Alaska’s K–12 system should be no more than $234 million per year. Anything significantly higher is a sign of bureaucratic bloat and misplaced priorities.

The remaining funds did not enhance education. They sustained an administrative empire. 

Just like the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, all 54 school district boards, and NEA-Alaska, none of these institutions teach a single child. Instead, they operate as part of a massive government money redistribution scheme. A scheme that the Alaskan public has largely been misled into supporting, driven by the loudest and most politically entrenched voices in the room.

Per-student spending nearly doubled between 2004 and 2024, from $11,432 to $22,747, yet teacher salaries only increased 51.3%, lagging the 59.7% rate of inflation. The financial discrepancy is not only unsustainable, but also morally bankrupt.

Is anyone listening to the warnings from Bob Griffin, Kevin McCabe, Suzanne Downing, David Boyle, and others? Alaska’s education system is not just failing; it is intellectually and financially bankrupt. The crisis is real, and without bold reform, we are condemning another generation of children to a future of dependency and decline.

Compounding the problem is Alaska’s underutilization of facilities. The Anchorage School District (ASD) projects only 12,000 K–5 students by 2029, despite maintaining capacity for 25,000. Yet instead of consolidating space, ASD is spending $50 million to expand Inlet View Elementary, while other half-empty campuses suffer from over $1 billion in deferred maintenance. Compare this to Winterberry Charter School, which built its entire facility for just $3.5 million. The contrast is clear: community-driven schools deliver results at a fraction of the cost.

This stark difference in outcomes is no accident. As Bob Griffin highlights, Alaska’s charter and correspondence schools educate more students with fewer staff and at significantly lower costs. These schools average 110 students per teacher. This frees up traditional schools to operate at an extremely low 13.5 student-to-teacher ratio. Yet instead of learning from this efficiency, Alaska’s education system continues to sink billions into buildings and bureaucracy, sidelining the very students and teachers it claims to serve.

The Alaska Education Reform and Local Control Act proposes a structural reset that puts students and communities, not bureaucracies, at the center of education. In 2023–24, Alaska spent $576 million on teachers, just a fraction of the $2.93 billion total K–12 budget. Administrative and managerial costs alone accounted for an estimated $234 million. By cutting just 10% of overall non-instructional spending, including waste in bloated district offices and underutilized facilities, the state could free up nearly $300 million per year. That’s money that could go directly into teacher pay, student programs, or back into the pockets of Alaskans through tax relief. In real terms, this isn’t just a reform, it’s a recovery of misused public funds for the benefit of children, educators, and taxpayers.

Importantly, the Act is also grounded in strong legal precedent. In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states cannot exclude religious schools from publicly funded education programs. This decision, alongside Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer (2017) and Carson v. Makin (2022), reaffirms that education funding must follow students regardless of whether they choose secular or religious institutions. These decisions strengthen the constitutional foundation of the Alaska Education Reform and Local Control Act and support policies that prioritize parental choice and student needs over bureaucratic preservation.

Governor Dunleavy’s direct bonus plan for teachers was a step in the right direction, recognizing that educators are the cornerstone of student success. But more than one-time bonuses are needed. We must overhaul the way Alaska delivers education. With targeted reinvestment into teachers and streamlined, community-focused governance, we can improve Alaska’s bottom-five national rankings in math, reading, and graduation rates.

This is more than an efficiency issue, it’s a moral one. Alaska’s education system, as currently designed, dooms too many of its children to lives of dependency, poverty, and disillusionment. It fails to prepare them for the economic and civic responsibilities of adulthood. It traps families in a cycle of low expectations and limited opportunity.

If we do nothing, we condemn another generation to academic failure and economic dependence. But if we act to support and pass the Alaska Education Reform and Local Control Act, we will save our children, restore purpose to public education, and reclaim a future of independence, prosperity, and dignity.

This is not just a conservative proposal. It is a necessary revolution. For the sake of Alaska’s children, teachers, and taxpayers, it’s time to stop funding failure and start funding the future.

Michael Tavoliero writes for Must Read Alaska.