Monday, Dec. 15, was a troubling day for education supporters in Anchorage. At the Chamber of Commerce's Make it Monday Forum, Gov. Bill Walker and his financial experts explained the severe budgetary crisis faced by our state government. He stressed the need to "do things differently" to make the most of our limited state funds, while also expressing his support for improving our education system.
Later that night, we watched as the Anchorage School Board, after hearing how our schools are struggling due to staff shortfalls, took millions of dollars not spent this year because of the district's inability to hire enough qualified teachers, and shifted those "savings" into next year's budget simply to be able to afford the already decimated workforce. Our education system is heading down a bad spiral of staff losses due to low morale, followed by tightened budgets to capture these "savings." It is not a sustainable system.
But the topper of the day came when the School Board then committed millions of dollars from a very strained budget to assist boutique charter schools wanting new facilities. Rather than "doing things differently," the School Board's action continues to move us down a very troubling path of wasting rather than pooling resources to improve education choices for every student.
Our schools are facing a crisis, and it's not just from budget cuts. The charter school facility fund approved by the School Board is a symptom of a chronic disease. We are watching the fracturing of the Anchorage public education system into a collection of micro-markets that is resulting in different outcome expectations for the haves versus the have-nots. The American Dream is founded in the ideal that any child, through hard work and a good education, can accomplish anything in his/her life. To create a public education system that truly works, and supports a healthy economy and community in the years to come, it must ensure that EVERY child has access to a quality education.
Changing course would not be difficult. A good starting point would be to bring the charter and open-optional schools, as much as possible, into the same facilities as our neighborhood schools. In Anchorage, we have many successful models of shared facilities, with excellent results. One unique model is Denali Montessori, where the community of families and educators decided to offer the Montessori model to all students at the neighborhood school.
As a parent, I have taken advantage of the tremendous choices made available to families within the Anchorage School District, and my four kids attended neighborhood, charter and open-optional schools. I recognize that those choices are easily available to my family because of our economic status and the learning needs of my kids. My family does not need to use a school bus, have low-cost or free lunch meals, or need special assistance from any number of specialists due to learning, behavioral, medical or English language issues. Most of these choices are not available for many, many families, who are stressing just to make ends meet. And parents who had bad education experiences themselves will definitely not go out of their way to visit extra schools, attend optional fairs, sign up for enrollment lotteries, etc.
All students and families are best served if the neighborhood school near their home provides for their education needs. And there is no reason we cannot bring more language immersion programs and other innovative learning approaches to neighborhood schools. Bringing together the teaching, supply and parent resources usually only available to charter and optional schools would bring more successes for all students.
We all want to send our kids down the street to a quality school. This has already been done in a number of our neighborhood schools and has proven valuable for both programs. The optional, alternative and charter school programs gain stability in a facility maintained by the district, and the neighborhood school gains from exposure to the innovative approaches and energized parent group brought by the optional or charter school.
I am cautiously optimistic that Gov. Walker will provide the leadership and creativity to craft a predictable funding system to weather the current fiscal storm. I'd like to see similar "different" thinking from the Anchorage School District. Fussing and expending precious dollars and time thinking about building new space for charter schools is getting in the way of the important work at hand.
Alyse Galvin is a mother of four and an education advocate. She is a member of Great Alaska Schools but the views expressed here are her own.
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