OPINION: Alaska’s government is letting its public schools crumble

Credit where it is due: This year, the Legislature finally made a significant investment in classroom operations, reversing some (though not all) of many years of accumulated cuts. Unfortunately, Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed half of that education funding, and House Speaker Cathy Tilton appears to be dead-set on blocking a veto override vote, despite broad bipartisan support for education investment. As a result, Alaska students will continue to struggle to learn in massively overpopulated classes, in facilities that are often derelict, and with an utterly failing teacher retention system that prevents the kind of tenure and experience that leads to good educational outcomes. This state failure to fund education is not only wrong and economically destructive, it is also a flagrant violation of the Alaska Constitution’s mandate for the state to establish and maintain a system of public education.

The Alaska Supreme Court has weighed in repeatedly on adequacy of education funding. Decades ago, grossly unequal investment in capital facilities resulted in court intervention forcing state investment in rural schools, which is necessary given the lack of a tax base in most rural communities. However, even while the state had failed to invest adequately in some facilities, Alaska used to lead the nation in supporting school operations, and we used to be the No. 1 place teachers wanted to work.

Elimination of teacher retirement, massive increases in class sizes, salaries that continue to fall further and further behind, and a bevy of unfunded mandate standardized tests, all have made teaching less and less tenable — much less attractive — compared to Alaska’s favorable position in the 1970s and 1980s.

As a legal matter, the mere failure to maintain school funding on par with inflation does not, per se, mean that the state is failing its Constitutional mandate to maintain public education. That’s what the court said in the “Moore” decision of 2004. Instead, the court indicated there had to be measurable failures in instruction linked to inadequate resources. Sadly, that is the reality today. Classroom funding is so anemic many classes have 30 or 35 kids per room. Considering extensive data that classroom management and attention to individual students is important, such large class sizes make it nearly impossible for teachers to do their job.

Alaska’s worst-in-the-nation teacher retirement system means districts are chronically understaffed, which results in some classes being taught by long-term substitute teachers who, in many cases, don’t even have a college degree. Lack of teacher retention also leads to teachers not having time to prepare for class, analyze which students are underperforming and why, address those shortcomings, or work with parents to ensure instruction at home complements work in the classroom. All of these are well-documented educational best practices, and teachers can’t do any of them because staffing is stretched so thin and class sizes are far larger than can be managed.

On top of all that, school facilities are crumbling even in urban areas, and gubernatorial vetoes of school major maintenance funding will only mean more students trying to learn amidst leaking rainwater, non-functioning bathrooms and broken heating systems. It is hard for kids to learn if they don’t have a clean place to use the restroom, or if their fingers are numb with cold even inside a classroom.

Many districts like Anchorage are confronting horrifying educational challenges right now as a result of underfunding. Other districts like Kenai and Mat-Su will face massive, unmanageable deficits if the Legislature can’t get adequate funding appropriated and signed by the governor next year. For the most part, these are costs that legally cannot be passed on to local property taxpayers — Anchorage residents already tax ourselves to the cap, and different caps exist in both local and state laws.

As problematic as standardized tests are, they make one thing crystal clear: Educational funding is inadequate, and the test results show that unambiguously. Dunleavy’s vetoes mean that instead of Alaska finally catching up with educational funding, the state is not even close to meeting its constitutional responsibilities. It is better for the Legislature to correct this next year and, God willing, persuade the governor to do his part. Absent such corrective action, the courts will be left with no choice but to intervene, and goodness knows there will be far too many parents and students who will be seeking relief if the Legislature and executive branch together cannot fulfill their oaths to the Constitution.

Kevin McGee is a longtime volunteer and president of the Anchorage branch of the NAACP.

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