OPINION: How to prove Alaska is really a family-friendly state

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus tells of a man left for dead on the side of the road, in a literal and proverbial ditch. The sin described is that of the passers-by who don’t bother to help. Similarly, Alaskans like to tout the “Alaskan Spirit” that if we see someone stuck in a ditch, we stop and help to tow them out. It’s an acknowledgment that no matter how independent-minded we Alaskans may be, we all need a hand from time to time. It’s a beautiful ideal. But do we live up to it?

The answer might be found in the continuing trend of population loss in Alaska. There is something about the Alaska life that is pushing people away and failing to bring new people in. Sure, Alaska can be a cold, hard place and the winters are long and dark, but that’s also true of other states that haven’t seen similar exoduses. The reason isn’t our atmospheric conditions; it’s the atmosphere that we have created through policies that choose to leave people starved for food and starved for education.

Education is again being starved as Alaska’s state government engages in its annual dance around how little we can provide to public schools. The numbers and nuance may change year to year, but the overarching argument remains the same: Since Alaska’s schools are underperforming, should we continue to underfund them? It’s an obvious act of self-destruction, but people perpetuate it because it presents a lower price tag. And it’s not just K-12 schools; we also demand that Head Start and the university system function with insufficient funding every year, and then we act aghast when the results are lackluster.

Similarly, Alaska is sending a clear statement that if you’re hungry, that’s your problem. The Division of Public Assistance is months behind in processing hundreds of applications for food assistance for elderly and disabled Alaskans. That failure is bad enough, but Alaska has also rejected federal funding that would have provided direct grocery assistance this summer to thousands of families facing food insecurity. This is not merely the administration’s inability to perform the tasks entrusted to them. This is also a chosen political statement: The 15 governors to refuse this funding were all Republican, acting in a clearly partisan, politically fueled choice to deny food to 8 million children across the country.

While the Dunleavy administration claims that it wants to make Alaska “the best place in the country to raise a family,” the intentional erosion of funding for public education and services to those in need sends a louder message by creating an atmosphere of uncertainty and scarcity for education and food security. The cause of our population loss is obvious: Why would you move your family to a state that refuses to help you if you’re hungry or to properly fund education? Through our policies, we are making it clear that if we see you in a ditch, we will just keep on driving past, saying, “Don’t expect help; you’re on your own.”

But there is hope. We can choose to pay what it costs as a state, just as the Good Samaritan chose to pay the cost for the battered man. If we choose to pay for a functional safety net and forward-fund an excellent education system from pre-K to post-college, Alaska can become the family-friendly state that Gov. Mike Dunleavy purports to support. By doing so, we can make a real statement to the world that if you become the victim on the side of the road, Alaska will be the Good Samaritan, not the passer-by that ignores you. But until we do that, it’s no wonder people are ditching us.

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