OPINION: Alaska school success is about how we spend, not how much

We’ve seen a huge battle erupt in Juneau over school funding this year — when our energy should be focused on how we re-allocate our education dollars into programs that produce the results our parents demand and our kids deserve.

A January 2024 joint Rutgers/University of Miami study ranked Alaska second in the nation in overall best funding adequacy in 2021, with a score of 95 out of a possible 100. Florida was ranked last in the study, with a funding adequacy score of score of 12 out of 100. Despite that enormous difference in fiscal effort, 28.8% of 2022 Florida high school graduates scored a 3 or higher on at least one AP exam (third highest in the U.S.), compared to 11.9% in Alaska (45th in the U.S.).

The Rutgers study accounts for cost-of-living differences between different locations and judges funding adequacy based primarily on the percentage of a state’s economy that is dedicated to funding K-12 education. Alaska was also ranked fourth in the U.S. in improving funding adequacy since 2009 and first in the nation in improving funding adequacy since 2018 by the study.

Alaska was also judged to have a very equitable K-12 funding system, according to Rutgers. There was some mild equity criticism from the authors that Alaska slightly underfunds students who come from families in the top 20% of income levels compared to exceptionally high funding levels for students in lower income brackets.

One factor not considered in the Rutgers study is the effect of the additional dollars that go to neighborhood schools because of correspondence programs. More than 16% of Alaska K-12 students participate in correspondence school programs. Those students only consume about 4% of overall K-12 spending, resulting in roughly an additional $3,000 per student per year available in brick-and-mortar public schools. In addition, kids in correspondence programs save around $150 million per year in state funding formula distributions.

While our funding is adequate, results are still disappointing. Alaska does have some isolated pockets of success, like our best-in-the-country public charter school results, as pointed out in a recent Havard study. However, our test results for more traditional programs, for kids rich and poor, lag far below the U.S. average for comparable demographics, according to the U.S. Department of Education National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

While the conversation about the number of dollars we can or should dedicate to K-12 in Alaska has been taking up most of the oxygen in Juneau, I’m looking forward to moving past that debate and being able to collaborate with all K-12 stakeholders in analyzing how we refocus our significant fiscal effort into better outcomes. Our kids are just as bright, our teachers are just as dedicated, and our parents love their kids just as much as in Florida or anywhere else. The only thing holding us back from producing better outcomes is the courage to make the public policy changes that better focus our resources.

Bob Griffin is writing on his behalf. He serves as senior education research fellow with Alaska Policy Forum and is a member of the Alaska State Board of Education and Early Development.

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