Education funding has been at the forefront of this year’s legislative session with many, many hearings about the tough decisions schools face throughout the state as expiring one-time pandemic money, high inflation and flat state funding have created massive multimillion-dollar shortfalls.
Today, Dunleavy revealed his education package for the legislative session: A bill that largely mirrors Florida’s notorious Don’t Say Gay bill that he says empowers parents to stop children from learning about anything that is an “affront” to the parent’s beliefs. As for the funding woes, he also previewed a bill that contains a fraction of what even the most conservative proposals to increase school funding would offer.
Pitched under the banner of “parental rights,” the headlining legislation would bar teachers from teaching sex education, talking about sex or gender identity, addressing students by a different pronoun or different name—which appears to include nicknames—without written approval of parents. Parents would also have to approve of kids joining a group related to sexual orientation or gender. Teachers would also be required to report to parents any and all information about a student’s physical, medical or mental health, which would include outing a student who confides in their teacher.
It would also position those parents to sue schools over any violations of the proposed law.
At a news conference flanked by kids, parents and educators from unidentified schools—some of whom spoke at the hearing, claiming that struggling students come from “broken homes” and that good kids come from a “strong family unit”—Dunleavy bristled angrily at any suggestion that his bill targeted LGBTQ students.
“Don’t view these folks or myself as people who don’t like other people,” he said in one of his many comments specifically telling the media how to report on the proposed legislation.
He also frequently used his time as a teacher and school administrator to deflect questions about the impacts of his bill, and said he couldn’t conceive of any situation where a teacher might withhold information from a parent.
When asked about the clear comparisons between his legislation and Florida’s Don’t Say Gay bill, Dunleavy said that he was “working on these issues” well before Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis made national headlines—helping kick off his path to the Republican presidential nomination—before reiterating that he has never brought up issues around transgender youth.
“I never brought transgender individuals up,” he said. “I brought up parents and issues of gender.”
The legislation also specifically would limit access to bathrooms and locker rooms based on a student’s biological sex, rather than their gender identity. When asked how that was a public safety matter, Dunleavy couldn’t really offer a clear explanation other than to say everyone deserves to feel comfortable.
He also didn’t ever address how the bill would improve students’ educational outcomes.
A report by the Anchorage Daily News this week revealed that the Alaska Human Rights Commission, with the green light from Attorney General Treg Taylor, dropped its ban on LGBTQ discrimination and began refusing to investigate such complaints. As a senator, Dunleavy hijacked teen dating violence program Bree’s Law as a vehicle for bevy of measures that fall under his idea of parental rights.
As for the funding proposal, Dunleavy’s bill would bypass schools altogether, including the state’s foundation formula, which ties funding to the size of districts, their location and the needs of students.
Instead, it would make direct cash payments to teachers who just completed a full year of instruction before July 1 in 2024, 2025 and 2026. Teachers in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Mat-Su, Juneau and Kenai would get $5,000 per while teachers in smaller districts would get $10,000 and those in rural districts would get $15,000.
When asked if there was anything that would actually require teachers to stay on beyond the payment or whether the proposal would make a meaningful difference when teachers are currently facing large class sizes and an underwhelming public sector retirement system, Dunleavy referred to his time as a teacher to say he knew it would work.
In the big picture, the funding only amounts to about $58 million a year in additional school funding, where a proposal to increase the base student allocation by $1,250 would put more than $300 million into schools for everything from teacher pay and classroom aides to maintaining buildings and art programs.
Dunleavy refused to answer questions about whether he’d accept an increase to the BSA if the Legislature passed his version of the Don’t Say Gay bill, suggesting that this proposed funding increase should be enough to get the state the next three years (the remainder of his term) and that it’ll be up to lawmakers to figure out at that point.
‘My children belong to me’
The Legislation was met with… mixed reactions from the Legislature.
Extreme-right legislators were thrilled to see the focus on culture war issues like “naughty books” and sex ed.
House Education Committee co-Chair Rep. Jamie Allard, R-Eagle River, told the ADN that the bills should take priority over everything else this session, including any proposals to permanently increase school funding. Another Republican on the House Education Committee said he was pleased to see the governor’s new bill, noting that parents are entitled to complete control and knowledge of their kids at school.
“I’m a big advocate of parents’ rights. As a parent of five, my children belong to me. They do not belong to the school,” said Anchorage Republican Rep. Tom McKay during the House Majority’s news conference responding to the announcement. “When it comes to sex education and changing sexes, naughty books in the library and so on and so forth, I believe the parents have every right to know everything that’s going on in the schools we pay for.”
The legislation was less warmly received by most others.
The House minority coalition released a statement that said its members are interested in talking about school funding but that they view the governor’s “gender identity bill as a distraction that will do nothing to fix overcrowded classrooms.”
In the Senate, Senate Education Committee Chair Sen. Löki Gale Tobin told the Anchorage Daily News that the legislation would not be getting a hearing in the committee.
The 17-member Senate Majority formed largely with the intention of not diving into deeply divisive issues like Dunleavy and DeSantis’ culture wars.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
