Alaska House Republicans unveiled their omnibus education package on Wednesday afternoon, a sweeping bill that seeks to advance several Republican priorities on charter schools and homeschooling while providing a slight boost to K-12 funding.
House Republicans also outlined an accelerated process for the legislation that will leave the public with a single opportunity this weekend to weigh in.
The changes were rolled out in the House Rules Committee — a key committee that doesn’t typically handle education policy or even major changes to legislation, for that matter — as a new version of Senate Bill 140, which initially dealt with just internet connectivity grants for schools but picked up an increase to school funding in the House late last session.
As it stood coming into this year, the bill would have enshrined the Legislature’s one-time boost in education funding — about $174 million — as part of the base student allocation, a figure that’s used to determine school funding based on several factors like size, location and other needs. That funding was cut in half through a veto by Gov. Mike Dunleavy to about $87 million.
The new version of Senate Bill 140 by House Republicans proposes an even more minor boost to the BSA, amounting to about $77 million annually. That figure is far below what the bipartisan Senate Majority has advanced or what most educators say is needed to keep up with inflation.
House Republicans and Gov. Dunleavy have opposed a significant, permanent increase to the BSA and argued other, more targeted spending is a wiser approach.
That targeted spending, it turns out, are conservative priorities. Most of the additions to the legislation come from Republican bills. It would put $23 million into additional funding for homeschool students and $58 million into a program proposed by the governor to pay teachers for completing a school year, which lawyers for the legislature warn may violate the Alaska Constitution and several labor agreements.
It also seeks to widely expand the number of charter school programs in the state by allowing the statewide Board of Education — appointed by the governor — to create new charter school programs rather than leaving the decision-making process to local districts.
At the hearing on Wednesday, Anchorage Democratic Rep. Zack Fields said some of the other add-ons made sense — like legislation that’s been likened to a bill of rights for deaf students — but that he was deeply opposed to the changes to the charter school program. He said it was a thinly veiled attempt by Republicans to skirt the Alaska Constitution’s prohibition on public education dollars going to private and religious organizations.
“As constructed, the charter language is effectively a voucher program in which we would have so-called charter schools with nearly no public oversight using public funds for potentially religious material,” he said.
He agreed with the Republican talking point that such schools tend to perform better on standardized testing but noted that they also have higher barriers for attendance than neighborhood schools, meaning that students are typically from wealthier families.
“There’s a reason why if you only test high-income kids whose parents have almost unlimited opportunities to invest in their enrichment, yeah, they’re going to score well,” he said. “That doesn’t necessarily mean those charter schools are doing better than neighborhood schools. … I’m happy to support charters; I don’t want to support charters at the expense of our neighborhood schools.”
However, the most striking part of the process is the accelerated pace adopted by the House Majority. Typically, these bills would be subject to several hearings, votes, and amendments, giving districts, teachers and families time to assess and weigh in. Instead, the House GOP is giving Alaskans just three days between the introduction of the bill and its one and only public hearing. That will be at 10 a.m. Saturday.
House Rules Committee chair Rep. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage, also said they plan to take up amendments to the legislation and advance it to a floor vote at the same hearing.
“Let the games begin,” Johnson said at the end of the hearing.
Because the changes are being made to a Senate bill near passage in the House, the Senate will have no opportunity to make additional changes to the legislation before it gets sent to a conference committee to hammer out the details. The conference committee process has traditionally been done mainly behind closed doors without opportunities for public input on the legislation.
Senate Education Committee Chair Sen. Löki Tobin outlined the changes to the bill and her concerns in a newsletter, urging people to testify this weekend. She also called out the House for taking such a fast-paced approach to the legislation.
“Normally, as substantive policy bills move through the legislative process they are seen by multiple eyes and examined from multiple perspectives. That way issues, blind spots, and concerns rise to the surface and are properly examined. Legislative scrutiny and robust public input are critical in developing good public policy,” she said. “Unfortunately, there is only one scheduled opportunity to provide public testimony on the new version of SB 140. If you care about public schools, students, and teachers, your voice is needed now more than ever.”
How to testify
The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday. Before the public hearing, Department of Education Commissioner Deena Bishop is set to speak on the legislation. Testimony will first be taken from people at the capitol building and legislative information offices, then from people who call in. The cutoff for people to sign up to testify is at noon.
The phone numbers to testify:
Juneau – 907-586-9085
Anchorage – 907-563-9085
Outside of Juneau or Anchorage – 844-586-9085
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.
