Bob Griffin, the Dunleavy point man on the state school board, has his Senate confirmation hearing Monday at 3:30 p.m. before the Senate Education Committee.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy nominated Griffin for a second five-year term on the state board. Griffin works as a pilot for Alaska Airlines and his volunteer job is as “senior education research fellow” for the right-wing Alaska Policy Forum, which propagates many of the same ideas as Dunleavy.
I’ve written about Griffin’s confirmation hearing before the House Education Committee and how he presented half-truths about Advanced Placement test numbers, and quoted a Rutgers school funding study without mentioning that the authors of that study say it does not tell the truth about the situation in Alaska.
I’ve also written about how Griffin contradicts himself about local control of schools by saying he wants the unelected state board on which he sits to be given the power to create new charter schools, a priority of Gov. Mike Dunleavy. And I’ve written about how he opposed any increase in education spending earlier this year, but now says he supports a $680 increase in the Base Student Allocation.
Griffin should be asked about the step-by-step guidelines offered by the Alaska Policy Forum two years ago on how to get public funds to pay for private school tuition.
Griffin is among those who likes to use the word “outcomes” to describe the value of education, an insufferable word choice that makes me think of an assembly line.
Griffin uses standardized tests as his measuring tool, especially the National Assessment of Educational Progress, in which one test — either math or reading — is given to about 7,000 Alaska students in grades four and eight every other year. There are about 130,000 students in Alaska schools.
The state of Alaska has its own standardized test program, which covers tens of thousands more students and should be a better indicator of performance.
One of Griffin’s central beliefs is that Alaska’s correspondence school students are high achievers.
If this is to be measured solely by standardized test scores — a lousy way to judge the value of an education — then there is a problem with Griffin’s assumption about correspondence schools.
In non-correspondence schools, about 90 percent of the students took the tests. This makes it impossible for fair comparisons about performance.
A 2016 law championed by Dunleavy during his time in the Legislature allowed parents to refuse to have their children tested. The logistics of getting kids to a testing site may be one big reason why nearly all correspondence families do not engage with the state tests.
Questioned on his assertions about the performance of correspondence students by Sitka Rep. Rebecca Himschoot during the House hearing, Griffin said the low testing rate is no problem. He believes the students in correspondence schools are high achievers because of the dedication of families who use correspondence courses.
“I think the ultimate accountability for programs is when people vote with their feet. And the fact that we have, a lot of these people were, for just pennies on the dollar on the value of the education they could get in their neighborhood schools, are moving their kids to correspondence allotment programs,” he said.
He referred to the exceptionally low testing rate as a “smaller sample size,” without using a number.
“But frankly I’m not particularly worried about the outcomes of the kids who don’t test. The outcomes of the kids who do test are quite good. I’m not particularly worried about the outcomes for the kids who don’t test because I have a lot of confidence in parents that go through those extraordinary steps to keep their kids, the best education that they can, that those outcomes are doing very well. We’re seeing a lot of those kids that don’t test are going on to colleges and whatnot,” said the senior education research fellow of the Alaska Policy Forum.
In other words, he is confident in claiming the 80 percent-plus of correspondence students who don’t take the state standardized tests are doing well because he’s heard a lot of stories about kids “going on to colleges and whatnot.”
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PERMANENT FUND DISCLOSURES: There will be much more to say about this in days to come, but Jeff Landfield of the Alaska Landmine has broken a major story about the Alaska Permanent Fund. Read his report here.
Landfield obtained internal emails from the Permanent Fund, the kind that would never be released to the public, that show that Gabrielle Rubenstein should not be on the Permanent Fund board of trustees.
She should resign, based on these disclosures, many of which have to do with conflicts of interest.
Rubenstein, the daughter of billionaire David Rubenstein, has a serious problem with boundaries as a trustee, these emails show. There are multiple conflicts of interest that arise from her behavior.
Her interactions with the staff of the corporation are undermining the fund and its management. As an active participant in the investment business, she doesn’t seem to recognize that some of what she does crosses the line.
The job of a Permanent Fund trustee is not to tell corporation executives who should be fired and hired. The job of a trustee is not to tell corporation executives what investments to make. The job of a trustee is not to interfere in day-to-day management. The job of a trustee is not to instruct corporation executives who should or should not be meeting with her father. The job of a trustee is not to coordinate meetings for fund staff that include clients and investors.
All of this is happening.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy recruited her to serve as a trustee in 2022. Legislative confirmation is not required under state law. One of the things in Landfield’s report that suggests her close relationship with Dunleavy remains is that she told a corporation executive early this year that Ethan Schutt would not be reappointed to the trustees by Dunleavy.
Ethan Schutt is the only member on the six-member board who shows some signs of independence from the governor.
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