Last week, the Alaska House pushed past Republican opposition to pass House Bill 69, legislation outlining a $1,000 increase to per-student funding known as the base student allocation.
With a total price tag of about $250 million, the legislation is seen by supporters as a much-needed lifeline for schools that have been struggling as inflation has erased the buying power of the BSA, which has been essentially unchanged for a decade. Because of the timing of school district budgets, we’ve got a pretty good look at what it’ll mean if the money isn’t ultimately approved: Ballooning class sizes, fewer academic programs, much fewer electives and more shuttered schools. The Anchorage School District anticipates high school classrooms will have 35 students or more.
Legislators in the House Majority argued that despite the larger budget issues facing the state — which have led to renewed discussions on oil and corporate taxes — schools are a worthwhile investment that will make the state more appealing amid its struggles with out-migration.
“My district has struggled deeply over the closure of schools in a part of Anchorage that’s designated where most of our growth should be happening,” said Rep. Ky Holland, I-Anchorage, during the floor debate. “It’s where our city’s comprehensive plan said we would be growing when we had families looking for new homes. And yet we’re closing one of our schools, and it made no sense. … It’s because we’re a state in decline, we’re a state in retreat. We’re a state that cannot figure out how to fund education. … It is time for us to stop arguing over and debating how we will manage the decline of our state; it is time for us to build a future for our families and build a future for our communities.”
The legislation also contains a handful of other school policies, such as a cellphone ban, intra-district open enrollment, targeted funding for students showing growth in reading and a revised appeal process for public charter schools.
It’s set for its first hearing in the Senate Education Committee on Monday, but the critical places to watch are the House and Senate finance committees. That’s because the central unanswered question about education funding is how it’ll fit into a state budget that doesn’t exactly have room — the state’s projected deficit is $70 million larger under the latest revenue forecast (that said, it also seems to have plenty of room for prisons and executive pay). While there’s been talk about potentially reducing the size of the dividend or instituting new taxes — specifically taxes that target the oil and gas industry — it’s all just talk at this time.
If there’s any objection raised over the two days of amendments and day of debate by Dunleavy-aligned Republicans put up last week that has some merit, it’s the budget. Alaska really has run out of its lifelines and hail marys for its structural deficit, and legislators have no easy options to meet the needs of the state. And the needs go well beyond the $1,000 BSA increase outlined in HB 69. As has been well documented in an investigation by KYUK and ProPublica, Alaska also has a fast-growing list of critical and overdue maintenance on schools that has left students in rural communities to learn in condemned buildings.
Unfortunately, the budget outlook is just one of the hurdles legislators must clear if they hope to secure this school funding.
Dunleavy Republicans — and therefore Gov. Mike Dunleavy — have raised a litany of objections to funding schools that go well beyond the budget, which will be much more difficult – if not impossible by design – to thread for legislators moving forward. Everything from hollow calls for “accountability” to unfunded mandates to keep class sizes small to demanding that charter schools should be more lightly regulated to demands about “targeted investments” in programs that serve a smaller, generally well-to-do population of students.
“My personal school district is struggling, and they need stabilization in the funding, but…” said Rep. Bill Elam, R-Kenai.
“We all want education to be funded, but…” said Rep. Elexie Moore, R-Wasilla.
“I support a permanent increase to education funding, however…” said Rep. Mia Costello, R-Anchorage.
“This is a good first step, but you know who also thought it was a good first step? The LEMMING.” said Rep. Rebecca Schwanke, R-Glenallen, adding, “Most of my rural districts need education funding … but…”
One of the biggest demands of the Dunleavy Republicans is an increase in funding targeted just to homeschool students. This would be accomplished by rewriting part of the state’s per-student funding formula by boosting the homeschool factor from 0.9 to 1.0 of the BSA, an increase of over $75 million. What’s so confounding about the ask is that Dunleavy Republicans — who’ve thrown up just about every objection to funding brick-and-mortar schools — can’t really articulate why the funding is needed. Homeschool programs aren’t facing the same financial cliff that nearly every other part of the public education system does. Instead, they’ve argued that it’s “discriminatory” for the system to “value” some students less than others, an invented excuse to weaponize the simple fact that educating students outside of brick-and-mortar schools is cheaper.
It is also hard to overlook the fact that several of the Dunleavy Republicans also homeschool their kids. Folks like Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer, have proclaimed that homeschooling is superior because of the lack of opportunities in brick-and-mortar schools without an ounce of reflection on why that may be. Also, it should be noted that increasing the BSA also increases homeschool funding. Instead, what they are quite literally asking for is changes that focus the benefit on a smaller group of students, who typically have more engaged families and better support systems than the average brick-and-mortar student.
In the big picture, the complaints reflect a continued right-wing antagonism toward brick-and-mortar schools while propping up programs that are “effective” in large part because they can filter out students who don’t come from wealthier, less diverse families. While Dunleavy Republicans claim that public charters and homeschooling are more effective at educating students than neighborhood schools – a dubious claim on its own, given their broad refusal to participate in standardized tests — the evidence suggests whatever success there is has much more to do with the socioeconomic makeup of students than anything.
Part of the broader effort to enshrine a two-tier education system, this Republican opposition will be much harder to overcome than some budget numbers.
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 Bluesky.
