The special session Gov. Mike Dunleavy called to strong-arm legislators into approving a sweeping overhaul of public education in Alaska still isn’t going anywhere with just a few days left on the clock, but that hasn’t stopped lawmakers from taking a more long-term look at education.
A bipartisan, bicameral working group met on Monday for its first hearing to discuss broad issues surrounding public education in the state, including funding and potential policy changes, without the artificial pressure imposed by the governor. The group of lawmakers is set to visit schools and hold several hearings, with the goal of creating an actionable plan on education for the day Dunleavy is out of office.
“Now the current state of Alaska’s education is not where we’d like it to be,” said Senate Education Committee Chair Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, at the outset of Monday’s hearing, “But I know that we can get to a better place if we all work together, we find common ground, and we build upon what we agree upon.”
The special session wasn’t all for naught. Instead of taking up the governor’s proposals on education, legislators met for a few hours on the first day to successfully override the governor’s veto of $50 million in public school funding. The governor had hoped to use that funding as leverage for his policy proposals.
Tobin said everything would be up for discussion, from the funding to the state’s foundation formula — a complex formula in state law that determines how much funding each district receives based on its location and the needs of its students — as well as in-classroom policies around things like attendance. She also said that issues like alternative schooling, such as immersion programs, charter schools, homeschooling, and tribally compacted schools, will be discussed throughout the next year and change.
Panel co-chair Rep. Rebecca Himschoot, I-Sikta, and longtime teacher, said that it’s essential for legislators to understand the interconnectedness of everything in the classroom. She said that money is just one of many factors to ensure kids can learn.
“If we take steps to improve teacher quality that has an impact on the classroom, if we take steps to make sure kids are fed, that has an impact. If we take steps to make sure that we have the right ratios of teachers to students, all of these things have impacts,” she said. “They’re all interconnected, and not one of them is a single silver bullet. So our work is vast.”
The panel also plans to take several field trips to get first-hand experience with some of the challenges facing rural schools, as well as other non-traditional programs.
Tobin told the committee that one of her guiding principles for steering the committee is the Legislature’s duty, as laid out in the Alaska Constitution, to provide a quality public education to every student in the state.
“This task force is focused on identifying the correct inputs to get the desired outcomes for our state, and there are no sacred cows,” she said, “We will be actively challenging accepted principles and assumptions, and this is the time for difficult conversations.”
That’s a particularly important point because the slate of policies pushed by Gov. Dunleavy is facing growing opposition over the fact that they specifically do not serve all students.
Dunleavy and other Republicans have pushed hard to expand home schooling and public charter schools, both of which give parents greater latitude to shape their students’ education, but also require additional parental involvement that not all parents can provide. Critics, including Tobin, have warned that the fixation on these programs detracts from neighborhood schools, which still account for the vast majority of students, despite recent growth in homeschooling programs.
The home school programs have also been a covert conduit for public money to flow to private and religious schools, either as direct tuition subsidies or to pay for the extracurricular activities of kids already in private school. A lawsuit challenging the practice as a violation of the Alaska Constitution is currently being litigated.
While supporters have claimed that the programs are more effective than neighborhood schools and should therefore receive more attention, many have been skeptical of these claims, pointing out that the programs tend to serve more affluent and less diverse students.
But instead of a he-said-she-said between teacher unions and conservative special interest groups, the committee is hoping to get a more clear-eyed look at the issue with the input of various experts and other research.
Their report is due to the 35th Legislature, which is scheduled to convene in 2027.
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.
