Improving Alaska’s public school system, it turns out, isn’t cheap.
That’s the message legislators got at last week’s meeting of the Legislature’s Task Force on Education Funding, where they heard from groups representing school boards, administrators and teachers who agreed there are no quick, easy or cheap fixes to improving the state’s public school system — much to the chagrin of some conservatives.
The task force was created by the Alaska Legislature’s landmark education funding bill, which legislators enacted earlier this year after overriding Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto, and is charged with charting a long-term plan to improve public education. That includes everything from funding levels and how funding is distributed to attendance and classroom policies.
Its report and recommendations are due ahead of the 2027 legislative session.
But if legislators were hoping to find a silver bullet that doesn’t strain the state’s already-tight budget — like Dunleavy’s claim that propping up a selective charter school system is a cure-all for public education broadly — then they would have been disappointed.
Instead, the bipartisan group of lawmakers again heard that public schools are in dire need of some stability and certainty around funding. That much of the state’s lagging test scores is due to ballooning class sizes, a costly teacher exodus, and other complex factors.
“Instability, that is the overall feeling,” said Clayton Holland, the superintendent of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District and past president of the Alaska Council of School Administrators, told legislators about a recent survey they conducted gauging the atmosphere of education. “What we get out of the whole thing is that people are feeling that instability in funding, and what that has done to their districts and our ability to impact student outcomes.”
Groups including the Alaska Association of School Boards, the National Education Association, the Alaska Municipal League and former Department of Education Commissioner Marshall Lind all agreed that funding is needed to make up for years of stagnant funding and to keep up with inflation. Things like improved teacher retention through better pay and a real-deal pension system would help end the costly revolving door of teachers. Increasing the number of teachers, too, would lead to smaller classes, where students are shown to learn better.
Additionally, they argued that schools need critical infrastructure upgrades across everything from internet connectivity to basic health and safety.
But, as most argued, good schools start with good teachers.
“It’s pretty basic. You start with teachers, and if you’re going to have good teachers, you’re going to have to have a decent retirement system, pure and simple, and you’re going to have to pay them,” Lind told legislators when asked about the long-gone days when Alaska was a top performer. “We had people lined up to work in the state. That’s not the case today, and we’ve got a revolving door of teachers. You don’t build programs without some longevity with teachers; they’re the critical part of this whole thing.”
But, as is the case with much of the discussions around education, that’s not exactly what some of the Republicans on the committee wanted to hear.
Instead, legislators like Soldotna Republican Rep. Justin Ruffridge sidestepped most of the conversation about investing in schools by refocusing on the budget, questioning educators about their plans to pay for higher wages or more teachers.
“I think we all actually have a necessity to answer the question, what would be the way that you personally or people that you talk to, people in your circles, would choose to fund these additional elements? We have a responsibility as Alaskan citizens to try to answer that question,” he said. “And I think it’s a fair question to ask individuals who have a vested interest in asking for additional dollars. … We got to start having hard conversations, and instead of just saying, well, the legislature will figure that out. No, we won’t.”
While there has been generally broad support for public education in Alaska, Republicans have also frequently balked at actually funding the costs. They’ve insisted that “accountability” be part of the solution to funding, suggesting that underperforming schools should be penalized with funding cuts. In large part, that’s all because Republicans are reluctant to talk about new taxes or revenue to shore up the state’s budget.
Several legislators across the spectrum have proposed broad-based taxes like a sales or income tax, changes to the state’s oil taxes, and changes to the corporate tax structure, but none have found any traction amid Republican insistence that funding isn’t an important factor.
Earlier this year, Gov. Dunleavy insisted that funding doesn’t make a meaningful difference in educational outcomes when he vetoed the school funding bill. Instead, he argued that resources should be focused on a few of the better-performing programs (which also tend to be wealthier and less diverse).
Juneau Democratic Sen. Jesse Kiehl bristled at the line of questioning, comparing it to asking a contractor how you should pay for their services.
“I’m trying to imagine the looks on their faces if I asked them how I was supposed to pay their bill,” he said.
The task force’s next hearing is scheduled for Nov. 10.
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.
