There are a lot of ways to measure how Alaska’s spending on public education stacks up to other states — the way often preferred by conservatives is to point to total dollars spent, which often puts the state at the top or near the top of the country — but economists studying the issue say that far more context is needed.
Namely, there’s the fact that living in Alaska — particularly rural Alaska — is expensive. Rent, heating, groceries and, particularly, health care are all well above the national average. Once you factor in those costs, Alaska’s spending doesn’t look so great.
That’s the message legislators got at last week’s hearing of the Legislative Task Force on Education Funding, a bipartisan, bicameral working group of legislators charged with developing a long-term plan for public school funding ahead of the 2027 legislative session. The group sprang out of this year’s education funding increase, which legislators enacted over the objection of Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
Matt Berman, a professor of economics at the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska Anchorage, told the committee that factoring in things like the higher cost of living, inflation and other costs that Alaska’s once-competitive-looking wages are hardly that.
“We see that Alaska, once we adjust Alaska teacher salaries to the national average, we’re like 25% below the national average,” he said. “It’s substantially below. It’s partly due to the higher cost of living in Alaska, generally, but also in rural Alaska, especially, the salaries are not nearly high enough to be, I would say, competitive. And with the national teacher shortage, we can see that we have our hands tied behind our backs trying to compete in a market that’s already stretched.”
Alaska’s struggle to hire and retain teachers has been a chronic and costly problem for schools throughout the state, with some reporting that the cost to fill a vacant teaching position is about $30,000. It’s created a situation where several hundred classrooms will start the year without a permanent teacher, while other districts have had to turn to foreign teachers on visas (which are also facing increasing uncertainty under Trump) to fill vacancies.
Berman said that there’s been a lot of talk around improving things for teachers, such as reintroducing a pension system for public sector workers (currently, public sector workers in Alaska pay into a 401k-like retirement account and don’t pay into Social Security), but that the underlying problem is that the pay simply isn’t competitive.
“It’s sort of like beating around the edges of the real elephant in the room is pay,” he said. “You can’t make a job that’s underpaid attractive by increasing the pension; it’s not enough.”
He was just the latest in a long line of educators, economists, analysts and school officials who have called on legislators to increase school funding. While more money isn’t exactly what miserly conservatives want to hear, advocates say there are other options left to improve a public school system that has continued to fall behind other states — no matter how you want to frame the numbers.
Former Education Commissioner Jerry Covey also spoke at the hearing, offering a similarly pointed message about the need for more funding. He pointed out several issues he said are critical and require significant public support: teacher salaries, adequate teacher housing, a strong retirement system and infrastructure repairs.
“It needs money, and I think improving our education system and addressing the needs will require a significant amount of money,” he said. “… There is no silver bullet that will fix public education… I believe it will take a combination of efforts to attract and retain the education workforce that we need.”
Covey, however, broke from the other speakers by noting that schools need to be better at choosing the programs they offer students. He said to build broad public support for the school system, that schools and legislators need to be smart with what they’re asking for and how they’re spending it.
“I simply mean, we can’t be all things to all people,” he said. “I mean, it’s going to cost a significant amount of money to get public education back on track. And I know that, you know, I was a superintendent at one time, and I was looking for all the money I could get every year from the legislature, and I wanted more things than I probably needed. And I think that’s probably true for most school districts. So when I say limited, I mean, what can we afford? What’s practical, what’s doable going forward?”
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.
