Alaska’s public education system is in crisis and on the verge of collapse.
By Alyse Galvin and the members of the Alaska House CoalitionRep. Alyse Galvin, I-Anchorage, on Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023 at the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau. This past legislative session, we devoted a tremendous amount of time to hearing from Alaskans working in education and those who study successful education systems. The conclusion? Alaska has underfunded public education for more than a decade.
This week, our House coalition met with more than a dozen superintendents from districts accounting for more than 80% of Alaska’s students to hear directly from Alaska’s school districts to better understand how they are coping with the current low level of funding. Every one of our questions was answered with candor and supporting data. Some of the answers were shocking, some not surprising but still heart wrenching.
One superintendent shared that he went to school in Palmer and his goal is to deliver an education close to his own experience, but found it impossible with today’s level of funding. I thought of my own four children and the difference they had in their public schools here.
These conversations made it abundantly clear that the state is utterly failing to meet its obligation to provide an adequate public education to all its children. We must not expose the state to costly litigation. We must stop accepting the uninformed, false, and misleading anti-public education rhetoric.The first and most direct option is to override the governor’s veto of education funding. This will take three-quarters of all members of the Legislature.
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