Some of Alaska’s leading voices on educational choice and parental rights have written letters to Alaska lawmakers urging them to oppose House Bill 69, which seeks to direct hundreds of millions of public dollars into the state education budget, but without requiring any reforms to a chronically failing government-run school system.

Sponsored by nearly a dozen far-left lawmakers in the State House, the bill is being pushed by the NEA-Alaska teachers’ union and educational bureaucrats who want record-amounts of money flooded into Alaska’s schools with no strings attached.

In particular, HB 69 would increase the Base Student Allocation (BSA) – per-pupil funding – from $5,960 to $8,510 over three years. That’s a $1,800 jump (or 43% increase), with the added cost to the state being nearly $1.5 billion over that time span.

Simply dumping unprecedented new funds into the education system, while requiring no meaningful reforms to the failing status quo is, not a recipe for success, argued educational-choice leader Leigh Sloan.

Sloan has been at the forefront of educational choice and reform in Alaska. She is the founder of Brave Nation, a group that seeks to form coalitions to engage the public arena in tackling difficult cultural and social issues.

“I am an Anchorage educator, administrator, and charter school parent calling in opposition to HB69,” Sloan wrote to the House Education Committee. “Increasing the BSA without any measurable reforms is the definition of insanity ‘doing the same thing but expecting different results.’ It’s not just the funding we need to look at— it’s how those funds are being allocated.”

Currently, Alaska students rank among the worst in the nation when it comes to reading and math outcomes, a problem that has persisted for decades. In response, many families have pulled students from traditional brick-and-mortar government schools to opt for popular homeschooling, charter school or private educational choices.

“If ANY priority in education ever comes before student achievement, we have the wrong priorities,” Sloan noted. “Did you know that school choice creates healthy competition which drives outcomes for all students up – even those who attend traditional public schools? You can access the latest research. These studies show time and time again that school choice drives costs down and outcomes up. That’s why more states are adopting school choice policies every day. Yet Alaska seems to turn a blind eye to the facts in favor of powerful unions.”

One of the main roadblocks to greater school choice is the powerful NEA-Alaska teachers’ union. This group and their allies want record new spending with no mandates for improvement, and the Democrat-controlled State Legislature is pushing hard this session to make it happen.

“Unfortunately, priorities besides student achievement tend to drive decisions in Juneau,” Sloan wrote. “Without fiscal accountability, education will eat up our state funds, as in the past, with nothing to show for it. It will eat up our PFDs so that families cannot use those funds to supplement their kids’ education.”

Sloan highlighted the fact that families are now turning to charter school alternatives, of which Alaska has some of the very best in the nation.

“Fund charter schools to a greater degree so that they can help close the education gap and empower low-income families with the funding to make powerful choices for themselves,” she maintained. “Let’s not do what we’ve always done and expect different results. Let’s be accountable to the parents first who care the most about their kids’ growth. Let the funding follow the child. Fund students not systems. Trust parents not bureaucrats.”

Gabby Ide, chair of Moms For Liberty Anchorage, echoed many of these concerns in her letter to lawmakers.

She noted that Alaska’s education spending, through one-time annual increases, has already outpaced inflation in the last 10 years by more than 50%, giving Alaska a much higher per-pupil expenditure than the national average.

“But Alaskan students lag in academic performance, ranking 49th in education according to the Casey Foundation in 2022,” Ide observed. “Alaska’s current spending per pupil is 23% higher than the U.S. average.”

She noted that increasing the education budget has done nothing to raise student outcomes, and urged lawmakers to prioritize charter schools and other educational alternatives.

“Increased funding to failing systems is like giving a terrible employee a raise hoping that tomorrow they will miraculously do the right thing,” Ide added. “That defies logic and is removed from reality. It is enabling continuous inadequacy.”

Ultimately, Alaskans need to reign in an educational system that has repeatedly failed students, she said.

“Adding money to an antiquated, one-size-fits-all system is not the solution Alaska’s students need,” Ide concluded. “It is time to fund students, not systems.”

TAKING ACTION

— Click here to contact members of the House Education Committee.

— Click here to contact members of the House Finance Committee, where the bill is expected to land next.

Click here to support Alaska Watchman reporting.