Every few years, Alaska’s education establishment rolls out a shiny new “reform” that promises to turn the tide of underperformance. PowerPoints change, slogans shift, consultants rotate – but the results never do. Now, the phrase du jour is structured literacy, better known as phonics. Supposedly, this is the next great leap forward for Alaska’s kids. But before we pop the champagne, let’s be honest: phonics will only matter if Alaska does more than slap a new label on the same broken system.

The “science of reading” isn’t a new discovery – it’s been settled for decades. What’s new is that after years of chasing every educational fad from whole language to “balanced literacy,” we’re finally admitting that explicit, systematic phonics instruction actually works. The data aren’t subtle. In a sweeping meta-analysis covering 50 years of research, Stockard et al. (2018) found that direct instruction methods – including phonics – produce significant and lasting gains in reading, writing, and math. That’s not theory; that’s evidence.

This is the fundamental problem with Alaska’s approach: we implement pieces of successful reforms and then act surprised when the results never materialize.

Mississippi, Arkansas, and other states that fully implemented phonics-based reforms saw measurable jumps in literacy rates, particularly among low-income students. Mississippi’s 4th-grade NAEP reading scores rose ten points between 2013 and 2019, propelling it from the nation’s cellar to above the national average.

So, what’s Alaska’s plan? A pilot here, a grant there, and a mountain of rhetoric about “science-based approaches.” The Alaska Department of Education’s “Evidence-Based BSA Model” makes much of structured literacy but confines nearly all of its actual programming to grades K–3. After that, nothing. No sustained reading intervention, no continued professional development for teachers, no structured support for middle- or high-school literacy. In other words, the state wants to plant the seed and then walk away before it ever bears fruit.

This is the fundamental problem with Alaska’s approach: we implement pieces of successful reforms and then act surprised when the results never materialize. Structured literacy isn’t a one-time course correction – it’s an ecosystem. Early decoding instruction must be reinforced by explicit vocabulary, grammar, and comprehension teaching in the upper grades. Without that continuity, the gains of early phonics instruction evaporate by middle school. We’ve seen this before. Districts pour money into kindergarten reading initiatives, watch test scores spike for two years, and then crash back to baseline when the students hit fourth grade and start drowning in unstructured comprehension tasks.

We’re so accustomed to mediocrity that genuine implementation feels radical. But if this state wants real reform, it has to trade slogans for standards.

The Legislature should require that any structured literacy funding come with fidelity enforcement – measurable, enforceable standards to ensure the program is implemented as designed. That means teacher training, curriculum alignment, coaching support, and annual audits tied to student outcomes. Mississippi did this right. It didn’t just fund phonics – it tied funding to performance, requiring schools to retain third-graders who couldn’t read proficiently and rewarding those that consistently improved outcomes. It wasn’t politically easy, but it worked. Mississippi had the discipline to finish what it started. Alaska rarely does.

Part of the resistance comes from bureaucratic inertia. The Department of Education is riddled with administrators who confuse activity for progress. To them, “structured literacy” is just the next consultant keyword, another chance to hire “coordinators” and “implementation specialists.” But real reform doesn’t come from PowerPoint slides – it comes from classrooms.

Teachers – not bureaucrats – need the training and resources to implement the science of reading with consistency. Yet in Alaska’s current model, the administrative overhead grows while classroom implementation remains an afterthought. We’ve built a $14,000-per-pupil system that somehow still can’t teach kids to read by the third grade. The only structure in structured literacy right now is the scaffolding of bureaucratic job titles holding up the education-industrial complex.

Structured literacy isn’t a “nice-to-have” program – it’s the foundation of self-governance, productivity, and civic literacy

It’s not that phonics doesn’t work. It’s that Alaska refuses to work the phonics. We’re so accustomed to mediocrity that genuine implementation feels radical. But if this state wants real reform, it has to trade slogans for standards.

Start by requiring that every district submit a structured literacy implementation plan – with benchmarks, timelines and publicly reported outcomes. Tie BSA increases to measurable proficiency gains. Audit the results annually. If districts fail to demonstrate improvement, the funding stops. That’s what “evidence-based” is supposed to mean: not just evidence that something worked somewhere, but evidence that it’s working here.

The irony is that Alaska doesn’t need to reinvent anything. The model already exists. Mississippi proved that with full-fidelity phonics instruction, teacher coaching, and a statewide accountability system, literacy outcomes can transform within five years. Florida did the same with its early literacy and school choice programs in the early 2000s. But those states didn’t cherry-pick reforms. They implemented them wholesale. Alaska, meanwhile, has a bad habit of doing things halfway – rolling out programs without teeth, evaluation, or follow-through and then blaming “contextual factors” when nothing changes.

And let’s be clear: this isn’t just an education issue. It’s an economic one. Every child who can’t read by the end of third grade is statistically more likely to struggle in high school, rely on social services, and end up underemployed. Illiteracy isn’t just a personal tragedy; it’s a state liability. Structured literacy isn’t a “nice-to-have” program – it’s the foundation of self-governance, productivity, and civic literacy. If Alaska fails to get this right, every dollar we spend on workforce development, public safety, and economic revitalization will be compensating for what the schools failed to do.

So, here’s the choice before us: Alaska can do what it always does – throw money at the problem and hope the word “science” in a report title makes it sound legitimate – or it can finally do what Mississippi did: pick a real reform, implement it completely, and measure every inch of progress. Structured literacy works when adults do their jobs. The only question is whether Alaska’s policymakers have the courage to require it.

Phonics isn’t a flash-in-the-pan. But Alaska’s commitment to reform often is. We can either prove the cynics wrong – or prove them right, again.

The views expressed here are those of the author.

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