The old bureaucratic guard who has long presided over Alaska’s failed school system would do well to listen to Bob Dylan’s hit song, “The Times They Are A-Changin.’”
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’
Earlier this week, school districts in Fairbanks and Kuspuk filed suit against the State of Alaska in hopes that a judge will press the state to spend more money on an aging and failed educational model that is undergoing a fundamental revolution, in real time.
The lawsuit claims the state has failed to uphold its constitutional duty to “adequately” fund government-run schools, and asks the judicial branch to declare that lawmakers ought to fork over more money to the status quo.
The solution to these problems, however, isn’t for districts to ask an unelected judge to declare that the legislature should increase their funding. The judicial branch has no such authority.
According to the Alaska Constitution, the legislature – alone – is tasked to “establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State.” It does not stipulate how much the state should spend, what schools should teach or how public education should be organized. All those decisions are left to lawmakers.
The lawsuit points to school closures, chronic academic failure, loss of teachers and some needed maintenance projects as examples that the state is in dereliction of its constitutional duty. Not once do the districts take a moment to look in the mirror.
The reality is that the state already spends more money on education than nearly every other state in the nation but gets some of the very worst returns on investment with nearly 70% of students failing basic reading and math assessments.
While school districts want to blame poor academics on a lack of money, they are unwilling to consider that perhaps the entire public school model is in need of fundamental overhaul.
Many parents have already realized this, as evidenced by the ever-growing ranks of students who are now enrolled in publicly funded homeschools, charter schools and private and religious education, all of which are less expensive than the old brick-and-mortar model.
Amid the mass exodus of students, the Fairbanks District – like many others – has been forced to shutter multiple schools and lay off scores of teachers as enrollment continues to decline. From 2002-03 to 2024-25 Fairbanks lost 3,340 students, dropping from 15,140 to roughly 11,800. In October, the district announced that it had lost another 589 students, and now stands at 11,382.
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Many of those kids are gone because parents are fed up with the district’s insistence on pushing toxic DEI and LGBTQ agendas, along with graphic sex education, explicit library books and homosexual history celebrations.
As students depart, districts lose all the money that was allotted to those children. Over time, this has resulted in massive financial losses for districts around the state.
The solution to these problems isn’t for districts to ask an unelected judge to declare that the legislature should increase their funding. The judicial branch has no such authority, and to do so would be a violation of the separation of powers.
Rather, it’s time for Alaska’s calcified education establishment to either get with the times and fully embrace the school choice movement or suffer the fate that Dylan warned of: “As the present now will later be past, the order is rapidly fadin.’ And the first one now will later be last, for the times they are a-changin.’”
The views expressed here are those of the author.
