Alaska’s education commissioner disagrees with calls for an increase to the state’s per-student education funding formula, despite years of advocating for such an increase in her previous role as superintendent of Anchorage schools.
Confirmed last summer by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Deena Bishop has been vocal in defending Dunleavy’s latest budget proposal, released Dec. 14, which notably did not include raising the Base Student Allocation, known as the BSA.
“Speaking from experience, it will be OK,” Bishop said in a recent interview, citing more than 20 years of speaking to legislators about the issue at the Capitol in Juneau. “The BSA, it’s always, ‘The sky is falling,’ and I just want people to know, it will be OK.”
The BSA is the base amount of funding the state sends Alaska schools, and it’s currently set at $5,960 per student. Education advocates say a boost is long overdue to keep up with inflation.
The BSA hasn’t changed significantly since 2017, though the passage of the Alaska Reads Act in 2022 did include a $30-per-student increase. The Alaska Council of School Administrators argues the BSA for next year should be $7,373, if adjusted for inflation.
Last year, educators, parents and students flocked to Juneau to tell the Legislature that schools needed more money, because, due to inflation, the value of those dollars has decreased and school districts have been forced to cut teachers and programs.
In response, legislators passed a one-time funding boost during the final days of the legislative session. Dunleavy then vetoed half of that over the summer.
Dunleavy’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year calls for increased spending on schools, but he said the money should go directly to teachers, not the BSA.
“I want the public to understand that as a former educator I understand that schools cost money. Education costs money, there’s no doubt about it,” Dunleavy said during a press conference rolling out his budget. “The question has always been whether we put money in the BSA — and that’s the Base Student Allocation, that’s part of the formula for funding — or whether we put money into the education world in various forms and for various purposes.”
That position has disappointed many parents and educators, the head of the state’s teachers union and some school district officials, including Bishop’s successor at the Anchorage School District, the state’s largest.
In the legislative session that begins next week, legislators will not only have to decide whether to add education funding but also where the money should go.
During his budget presentation last month, Dunleavy touted recruitment and retention bonuses for teachers. The bonuses, which were introduced last year in the Legislature but did not pass the House or Senate, would pay out as much as $15,000 per year to teachers in rural districts and $5,000 per year to teachers at urban schools over three years.
Dunleavy’s proposed bonuses are expected to cost $58 million. The state Council of School Administrators believes the BSA is underfunded by $87 million.
But the bonuses are proof, Bishop said, that she and the governor are listening to teachers. The idea for the bonuses came from teacher recruitment and retention working groups where teachers asked for salary increases, she said.
Dunleavy and Bishop also both question whether an increase to the BSA will result in better outcomes for Alaska students, who consistently test near the bottom in reading and math when compared to other states.
Like Dunleavy, Bishop spent decades in Alaska schools and said she wants to see money directed where the most value can be added to the classroom.
“Does education need supports? And can we make investments in education that are going to matter? I say, absolutely, yes,” Bishop said. “Would it be in the form of a BSA of, ‘Here’s some money and then figure things out?’ I think what we’re hearing, and what we’re now seeing over time, especially my time, is that it doesn’t always get where it should be, to the classroom.”
Some current educators disagree, though. That includes Jharrett Bryantt, who succeeded Bishop as superintendent of Anchorage schools just over a year ago.
“I actually would like to present a quote from my predecessor,” Bryantt said in an interview last month. “I think she said it very well: ‘One-time funding is not the responsible, long-term financial planning and investment education warrants in our state.’ She didn’t say that 10 years ago, she said that in 2022. We’re in 2023 today. So she even agreed a year ago that one-time funding was just not going to do it.”
And while the question of whether to increase education funding is not a new one, educators and lawmakers are more pressed now, because pandemic-era federal funding sources have run out. School districts across the state are each facing their own “fiscal cliffs,” with major deficits and no way to increase their own revenues.”
In Anchorage, the school district is looking to fill a $98 million budget gap, and district officials say more than 150 people might lose their jobs to balance the budget.
Without an increase to the BSA, Bryantt said, Alaska is on track to have one of the least-experienced teacher workforces in the country.
“The secret sauce to a great school are great educators and great support staff, school buses that pick up kids every day, and when you don’t invest in a BSA, you put all that in jeopardy,” Bryantt said. “The proof is in the pudding, right? A third of young people are leaving the state. So we really need some heroes in Juneau and the governor’s office and the Legislature to ensure that we reclaim our path to being one of the states that all the others should be looking to as a leader.”
Tom Klaameyer, president of the state’s teacher’s union, NEA-Alaska, has also spent decades in Alaska schools. The solution doesn’t have to be one or the other, paying teachers or increasing the BSA, he said.
“The idea of bonuses, however, paid for at the state level, kind of goes against the grain of local control,” Klaameyer said.
The work of educating students remains constant, but with over 1,000 vacant positions in Alaska schools, classroom instruction is coming from fewer teachers, Klaameyer said.
“When people at the state level say that, ‘If we give the money to school districts that’s going to be wasted,’ I think, as superintendent, she would have said, ‘No, that we absolutely need the money. And we absolutely will use it effectively for the education of students,’” Klaameyer said. “And so, frankly, a lot of this is just a distraction, to create division and create debate and turmoil where there need not be any. The fact is that we need to fund our schools.”
How that might be done is still yet to be seen.
Gov. Dunleavy’s budget is expected to go through revisions from his office, due in mid-February, and the Legislature will have its own say on where to direct funding and how much to spend.
Sen. Bert Stedman, a Republican from Sitka, co-chairs the state Senate Finance Committee. He described the education funding included in Dunleavy’s initial proposal as “artificially low” and said he expects more to be added in the governor’s revisions or by legislators themselves.
The legislative session is set to begin Jan. 16.
Tim Rockey is the producer of Alaska News Nightly and covers education for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at trockey@alaskapublic.org or 907-550-8487. Read more about Tim here.
