Education is playing a big role in campaigns for the Alaska Legislature in the closing weeks ahead of the 2024 election.
In South Anchorage, Republican Rep. Craig Johnson said he’s hearing a lot about education funding in his talks with constituents. Many of them are asking about his vote against overriding the governor’s veto of a bill that would have provided a long-term boost to state education funding.
"We did an awful lot on education last year,
Senate Bill 140 would have raised base per-student funding by 11%, or $680, a longtime goal for school districts that have complained about years of flat funding under the state’s formula.
The bill passed overwhelmingly in the state House and Senate by a combined vote of 56-3. But lawmakers failed by a single vote to override Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto.
As a member of House Republican leadership, Johnson first voted in favor of the bill, and then to sustain the veto, and he said he’s gotten mixed feedback on that vote.
"It's probably 50-50, of people saying ... don't give ‘em any more money, and then the other half saying we should have," he said.
Even if lawmakers had overridden the governor’s veto, Johnson said Dunleavy likely would have vetoed the funding boost from the state budget after the House and Senate adjourned for the year, which would have made it difficult for schools to budget.
And Johnson said lawmakers did increase funding for schools during the last session — the Legislature ultimately approved an equivalent funding boost to the one that was vetoed, albeit only for a year. And unlike last year, when the governor vetoed half of a similar one-time funding increase, Dunleavy let all of it survive this time around.
In any case, Johnson said he’d like to see future Legislatures focus on boosting student performance. He said lawmakers should focus on expanding school choice, namely by boosting access to homeschooling and charter schools, which were both priorities for the Republican House majority and the governor during the last legislative session.
Johnson’s opponent, Republican Chuck Kopp, did not respond to interview requests but told the Alaska Beacon he wants to see both high standards and consistent funding for education.
Further north, civil rights attorney and Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly presiding officer Savannah Fletcher said she’s also hearing a lot about the veto override vote during her campaign for state Senate.
"That has been coming up as a sticking point for a lot of people in the district," Fletcher said.
Fletcher, an independent, argues funding and student outcomes go hand-in-hand. She said replacing the vetoed long-term increase with a one-time bump makes it harder for districts to hire and retain teachers. And she said that’s led to larger class sizes and fewer extracurricular programs for public school students throughout the sprawling Senate district, which stretches from Glennallen to parts of Fairbanks, Delta Junction, Tok and the Yukon River basin.
Her opponent in the race for the open Senate District R seat is Rep. Mike Cronk, R-Tok, a retired teacher. Like Johnson, he first voted for the increase, and later reversed course.
"People know that there was a chance to get a permanent, stable increase to school funding that had bipartisan support, and then they know that people flip-flopped, including my opponent," Fletcher said.
Cronk did not respond to interview requests but told the Anchorage Daily News that the funding formula currently incentivizes districts to keep under-utilized schools open rather than consolidating them and saving money, saying "writing a big check" would not solve the issues with the state's schools.
Fletcher also said recruiting and retaining good teachers would help students do better — and she said returning public-sector workers, including teachers, to a pension plan would go a long way towards that goal. Democrats, independents and some Republicans have made reinstituting state pensions another key issue in races for House and Senate across the state.
Republican Anchorage Hillside Rep. Julie Coulombe said she’s also hearing a lot about her vote to sustain the governor’s veto after initially supporting the bill.
"Obviously, people are going to ask me about that, but most of my conversations with people are not about necessarily education funding, but the quality of education," Coulombe said. "They're concerned about the test scores, they're concerned about the quality of the actual education they're getting, and what we are doing about it."
Coulombe said increased funding to public schools is a “piece of the solution,” but she said districts also need to reevaluate how they’re delivering education as student populations decline. Coulombe said she supports so-called “ right-sizing” efforts in the Anchorage School District that would consolidate schools, saying that’d allow them to take better advantage of shared resources.
Coulombe also said improving retirement benefits could help the state attract and hang onto quality teachers. Like many Republicans, Johnson included, Coulombe said she’s skeptical of returning to a defined benefit plan. But Couloumbe said she’s open to other ideas, including smaller tweaks to the existing 401(k)-style defined contribution plan.
"There's fixes where you could raise the contributions," she said. "You could re-look at entering into Social Security. There are lots of different things that we can look to fix. I'm not going to commit to any one because I would like to see a lot more analysis to see which one would be best for teachers, and what the state can sustain."
Coulombe’s opponent, Calista Corp. executive Walter Featherly, an independent, strongly supports returning to a pension plan and raising per-student funding.
"The need is well known and widely recognized, and it comes up often repeatedly in my conversations with voters," Featherly said.
