Gov. Mike Dunleavy on Friday debuted his plan for education reforms and some funding increases for correspondence programs and career and technical education while railing against requests for increased funding to the base student allocation.
The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is among several Alaska school districts calling for more funding this year amid significant deficits. The local district this month said it’s facing a $17 million deficit driven by stagnant funding that’s failed to keep up with inflation; Anchorage School District on Friday announced a $100 million deficit and the Fairbanks school district has proposed school closures to account for a $16 million deficit.
The proposed reforms, per a release from Dunleavy’s office on Friday, include a pilot program for public state-tribal education compact schools; lump sum payments to Alaska teachers intended to drive retention; a bar on cellphone use in schools; and an increase to funding for correspondence programs, career and technical education and boarding schools.
The proposed reforms also include “incentive grants” to school districts that would provide $450 for every kindergarten though sixth grade student who demonstrates reading improvement or who achieves reading proficiency goals.
The text of two identical omnibus bills — House Bill 76 and Senate Bill 82— filed Friday in the Alaska House and Senate also would expand eligibility of students to attend public schools “in or outside the school district in which the child is a resident,” would allow the State Board of Education and Early Development or any other delegated committee, political subdivision or agency to approve charter school applications without requiring school district approval.
At the start of a Friday press conference, Dunleavy acknowledged that the Alaska Legislature has been focused with “pretty good conversations” about education funding in the first weeks of the session.
“Everybody wants to get a package done,” he said. “We are working through some ways to try and facilitate that.”
During the conference, however, Dunleavy struck a combative tone when asked about how his reforms might partner with requests by school districts and others for increased funding within the base student allocation.
“There’s one side that’s just talking about money,” he said. “We’re talking about money and policy coming together. That’s what this bill does. There’ll be money in it.”
Dr. Deena Bishop, commissioner of the State Department of Education and Early Development, opened the discussion on Dunleavy’s reform omnibus bills by pointing to results published by the National Assessment of Education Progress on Wednesday. Per those results, Alaska ranks 51st of 53 United States jurisdictions in Grade 4 Math, Grade 4 Reading and Grade 8 Reading — also 47th in Grade 8 math.
Those results, Bishop said, indicate “a disparity” between Alaska students and their peers throughout the nation.
“School funding discussions must not focus only on dollars spent, but on the return of the investments to our schools,” Bishop said. “By setting these high standards and empowering parents with educational options, we create an environment where educators can thrive and students can succeed.”
Dunleavy said that the results represent “a moral imperative” to support his reform proposals. If the state were to increase funding, he said, “I don’t see how this changes.”
Much of the discussion during the press conference centered on Dunleavy’s desire to open more charter schools. He said giving the authority to approve charter schools to the state board, rather than districts is necessary because school districts aren’t authorizing enough charters.
Charter schools, Bishop said, are “true community schools” that children love to attend and where parents and teachers can work together — she didn’t describe why that definition fails to apply to ordinary public schools.
Dunleavy, though stopping short of saying he wouldn’t support any increase to the BSA, said that his package included funding and that he was frustrated by the repeated lobbying for increase funding, which he perceives as coming at the expense of people calling for improved test scores.
“We’re doing money,” he said. “This is a complete package. The other side just wants money and they want us to shut up about this. That’s the problem, you can’t shut up about this — it stares you right in the face.”
Dunleavy said that a bill he supports will have policy and funding in it, also that the funding will be multiyear to address the concerns about uncertainty raised by districts in the face of continued reliance by the state on one-time funding passed late in the legislative session. But, he said, school districts may well need to contract because Alaska’s population is declining and growing older.
Bishop said that the omnibus bill includes increased funding to school districts for vocational instruction, and would also increase correspondence funding from 90% of what a brick and mortar school would receive per student to 100% and would increase stipends for boarding schools. There’s also the $450 per student grants to school districts for students meeting reading goals.
The total statewide increase would be around $117 million in the next school year and $181 million in 2027.
That increase would likely be insufficient to combat the significant budget deficit faced by the KPBSD. Facing a $17 million deficit, KPBSD Superintendent Clayton Holland earlier this month said that an increase to the BSA of $1,000 or more would be necessary to avoid significant cuts.
In the days before Friday’s conference, the House Education Committee held hearings on House Bill 69, which would increase the amount of money each school district receives per student by the average rate of inflation of the last three years plus $1,000 in the coming fiscal year before then providing for two more increases of $404 plus inflation in 2026 and 2027.
That total of $1,808, besides the inflation increases, matches the reported inflation since 2011, when the BSA was set at $5,680. In the 13 years since, the BSA has increased by only $280 — to $5,960 for the current fiscal year.
Over more than seven hours of testimony that week on HB 69, the committee heard from Holland — who reported that the local school district was considering “massive” cuts to staffing, programs and facilities to meet the $17 million deficit.
Dozens of others from districts around Alaska also testified.
Over the last 10 years, facing a largely stagnant base student allocation, the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District has been made to cut $50 million from its budget, Erin Morotti, a former school board treasurer, testified. They’d cut 250 positions in that time, and in the last three years Fairbanks has seen three schools close — and five more are on the chopping block this year.
Families and teachers reported on the challenges of school consolidations, increasing class sizes, families leaving the state because of declining school districts and the impacts of years of budget cuts.
Many who spoke asked the committee to consider adding reforms to HB 69 to make it more palatable for the governor. Last year, Dunleavy vetoed a Senate bill including an increase of $680 to the BSA because it lacked some of his priorities — including the support for charter schools and teacher bonuses that he reintroduced Friday.
Those who spoke in opposition to HB 69 echoed talking points repeatedly raised by Dunleavy, saying that the state is spending too much on education that is failing to perform.
“Until you guys make the changes in a fundamental way of providing education in Alaska no amount of money is going to fix the failure our educational system has become,” Big Lake resident Bill Houghtaling said. “I can’t wait for Gov. Dunleavy to veto this when it’s passed at the end of the 34th legislative session.”
Members of the KPBSD Board of Education said during their last meeting on Jan. 13 that they’re frustrated by the repeated calls for improved outcomes. That same day, district staff reported back on the KPBSD’s AK Star, mClass and other test results from 2024 — reporting across different metrics and different assessments that KPBSD students are outperforming state averages and showing marked improvements in their subjects across the duration of the school year.
“I’m just tired, tired, tired of hearing people talk about what a crummy job we’re doing,” school board member Patti Truesdell said. “We’re not doing a crummy job. We’re doing an excellent job. Our students are rock stars.”
The Senate majority has also said it plans to introduce its own education funding bill. On the first day of the session, during a majority press conference, Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, outlined “a real crisis in education” and said that a funding bill would materialize early in the session. Funding, he said, should be tackled separately from education policy and first.
Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, in a Friday statement said that a significant increase to funding is necessary to provide schools with the resources they need — to attract teachers, to make Alaska’s youth “the best students in the nation” and to encourage families to come to Alaska. Flat funding and high inflation, he writes, “has pushed our public education system into crisis.” He says the governor’s efforts to tie outcomes to funding needs will exacerbate that crisis, and that the effort to remove charter school authority from elected school boards in favor of unelected state boards is “a no-go.”
“Districts have had to eliminate too many opportunities for our youngest Alaskans because the state has not kept up with the basic needs inside the classrooms,” he writes. “We have to provide teachers and students with the basic needs first, before we can expect them to do more with less.”
A full recording of Dunleavy’s press conference and all the testimony to the House Education Committee can be found at ktoo.org/gavel.
Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.