Below are a few ideas to guide you when you communicate with lawmakers.  The most important guideline is:  Write/speak from the heart—personalize your own experience/concerns. 

 

FUNDING:  What impact does inadequate funding have in your classroom or your school?  Educators have enormous credibility.  You live and breathe the funding shortages every year, and you know the toll it takes on the children of Alaska.

 

• Ask for increase in Base Student Allocation from current $5,380 to $5,953.

• Alaska schools lost almost ½ their buying power from two decades of flat funding (1982-2002)

• This year’s funding must cover inflation, PERS/TRS retirement costs, AND partially fill the 20-year funding gap.

• State funding should reflect the true costs of educating students—not what’s politically expedient. 

• Alaska districts losing their competitive edge—having more & more trouble attracting & keeping quality teachers & other educators.

• Alaska is in danger of becoming a “starter” state—where young teachers move north to get their Alaska experience, then in a few years head back to the Lower 48 to districts that offer them more.

• Among priorities for increased funding:

  • Restore or offer vocation education

  • Restore or offer advanced placement (AP) classes for gifted & talented

  • Attract & retain quality teachers

  • Provide up-to-date textbooks & technology

  • Reduce class size to allow for more individual attention

  • Provide early intervention and special tutoring for at-risk students

 

RETIREMENT:

• Alaska is not a Social Security state for teachers.  No safety net in 401K-type retirement plan.

• Return Alaska to a defined benefit system. 

• Alaska is the only state in the nation to offered a defined contribution plan and no Social Security for its teachers.

• Under new retirement system, Alaska can’t compete with other states for best teachers, police officers, and firefighters.

• Alaska is in danger of becoming a “starter” state—where young public employees move north to get their Alaska experience, then in a few years head back to the Lower 48 for better paying jobs with better retirement—PLUS Social Security.

• Defined contribution retirement system will create huge brain drain in public sector—this will undermine state’s ability to carry out its constitutionally mandated functions of public safety and education.