By Bill Bjork
February 2008 AKtivist

Early and forward K-12 funding – finally a reality?

I’ve been in the teaching profession in Alaska for more than 30 years. During all this time there has been one constant: K-12 school funding comes out of the state capitol in Juneau at the very last minute.

The public school budget is one of the few mandates in Alaska’s Constitution. It has long been used as a political chip by legislators to leverage other bills. All of us in the education family know that the lack of a budget out of Juneau by mid-March has caused the loss of many valuable teachers. Districts have had to “pink slip” educators until K-12 funding is known, usually around mid-May. Although districts would offer to “rehire” the teachers, unfortunately, too many of them simply cannot stand the annual “pink-slip Kabuki dance.”

This legislative session, the process could be different. There are three ingredients that have led us to a POSSIBLE first-ever K-12 budget by March 15th:

• A joint Legislative Education Funding Task Force worked all summer in 2007 to come up with solutions.

• Governor Palin improved upon the task force recommendations on the Base Student Allocation, suggesting a $200 BSA increase each year for the next three years.

• The state has excess revenue that allows us to talk about forward- and multi-year funding.

Already this session K-12 funding has made it through one Finance Committee and could be on the House floor as you read this. The most important element of K-12 funding is that the dollars must be adequate to provide the resources for ALL children to meet our Alaska standards!

The members of NEA-Alaska have worked for these improvements for so long that it’s difficult to believe. Some lawmakers point only to the improved funding that schools have received since 2002, but fail to look back at the massive loss of buying power (almost 50 cents of every dollar) our schools suffered from 1983 through 2001.

Legislators are blessed this year with the resources to do the right thing by education and make up for some of the ground lost over time. Alaska was #1 in teacher salary in the early 1990s. We’re now in the teens. Other significant problems make Alaska far less attractive than when Debby and I moved to Arctic Village in 1977 to teach. In those days and up until two years ago, Alaska had one of the better retirement plans in the nation. Now we have the absolute worst.

Early and forward funding of K-12 will not solve all of the problems, but it will allow teachers, education support professionals, administrators, and parents to plan. Schools should be forwarded funded so we can focus on student achievement and doing the best job possible for Alaska’s children.