Bill Bjork’s remarks at school funding news conference
NEA-Alaska Anchorage Regional Office
April 14, 2005

Good afternoon.  Thank you for coming.  I invited you here today for one reason: 

NEA-Alaska represents more than 12,500 teachers and education support professionals in kindergarten-through-12th grade schools, and we are fed up with what's going on in Juneau.

We are fed up with a legislature that promised early funding for schools—then didn’t deliver.

We are fed up with a legislature that’s got only 25 ½ days left—but can’t get off the dime and do what’s right for our schools.

We are fed up with a legislature that can sit and listen to parents and principals and teachers and school boards and superintendents—all testifying with great eloquence & expertise that $70 million won’t come close to meeting the needs of our schools—and then the legislature sticks with that $70 million.

We are fed up with a legislature that’s literally awash in a sea of dollars—yet claims that it can’t afford to invest more than the meager $70 million in our schools.

We are fed up with a legislature that can conveniently “forget” the fact that our schools desperately need resources to get us back up toward adequacy—after two decades of crippling losses to inflation.

We are fed up with a legislature that insults the people of Alaska by assuming we can’t do the simplest math of all:

• Last year, when our budget surplus was $50 million—schools got $82 million.

• This year, when our budget surplus is $520 million—ten times bigger than last year’s—schools are getting . . . $12 million less???

• This just does not compute.

We are fed up with a legislature that has apparently forgotten its campaign promises to put education first and fund our schools adequately.

We are fed up with a legislature that has apparently forgotten its sworn obligation under the Alaska Constitution—to give every child in Alaska the opportunity for an education.

We are fed up with a legislature that can callously disregard the fear and disruption that teachers and their families face when they get layoff notices from their district.

And we are fed up with a legislature that’s frittering away this golden opportunity afforded by record-setting revenues and not coming up with a long-term solution for adequate school funding. 

These are harsh, harsh words, I know.  And we are painting with a very broad brush today.  Alaska’s schools have many friends in the legislature—on both sides of the aisle.  And we certainly recognize the progress of the last two years—especially when you compare it with the past two decades of losing more than 48 cents of every school dollar to inflation.

But we are the ones who live and breathe this huge funding gap in our schools every day.

We see district budgets cut to the bone—and then cut some more.

We teach in the overcrowded classrooms where too many students are crying out for the individual attention that we just can’t give them.

We patch together textbooks that are literally falling apart yet can’t be replaced because there’s no money.

We reach deep into our own pockets to help make up for the shortages in the classroom—but it’s never enough.

We see too many of our friends and colleagues leave to take better paying jobs in another state—or in another profession.

We see too many children denied the remedial tutoring they need to pass the benchmark tests and exit exam.

We see too many children denied the advanced placement classes and high-level courses that will get them into prestigious universities.

I could go on and on.  What I am hoping to achieve today is a wake-up call.  A jolt that will refocus the legislature’s attention where it should be: 

On our schools, our children, and our future.

Because I am a high school math teacher, I think numbers can be as eloquent as words.  So I want to spend the rest of our time walking you through the chart and the tables with their simple mathematical comparisons.  The numbers tell a devastating story all their own.  Let’s begin here:

Dollars, dollars everywhere

But pennies for our schools

The needs differ from district to district, but…

A wealth of ways & means