Cutting school funds a bad idea

The year was 1974, nine years before the first dividend fund checks found their way into Alaskan mailboxes.

I can still remember watching from my classroom window, the Anchorage School Districts old green pickup with the crudely manufactured hot mop circling the ice rink at Lake Otis Elementary School. And at 3:30, most school day afternoons, you could find me sitting on the school bench with several buddies, lacing up our skates to play hockey.

In 1992, eighteen years later as the president of the PTA at Gladys Wood Elementary School, I was again dealing with the ice rink. The Anchorage School District had stopped maintaining local school ice rinks due to budget cuts and the effort to have volunteers take over the maintenance was running into problems because of liability concerns.

That same October, every eligible Alaskan received a permanent fund dividend check of about $900. Would you consider that progress?

So recently when proposed cuts that equal over twenty five million dollars in reductions to education support, I seemed to flash back to an Education and Youth Policy speech, which was given on August 30.

In it, the importance of education funding was addressed by noting, “the only real assurance for good schools, rewarding teacher pay and quality instructional tools is a Governor committed to working with the legislature to secure adequate funding of education”.

So now after clarifying that adequate funding of education actually meant a $26.7 million dollar decrease, a question quickly came to my mind. If we are in fact investing too much money in education, why has one of the biggest debates in the legislature the last four years has been whither to build a private or public prison?  

Over the last four years, we’ve passed legislation authorizing the state to build private prisons in three different Alaskan communities. Each proposal would have added an additional twelve to eighteen million dollars a year to the fiscal gap. Education never received that kind of special interest in closed caucus.

However, we know that with a growing economy and a strong education community, Alaska can breed an atmosphere of productivity that will alleviate the need for prison beds. Now is not the time to be taking away resources from local schools and an equally important commitment to the University of Alaska.

But instead the proposals include reducing the money available to reimburse local school districts for transportation costs. Already, the Anchorage School District is using larger school buses to increase efficiency and is serving fewer bus routes than they did ten years ago.  

Another proposal is to reduce the learning opportunity grants, at the same time we’re expecting the education community to meet stringent performance measures designed to improve student and teacher accountability.

The fact is over the last ten years, in an atmosphere of budget cutting, the amount of education funding hasn’t provided enough resources to meet the needs of a fast changing learning environment. A tremendous influx of students whose learning needs continue to change the landscape of our local schools, coupled with new performance mandates passed by the legislature as well as the federal no child left behind act has left Alaskan school districts struggling for ways to meet these important measures.

Throw in the fact that studies have shown that in the coming years there will be a nationwide shortage of over two million teachers, means we should be strengthening our ability to produce more great Alaskan minds, not less.

It’s also makes great economic sense. A quick glance of the budget shows the fastest growing expenditure is the cost of health coverage for low income Alaskans. Increasing our investment to education and job training will not only strengthen our state but also slow the rapid increases in government sponsored health care expense.

I think it’s probably safe to say that cutting our investment in education while adopting video gambling in bars doesn’t do a whole lot for increasing the economic productivity of Alaskans. I think the students who vote for that plan should stay after class.