OPINION: Turning Alaska around starts with revitalizing our schools

The current crisis in our public schools in Alaska, most recently demonstrated by the proposed school closures in Anchorage, was entirely predictable and avoidable. Unfortunately, our past leaders ignored the warnings and calls to action, and we slowly watched this train wreck become a depressing reality.

Ten years ago, along with many other parents, teachers and community members, I began aggressively advocating to restore and protect funding for public education. We pressured the Legislature and governor for three things: adequate funding (restoring school funding that had been cut in previous years), consistent and predictable funding (raising the Base Student Allocation to keep up with inflation), and protecting public school funds from being diverted to private schools.

As we began to see this crisis emerge in 2012-2014, we talked with thousands of parents, educators, superintendents and students throughout the state to determine whether this was a local or state problem. We learned that the crisis looked different in each school district, but the common theme was that each year, the school boards in every district were faced with making cuts. We sat through hundreds of hours of budget and audit meetings because there were rumors that there was gross waste at the district level. While we found this was not true, we learned where the unpredictable rising costs in public education spending is: health care benefits for educators.

At the time, we warned that our schools were underfunded, that they were having to make short-term decisions that would have terrible long-term consequences, and our school system infrastructure (not just buildings, but teachers, support staff, bus drivers, counselors and administrators) were beginning to fray and crumble from within.

The destruction of a statewide public education system does not happen suddenly or all at once. It occurs almost imperceptibly, one day at a time, with folks running around trying to plug the holes and fill in the cracks, until it is too late and the entire structure collapses. That is tragically what we are all witnessing today: bus routes without drivers to bring kids to school, teachers strained to the breaking point with the worst teacher morale we’ve ever seen, parents fearful that they’re kids are now getting a sub-standard education and what that means for their future. Removing schools at this time, leaving entire neighborhoods without their elementary school that serves the children, the families as a community hub and for emergency purposes, in order to save at most $4 million of a $68 million budget deficit, is shortsighted, and will cost us in the long run. We have to turn this around!

Like its destruction, the restoration of the Alaska school system will not happen overnight. It will take years, and a consistent concerted effort to regain the confidence of those we need to work in our schools, rebuild the physical spaces we use for public education, and re-engage the families and educators who desperately want our public schools to recover.

Providing sufficient funding is only the first step. When our school district administrators are freed from analyzing which yearly cuts will damage our kids the least, sending out then retracting pink slips to teachers, and completing the overwhelming paperwork that goes with trying to patch budget holes with grants, they will be able to get back to the also-challenging primary task of educating our kids in the 21st century. We will need innovation and flexibility to create modern curriculum, and our school leaders will need the opportunity to focus on these critical tasks.

Like any recovery activity, the cost per item will initially be greater than if it had been properly maintained all along. Unfortunately, for the foreseeable future, we will need to make an investment in our schools that will be greater, on a per student basis, than what we have spent in the past. We have seen a large number of families leave Alaska over the past few years, and our school enrollment is similarly down. That will help with the overall dollars spent, but it shouldn’t cause us to expect the overall costs to decrease.

This is an investment in Alaska’s future. Not just for the kids in school today, but as a way to attract families that we need to grow our overall economy. Only by restoring our public education system can we expect to bring Alaska back to a place where people see a future and a place to raise their families. Let’s do it.

Alyse Galvin is one of the founders of Great Alaska Schools, was a candidate for Alaska’s sole seat in the U.S. Congress in 2018 and 2020, and is currently running for State House in District 14 – Midtown Anchorage.

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