Rural-urban unity needed for education
From the Anchorage Daily News | By: Sens. Hollis French and Lyman Hoffman
Education funding is one of the Legislature’s familiar battlegrounds. Contributing to this annual clash is the thorny question of how to achieve fairness between rural schools and urban schools. The debate can take many shapes.
For example, the Legislature has grappled for years with how to capture, in a precise number, the reality that it costs more to equip and staff a school in Akutan than it does in Wasilla. Since millions of dollars of education funds hinge on the numerical factor applied to each community, reaching a lasting agreement has been difficult.
Another example: This year the Senate debated and passed, by the slimmest of margins, a flat-rate rural head tax, touted by its proponents as a fair method for rural residents to contribute to educating their children. We voted no because we saw the measure as poorly crafted and regressive.
When these policy issues spill into the public arena, the debate is often skewed by misconceptions. It is not uncommon to hear urban residents disparagingly allude to rural schools as miniature palaces dotting the tundra, complete with swimming pools and shiny new computers.
Predictably, the truth is more complex. Swimming pools in schools? There are exactly two public swimming pools in all of Senate District S, a land mass the size of Minnesota. One is in the Naknek school and the other is not a school pool; rather, it belongs to the city of Unalaska.
Fancy extras such as high-tech labs and recreation equipment are often the last things on the minds of district officials in rural Alaska, where priorities include renovating half-century-old school buildings and installing basic safety equipment such as sprinkler systems. That’s right. The Dillingham school lacks fire sprinklers, a situation any parent would find unacceptable.
Moreover, of the 25 most pressing capital improvement projects for schools statewide, nearly half are in Senate S alone.
Overcrowding adds to the strain on old facilities. Many schools in the area have reached or exceeded 150 percent capacity. Teacher turnover rates in rural Alaska are a constant concern. The education challenges in rural Alaska are immense.
Urban Alaska faces its own set of challenges. Take a walk down the halls of Anchorage’s first high school, West High, and you will quickly conclude the upgrade being planned for that campus is long overdue. Portable classrooms crowd the lawns at many Anchorage schools, and class sizes remain high, especially in K-six. In fact, in the Anchorage School District, the percentage of overcrowded first-grade classrooms has more than doubled in the past six years.
Add to a crowded classroom an ever-growing student base that encompasses many diverse cultures, and where 95 languages are spoken, and you begin to see the scope of the problem.
For these reasons and more, we will not support the governor’s proposed education funding request, which only provides for inflation and increased retirement costs.
Rural and urban senators in the Democratic caucus are looking at concrete, proven methods to improve Alaska’s education system. We believe every student, from Napaskiak to Northern Lights Boulevard, deserves an up-to-date textbook and a classroom in good repair. Every youth should have the option for pre-K education that allows them to jump-start their reading, math and social skills.
In rural Alaska, as in Anchorage, education and vocational training are essential steps in preparing our youths to fill the good jobs that already exist here — jobs as teachers, nurses and law enforcement officers.
Together, we represent one of the largest senate districts and one of the smallest, one of the most rural areas of the state and one of the most urban. While some would emphasize the differences between the two, we prefer to see Bush Alaskans and city Alaskans united in a quest for an education system that ranks among the best in the nation. Education is the key to a unified and successful Alaska.
Sen. Hollis French represents District M, which includes the Anchorage neighborhoods of Turnagain and Spenard. Sen. Lyman Hoffman represents District S, which covers Bethel, the Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Chain.
