Education

Alaska lawmakers say researchers weren't given the right questions for education studies

State lawmakers say two education studies they ordered at a cost of nearly a half-million dollars may have provided new information about teacher salaries and school construction, but said almost nothing about the real questions they had: how to save money and improve the performance of Alaska students.

Rep. Lynn Gattis, R-Wasilla, called both studies a waste of money.

"It's disappointing that the right questions were not asked," she said in an interview.

Researchers presented the two studies at a Legislative Budget and Audit Committee hearing Tuesday and a disconnect soon became clear between what lawmakers wanted researchers to analyze and what state administrations hired them to analyze.

The studies were ordered in then-Gov. Sean Parnell's omnibus education bill, passed in 2014.

Together, the studies concluded that a one-size-fits-all approach for teachers' salaries and school design and construction wouldn't work for Alaska's sprawling public school system.

Rejecting some of those findings, Sen. Anna MacKinnon, R-Eagle River, said at the meeting that she looked forward to advancing talks on "prototypical" school construction and designs -- or simply producing more cookie-cutter-style buildings.

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"Coming as a policymaker, we are just trying to standardize as much as possible so that we can put more money into the classroom," MacKinnon said.

The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development paid $373,522 for the study done by Nvision Architecture in Anchorage and DeJong-Richter, an Ohio-based educational planning firm, said department spokesman Eric Fry.

Paul Baril, a principal architect at Nvision, presented lists of advantages and disadvantages of statewide standardization at the meeting Tuesday, as he said the state requested. He described the study as a "fact-finding mission."

Baril said that statewide standardization could save school districts money if designs were "well thought out" and tested. The standardized system could also quickly accommodate student population growth and promote equity.

However, most Alaska schools currently have stationary or declining student enrollments, plus diverse soil conditions, community populations and energy sources, he said. School districts also generally encourage community involvement in the design, he said.

In addition, researchers looked into "component prototyping," or having certain parts of design and construction remain the same across schools, which came with some similar pros and cons.

Baril said researchers found that at least eight Alaska school districts already used prototype school designs, including Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, Fairbanks and Lower Kuskokwim.

MacKinnon asked if Baril and his team looked at any cost savings associated with standardizing design and construction. Baril said that the firms were not contracted to analyze that.

With that response, Gattis said, "I just about fell over in my chair."

Gattis, who phoned into the meeting, said lawmakers needed to know about costs. Without that piece, she labeled the study's conclusion as invalid.

(The education bill ordered that the Education Department present a study "on the benefits and disadvantages of using prototypical designs for school construction in both the Railbelt and rural areas of the state.")

Researchers with the University Alaska Anchorage Center for Alaska Education Policy Research presented the second study on school district salary schedules and teacher tenure. The study cost the state $93,000, according to Andy Mills of the state Department of Administration.

The study concluded that implementing a standardized salary schedule for teachers would cost too much. The salary schedule took into account student demographics, distance from a hub city and employment rates, among several other factors.

To adhere to the schedule, school districts would have to pay their teachers anywhere from 6 percent less to 105 percent more. These salaries would help ensure they attracted and retained highly qualified teachers, the study said.

"I anticipated that it would be a tool that we could all look at," Gattis said. "I don't see it as a tool."

Lawmakers said the salary study didn't account for student learning outcomes.

"Maybe the administration didn't recognize the intent of the bill," MacKinnon said.

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Rep. Mike Hawker, an Anchorage Republican and chair of the legislative committee, said while the report measured what it took to get a teacher to a school, it did not look into whether students learned under that teacher.

"We apparently asked the wrong question. What is the right question we should be asking?" he said.

Diane Hirshberg, the UAA center director, said researchers were not tasked to look into educational outcomes. But she said lawmakers could ask something like, "How do we invest the money to get the student outcomes we really want to see?" Then, they could define those outcomes.

(The bill said that the Administration Department would present the Legislature with "a written proposal for a salary and benefits schedule for school districts, including an evaluation of, and recommendations for, teacher tenure.")

Rep. Sam Kito III, D-Juneau, said after the meeting he did not think the state should implement a standardized construction and design model or statewide teacher salary schedule. Both, he said, should be left up to individual school districts.

Hawker said the Legislature needs information on salaries tied to student performance. However, he said the two studies are part of a series of studies requested in the omnibus bill and together they will help inform discussions.

"Every bit of information one gets, helps resolve the problem," he said.

Tegan Hanlon

Tegan Hanlon was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News between 2013 and 2019. She now reports for Alaska Public Media.

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