OPINION: Alaska students need investment, not more excuses for inaction

Once again, opponents of education are attempting to block adequate funding of our schools with dishonest rhetoric about “student-centered outcomes” and “accountability.” Let’s get real: There’s nothing “student-centered” about overcrowded classrooms with more than 30 children, and teacher shortages, due to uncompetitive teacher compensation. Alaska students already spend more than two weeks on standardized tests each year, and the Legislature just added to all this testing with the passage of the Alaska Reads Act last year — if multiple standardized tests and weeks of testing aren’t “accountability,” then what is?

It’s clear what’s going on here: Opponents of public education are trying to bleed out our schools, and Sarah Montalbano’s recent anti-education op-ed is Exhibit A.

Montalbano’s group, the Alaska Policy Forum, is part of the State Policy Network. According to Sourcewatch.org, “the State Policy Network (SPN) is a web of right-wing ‘think tanks’ and tax-exempt organizations in 50 states,” and “SPN shares many of same sources of funding as the American Legislative Exchange Council or (ALEC), including Koch institutions.” It goes on to detail, “SPN and its ‘think tanks’ are also largely funded by right-wing special interest groups and individuals, including the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, the Coors family, and the Walton Family Foundation.”

So, Montalbano’s organization certainly has an ideological agenda that is not focused on helping Alaska schools and kids succeed. In fact, I would argue, it is quite the opposite. The Alaska Policy Forum has been the loudest, most destructive and most reckless voice in the policy debate about public education for over a decade.

Next, let’s start by looking at the plain facts of some of Montalbano’s claims.

First, Montalbano claimed that Alaska spends more per student. This is not only wrong but disingenuous, and has been used to drive a false narrative about Alaska schools and students. A March 2022 study from the University of Alaska Anchorage Institute of Social and Economic Research was titled “Alaska spending on K-12 education falls below US average.” When adjusted for Alaska cost of living, our per-pupil spending is 93% of the national average.

Next, the author continued her criticism by saying “we are not getting the outcomes we are paying for.” For years, the Alaska Policy Forum has used a drumbeat of criticizing the performance of Alaska students on national standardized tests to tear down our schools.

First, standardized testing can’t be the only measure of student success in Alaska. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, “A strong relationship exists between families’ socioeconomic status and students’ academic achievement.” Alaska has a staggering number of students and families who struggle with poverty. English Language Learners (ELL) are another group that struggles with standardized tests. Research in 2018 documents that “ELL students who are required to take standardized tests feel frustrated and stressful with a low-level self-esteem.” The National Center for Education Statistics finds that Alaska is one of 13 states with 10% or higher of students who are ELL.

Alaska also has a unique Alaska Native and rural Alaska population. It is no surprise to me that students in rural Alaska, and Alaska in general, do not succeed on measures of academic performance developed by educators in Kansas and Iowa for students in Kansas and Iowa. Alaska has long allowed parental opt-out from standardized testing, meaning many of our most engaged students and parents choose to avoid what they perceive as something that is not a good use of time. However, this is the singular benchmark that the policy forum has used for continually opposing investments in education even in the face of school closures, growing class sizes and cuts to school counselors, pre-kindergarten and career and technical education.

What if the Alaska Policy Forum used other measures to consider how schools are performing? What if they looked at whether students have access to school counselors, school nurses, Advanced Placement classes and opportunities to access career and technical education?

What about the number of our students who go on to university? Or the number of students who enter a high-skill and high-pay trade or craft following their high school graduation?

It seems to me that the measure of our student success needs to include more than student performance on national standardized tests without regard to the many other factors that make a difference. Parents, would you say that your student and your school are failing and the worst in the country?

At the same time that the Alaska Policy Forum is opposing “throwing more money at dismal education outcomes,” they are championing a policy that allows parents to divert public dollars to entirely unaccountable private, religious and for-profit educational institutions. In the same opinion piece, the author recommended a Tennessee policy that increases funding for schools that are succeeding. You read that right — schools that are performing well would get more resources, while struggling schools and students would be punished.

Just last legislative session, the Alaska Policy Forum was a proud and vocal supporter of the Alaska Reads Act. This bipartisan legislation created additional accountability for school districts, students and educators. It should be a signature policy achievement, but there is additional work and funding required to implement the individual reading plans, further parental notification, and additional after-school and summer programming.

Richard Kern is a retired math and music teacher. He taught for 17 years in Western Alaska and currently lives in Chugiak.

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