Alaska deserves better than simple piecemeal education funding

The state’s Joint Legislative Education Funding Task Force has been meeting since May to come up with a comprehensive plan for revamping how we fund our schools.

In that time, the task force has instead chosen to support the findings of a 2005 University of Anchorage Alaska study that examines specific areas of education funding. The result are recommendations that help flagging areas like allocating money for intensive needs students and attracting quality teachers to teach in remote places.

When it comes to adequate, responsive and responsible funding for education, we need to do more than simply address a few categories of education. The task force did well identifying some specific areas of weakness in how Alaska funds education. It’s a good start. What concerns us about this process is the task force toed the line for a sprint when it should be running a marathon. A summer is not nearly enough time for any group or task force to come up with a comprehensive plan that would require an entirely new method of funding education in our state.

To make the task force’s recommendations work will be the challenge for lawmakers in 2008. It will be up to the Legislature because the task force, while recommending increasing education spending by about $170 million by 2013, has no idea how to fund its findings.

What happens past 2013, when our education funding is $170 million more than today and the task force’s recommendations run their course?

We don’t know, and that’s the problem. This isn’t long-term fiscal planning on how the state should fund education; it’s an expense account for several areas of education spending that will sunset in six years.

That the issue needs more time and direction is a concern shared by state Sen. Gary Wilken, R-Fairbanks, who has attached a letter to the task force report.

“There is not an urgent need to radically alter the formula by changing an individual piece without considering its impact on the whole formula,” he writes. “If we, as the Alaska State Legislature, need to adjust our education funding formula, let us do so with a collaborative, well-funded, well-staffed effort.”

He’s also concerned the recommendations do not require districts be accountable for the extra money they would receive.

We agree that how our state funds education needs some serious scrutiny, study and changing, if appropriate. The Mat-Su Borough School District is involved in ongoing litigation over changes in how the state determines a student qualifies as special needs. State funding for special needs students comes to about $30,000 a year while it costs the district $75,000 to $100,000.

It is apparent Alaska needs a more comprehensive formula for adequately funding education. We hope Gov. Sarah Palin and the Legislature recognize the Joint Legislative Education Funding Task Force has started the race, not crossed the finish line.