Decades of inaction by Alaska’s leadership is leaving kids with the bill. Why are we OK with that?

For decades, our elected leadership at both the legislative and executive levels have neglected to look ahead and find ways to cement a sustainable future for Alaskans. Instead of working to establish and secure new revenue streams, we married ourselves to oil and mining companies that inexplicably continue to receive massive tax cuts, even as the returns of their industries decline. Instead of standing on issues like good schools, quality roads, and affordable energy, political debates are instead hogged by questions about how big of a Permanent Fund dividend one can expect.

In the sphere of Alaska’s public education, this has all culminated in a way that is nothing short of a crisis. The state has not significantly increased the per-student dollar amount that goes to education since 2012, even though inflation has risen a whopping 40% since then. Make no mistake, flat funding in an era of 40% inflation is in fact a cut of 40%. Is it really so surprising that our declining test scores have mirrored that?

All the while, the state shuffles between excuses, claiming we can’t afford to spend more on education (lack of revenue); blaming so-called “special interest groups” (otherwise known as parents, and the teachers who spend 40 hours a week with your children); and insisting that more charter schools will solve all our problems.

Charters in Alaska are a wholly unsustainable model that is not expandable in any way, shape or form. To be clear, instead of addressing the declining enrollment and financial exigency that has led school districts across the state to shutter and consolidate neighborhood schools, the governor is literally proposing we open more schools. He has advocated making the application process easier and having the state take over the approval process, even though it’s the local school district that would have to foot the bill in their budget. We can’t even afford to run the schools we have. We can’t open more.

What’s more, it is imperative that Alaskans understand that every charter school is subsidized by hundreds and hundreds of hours of volunteer work — unpaid work donated by willing families. Charter schools in Alaska are public schools of choice, not neighborhood schools, meaning their enrollment is done by lottery. Families are often required to attend an information night and are asked to sign a document indicating they understand the special commitments associated with attending a charter before they are permitted to even enter the lottery. Those commitments include student transportation (not a single charter in the state is able to offer busing); supplying food (many charter buildings do not have kitchens and do not operate a food program for breakfast or lunch, and some are able to offer only cold lunch options); and volunteer hour quotas. Many charters do not have school nurses, PE teachers, libraries or librarians, music teachers, or counselors. Every family is expected to contribute significant time, labor, and/or money to the school to fill in the gaps.

On no planet is this a sustainable model. This magnitude of commitment is not possible for many, many families. Advocating for more charters is not a way forward; instead, it is the foremost example of the short-sighted leadership that has led Alaska down this devastating path. Public education is not supposed to be a caste system.

The governor is fond of claiming that charters are unilaterally responsible for superior academic performance. This is a spurious connection. Certain legislators are fond of impassioned speeches urging Alaska to prioritize charters because their constituents demand it. That does not legitimize continuing to grow an inequitable system.

What constituents are really demanding is a better education and better experience for their kids. Sadly, the last few decades of underfunding have taught us that such an experience may only be attainable through enrollment at a charter school. Charters are like splinter cells, able to write completely well-intentioned education philosophy into their Magna Carta, allowing them to prioritize small student bodies, low student-to-teacher ratio, alternative learning models that can suit different learners, and immersion into things like place-based learning, the arts, or languages. Our neighborhood schools don’t get to do that, because they can’t afford it. That’s not a reason to put more kids into charters. That’s a reason to demand our government do better.

You cannot blame parents and families. The short-sighted solution from the macro perspective is not short at all when you’re on the ground as the parent of school-aged kids: that “short” time is your kid’s whole school career. As a friend recently observed, you can’t begrudge people for simply utilizing an option that was made available to them at the time. You can’t blame families for choosing what was best for their kids and sinking their hours into small schools of choice instead of lobbying for state-level structural changes that might take years, and generations of politicians, to come to fruition. Those improvements might be altogether too late.

The thing is, it was not the responsibility of families to “zoom out” and understand the complexities at hand in the fight for quality education for all kids — that was on our lawmakers. In our current landscape, charters are seemingly the only option parents have to make a better educational experience for their kids, so you can’t blame them for saying they want it. That’s the kind of short-sightedness you’re entitled to when you suddenly realize you don’t want your 5-year-old going into a kindergarten class of 28 kids. One can, however, blame the state for enabling only that one choice — especially since it’s not actually a choice for so many. We can demand they do better.

Thank you to Sen. Löki Tobin, Rep. Rebecca Himschoot and the other sitting and past legislators who have been education advocates. Now it’s time for the rest of our elected leaders to pull up their bootstraps, look ahead, and get to the work of restoring public education so that it benefits all of Alaska’s kids — not just the ones fortunate enough to attend charters.

Sarah K. Lewis is a lifelong Alaskan living in Fairbanks. She is a parent, photographer and archivist.