Kohring giveth, and Kohring taketh away

Frontiersman editorial board

Rep. Vic Kohring has six new points, and he wants to talk about them with his constituents tomorrow from 1 to 5 p.m., in the Machetanz Building, Room 204 on the Mat-Su College campus.

These points are specifically related to Alaska's education woes, and Kohring believes he's got a plan to pull our school districts out of a free-fall that threatens to leave many of our children without parachutes or soft places to land. Though Alaska school districts have been jettisoning programs and services for several years, our legislators, as is so often the case, waited until a significant number of bodies began hitting the ground before getting on the radio.

"Hey, we've got teachers and programs bouncing off the ground down here. Is everything OK up there?"

Of course, teachers, administrators, parents and students had called in the first Mayday at least two years ago, but the Legislature was too busy closing down state parks and lunching with special interests to pay attention.

Now Kohring has looked up from his efforts to assist the coal-bed methane industry write its own legislation, and he apparently spotted Alaska's educational system plummeting from the sky -- it wasn't hard to spot, it's pretty close to the ground right now.

Kohring's plan appears to be a mix of good intentions and bad execution -- just enough to show he's on the right team, but nowhere near any possibility of being seriously considered by the Legislature. It's a tactic we've seen before. Kohring's original 10-Point Plan has been around for years, and it's no closer to the hearts and minds of other legislators now.

In his education plan, Kohring hopes to put 5 million acres of state land up for sale and use the proceeds for education -- encouraging development at the same time. Though he doesn't specify where that land would be, or what kind of development he hopes for. He also wants to "infuse" $40 million into school districts this year, but doesn't specify where that money will come from. Another source of income will come from cutting the state operating budget by such measures as eliminating funding to what Kohring calls the "special interests" of fisheries marketing, tourism marketing and agriculture -- important parts of the state's economy. In the end, he comes around to the Republicans' pet education nostrum, vouchers.

Strange that the first five points address ways, though unlikely, to fund public education, and the sixth point seeks to suck money out of it. We hope plenty of parents, teachers and students will attend Kohring's town meeting. There are so many questions to ask.