Leadership needed in Juneau to solve education crisis

Spectrum/Rev. Howard Bess

The signs are very clear. The Valley is headed for an educational crisis.

There are not enough classrooms for our kids. Class sizes are stretching the abilities of teachers to provide quality education. The Mat-Su Borough Assembly will not even provide the needed money for additional portable classrooms. Our state legislators are not giving leadership to acquire the state funding needed to build new schools.

The educational tensions due to overcrowded classrooms are focused on our Valley. The Mat-Su Borough School District is the only district in the state of Alaska with large growth numbers. State legislators from other areas do not feel responsible for our educational needs and do not understand the looming crisis.

If Reps. Gatto and Kohring and Sen. Green do not take aggressive leadership, nothing will happen in Juneau to help us out of our dilemma.

With the recent upswing in oil prices, surplus money is in the state treasury. The Legislature is in a position to provide the millions of dollars needed for new school construction. The construction cost split of 80-percent state funding and 20-percent local funding is entirely affordable by both state and borough. Investment in new school construction is one of the best uses of money that I can imagine.

I suspect that if the state Legislature would act decisively in this session, the Mat-Su Borough would be quick to follow and would place the necessary bond issues before Valley people ASAP. Green, Gatto and Kohring have seniority in the Legislature. They are in the majority party. Now is the time for them to see themselves as representing the needs of Valley children.

School construction is only one part of the funding dilemma. The state funding formula needs revision. The basic problem is that the formula does not make any provision for inflation. At one time, the Alaska school funding formula was considered very generous, but inflation has made it inadequate.

As a senior citizen, I have now lived for 15 years on retirement income. I have two basic sources of retirement income - Social Security and my ministerial pension program. Both are inflation proofed. My wife and I live in comfort. Just now, we would be in financial difficulty if it were not for inflation-proofed income. 1989 income does not cover 2005 bills.

This dynamic should be easily understood, yet the public does not accept that the very same dynamic is killing public-school education.

The state Legislature is responsible for putting together a long-range financial plan for Alaska. With funds available and with the public demanding a long-range financial plan, it is unthinkable for the Legislature to ignore the need to inflation-proof public education.

To get where we need to go with public-school education, we need to cultivate a different attitude toward education. As reported in the Frontiersman, a recent public hearing before the Mat-Su School Board brought out a very large and vocal crowd. My reading of the report is that parents were of one voice - "I want the best for my child!"

What a pity! It is the cry of the selfish conservative. The public cry that is needed is, "We want the best for all our children!"

Allow me to suggest a different standard. The educational needs of the poorest, most disadvantaged, most underprivileged child in the Valley are just as important as the educational needs of any child from any household.

That includes my grandchildren. As an unabashed, devoted follower of Jesus of Nazareth, I would be embarrassed to subcribe to any other standard.

Recently I saw a bumper sticker about the need of a tax cap. Such thinking is the first shot of the selfish conservative, who is willing to leave thousands of children behind rather than pay a fair share of the cost of an educated society.

The connection between selfish conservatives and some of our Christian churches is very clear. They have strayed far away from the Jesus who was the constant advocate for the poor and the disadvantaged.

Along with increased funding for school buildings and basic school funding, we need a few more Christians who take Jesus seriously.

The Rev. Howard Bess is the pastor of The Church of the Covenant, the American Baptist Church in Palmer.