Letter to the editor

Reader: Governor missed key points about education

To the editor:

In his recent editorial about schools, the governor forgot some key facts. Using an example of Anchorage, their schools’ measures of progress show that charters on average actually deliver much lower math and reading growth in a year than neighborhood schools. Alaska charters in general only score better at year-end because more of their students come from affluent families and start the year with higher scores. By the end of a year, however, charter students have gained far less than one year’s worth of learning on average.

Secondly, student scores statewide have dropped with the expansion of class sizes. Mr. Dunleavy forgot to say that some 2,000 teachers disappeared from classrooms over 15 years as the real-dollar base student allocation fell by 20 percent. Now, our pupils-per-teacher ratio is among the highest in the USA and student proficiency has fallen one year behind the country. You can check it out on the websites for the state education department and at ceequity.org.

Lastly, correspondence schools have turned into cash cows for their administrators, and they don’t bother to account for results. Indeed, principals say that many home-schoolers have to go back to their neighborhood schools for remedial education to catch up to their grade level peers.

Mike Bronson,

Anchorage