Sobering fact: Alaska has cut 600 teachers since 2011

To the editor:

We can’t move education forward with the governor’s four-year string of teacher and educator cuts. He and his party cut schools last year, he’s proposing cutting 200 to 300 teachers next year and we’ve lost more than 600 since 2011. That’s blurry vision on education. It flows from an oil giveaway that puts the state into annual $1 billion to $2 billion deficits as far as the eye can see.

Last April, paid administration “experts” downplayed that Gov. Sean Parnell’s giveaway would “only” cost more than $1 billion in annual lost revenue by 2017. The truth is that the loss will likely be more than $2 billion a year.

Want more about what those slick oil company ads aren’t telling you?

The state admits under Parnell’s new oil law that production spirals downward 45 percent, from 510,000 barrels a day today to 269,000 barrels in 2024.

The damaging education cuts should be reversed, as Democrats propose. And the oil giveaway, which tosses away billions even if companies invest Alaska’s tax breaks in foreign countries, should be scrapped for smart reform that requires Alaska investment.

Rep. Les Gara

Anchorage