A wide-ranging education package with provisions that include allowing students to attend any public school in the state was introduced Friday by Gov. Mike Dunleavy at the Alaska State Capitol.
House Bill 76 also revives numerous policy goals by the Republican governor such as homeschool funding boosts and state authorization of new charter schools instead of leaving that decision up to school districts. Its companion bill in the other chamber is Senate Bill 82.
HB76 contains no increase to the Base Student Allocation, which has remained essentially flat since 2017. This sets the stage for a battle with legislators who are making a permanent increase to the formula a top priority this session.
Dunleavy, during a press conference, said he favors his package that specifies how extra education funding will be spent rather than simply giving more money to school districts to use as they see fit through a BSA increase.
“The state’s job is to ensure the kids get educated through a system of schools,” he said. “The (Alaska) Constitution compels us to educate our kids.”
Dunleavy said provisions in his bill offer greater freedom for parents to select which schools their kids attend. He also emphasized Alaska’s charter schools are public schools, claiming his efforts have been mischaracterized in the past as not supporting public education.
“You can’t get more local than a parent that is making a decision for the kid,” he said. “You can’t get more local than a group of teachers and parents that want to start a charter school at the local level.”
Dunleavy said a Harvard study ranking Alaska’s charter schools as the highest in the nation and his experience of teaching for 20 years is why he supports expanding enrollment access.
He also pointed to a study released Thursday by the National Assessment of Education Progress. Alaska ranked 51st of 53 U.S. jurisdictions in reading and math among fourth graders, and in reading among eighth graders, and 47th of 53 in eighth-grade math, according to NAEP. He used Mississippi as an example of how education policies produce better results.
“There’s no way anywhere in the world – I don’t think there’s a village in Afghanistan that if they had NAEP scores like that they’d say, ‘Hey, it’s OK. It’s alright,” Dunleavy said.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy compares Alaska to Mississippi data on poverty, per-pupil education spending, and the 2024 National Assessment of Education Progress fourth grade reading scores during a press conference on Jan. 31, 2025. Alaska is highlighted in yellow, while Mississippi is in red. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire)
Opposition to Dunleavy’s proposal allowing the state to establish charter schools was expressed by Sen. Gary Stevens, a Kodiak Republican, who in a prepared statement said, “Removing an elected school board’s local control and giving it to an unelected state board to establish charter schools is a no-go.”
“This level of local control and parental involvement is what makes our charter schools thrive,” he said.
Stevens also said he opposes a provision of Dunleavy’s package that would provide additional funding to districts with better academic achievement results.
“Tying educational outcomes to funding needs will not turn this crisis around, but only exacerbate it,” Stevens said. “We have to provide teachers and students with the basic needs first, before we can expect them to do more with less. It is our responsibility to understand this and challenge ourselves to provide the necessary resources to allow our teachers to succeed and students to thrive.”
The education package would add about $181 million in education spending to next year’s state budget, Dunleavy said, which is slightly more than the roughly $175 million that is funding a $680 one-time increase in the statutory $5,960 BSA this year.
The Democratic-led bipartisan House majority is pushing a $1,289 BSA increase next year which would add $326.3 million to next year’s budget, and an $8,510 BSA in three years that would cost $647.7 million more than the baseline amount.
House Bill 69 would help ensure lawmakers uphold the state’s constitutional responsibility to maintain a public school system, but that doesn’t mean the state also should be dictating policy decisions to districts, said Rebecca Himschoot, a Sitka independent who co-chairs the House Education Committee and is the bill’s primary sponsor.
“An example I always give is if 1,000 Ukrainian families move into Mat-Su (Valley) that school district is going to move some of their funding and target it towards English language learners, they’re going to need to do that,” she said. “In Sitka we made a local decision using the flexibility of formula funds to increase class size by one student in one or two grade levels in order to be able to have certified counselors in our buildings. The locally elected board knows the district, knows the kids, knows the educators and it’s their job to make really critical decisions. Our job is to make sure they have the resources to implement the best education they can for the students in their community.”
The Senate, which has a similar majority, called a permanent BSA increase one of its top two priorities this session.
“Years of flat funding and high inflation has pushed our public education system into crisis,” Stevens said. “Currently, teachers have many classrooms above 40 students which decreases their individual impact on students, schools are closing because of financial distress, and families are leaving this state because of the lack of opportunities and stability.”
Dunleavy said he is hopeful HB76 will be passed early this legislative session. He said the intent is to improve outcomes for children, like how the state has seen success with the Alaska Reads Act. HB76 would expand the Alaska Reads Act from grades K-6 and provide incentive grants for achieving grade-level reading proficiency.
The Senate Republican Minority Caucus, which is largely aligned with Dunleavy, expressed the need for policy revisions before raising the BSA.
“As elected officials, we must come to the table and advocate for all students, whether they are public, homeschool, correspondence, charter, or private school students,” Sen. Mike Cronk, a Tok/Northway Republican, said in a prepared statement. “We must recognize parental rights so parents may choose the best education path for their child. Focusing on the successful education of all students by meeting their unique needs is the number one priority.”
Dunleavy said before the start of this year’s session he is willing to consider a permanent increase of up to $200 million in education funding if legislators are willing to support his policy goals. Similar clashes the past two years have resulted in one-time BSA increases being passed along with some policy changes favored by the governor.
Among the provisions in Dunleavy’s package are:
• Providing lump-sum payments to teachers of $5,000 to $15,000 per year, with larger amounts for smaller and more remote districts, as part of a pilot program intended to recruit and retain educators. Opponents of the proposal last session said there was nothing to ensure teachers would remain at their jobs and some would depart once the bonuses ended. The estimated cost of the bonuses when first proposed by Dunleavy in 2023 was $58 million.
• A 20% increase (totaling $14.5 million) in per-student transportation funding, which Dunleavy said would help enable his enroll-anywhere plan.
• Providing correspondence schools the same BSA funding as traditional schools, rather than the current 90%.
• Further delaying some school construction projects by extending a moratorium on bond debt reimbursement to school districts for new projects until 2030 instead of ending in 2025.
• Expanding the Alaska Reads Act to grades K-6, rather than the current K-3, with $21.9 million in overall funding. Dunleavy vetoed $5.2 million for the program approved by the Legislature for the current year’s budget.
• An additional $31.2 million for Career and Technical Education funding.
One policy goal likely to get widespread support would restrict student use of cellphones in schools, mirroring multiple bipartisan bills that have already been introduced. Individual districts, including the Juneau School District, are also considering such bans.
Himschoot said there are other aspects of Dunleavy’s package that appear worthy of support, calling an increase in pupil transportation funding “a win for everybody.” However, she said the specifics of the various proposals need to be scrutinized further.
“I think each one of the things in the bill is a starting point,” she said. “I mean, every single one of these things could be a conversation.”
A challenge facing all involved in the funding of education — and everything else in the state budget — is that a decline in oil prices means lawmakers are expecting a deficit next year if spending remains at this year’s levels. Balancing the budget would then require tapping the $2.9 billion Constitutional Budget Reserve, which requires a three-fourths vote of both the House and Senate, giving the minority caucuses in both chambers leverage in negotiations.
Also, in addition to Dunleavy’s veto power on legislation, he has line-item veto authority on the budget. It takes three-fourths of the Legislature in a joint session to override budget vetoes.
• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz.garrett@juneauempire.com or (907) 723-9356. Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
