When I served as a state senator, the most common visitors to my office were parents and teachers. Parents expressed concern that their children were falling behind in reading or struggling to keep up. Teachers were frustrated by the lack of resources needed to help students succeed early on. Their message was clear: our children deserve a better chance, and Alaska must do more to provide it.
Those conversations shaped my time in office. They reminded me that education is more than a policy debate. It involves families, students, and teachers who dedicate their lives to helping them. It’s about whether a second grader will learn to read in time to succeed in third grade. It’s about whether a teenager will graduate prepared for the workforce or higher education. And ultimately, it’s about whether Alaska will have a skilled workforce and a strong economy.
This is why I focused much of my legislative and professional career on improving Alaska’s public education. When I was first elected, I introduced legislation to create access to high-quality pre-K, because the evidence showed that when kids start early, they are more likely to thrive throughout life. That work was eventually strengthened by the Alaska Reads Act, a bipartisan bill that I championed and we passed in 2022 focused on improving reading outcomes through third grade while phasing in pre-K statewide. We knew that if students were strong readers by third grade, they would be far more likely to succeed in every subject after that. But it had to start with access to voluntary pre-K.
Passing this bill required Republicans, Democrats, and Independents to work together, and we did. The Alaska Reads Act was the most comprehensive education reform in decades, and it showed what was possible when politics took a backseat to the needs voiced by families and teachers.
But legislation alone is not always enough. It takes resources to turn policy into results. Districts need stability to plan ahead. Families need to know their children will have access to opportunities no matter where in Alaska they live. This is why the recent historic override of the governor’s veto of $50 million in education funding mattered so much: it shows what happens when we listen to Alaskans.
Still, the work is not finished. Teachers are stretched too thin. Parents are worried that their children will not get the support they need in their earliest years. Too many school districts remain trapped in cycles of uncertainty, unsure whether they will have the resources necessary to hire teachers, reduce class sizes, and provide early interventions. Because of this, so many families have left the state for more opportunities elsewhere.
This is why I am running for governor. I will listen to Alaskans, just as I did when I was a senator. I will listen to parents who sit across the table and tell me their child deserves better. I will listen to teachers who explain what it takes to give students a real chance to succeed. And I will listen to students themselves, who deserve to know that the state’s leaders are working for their future.
Being governor means never losing sight of why we do this work. I remember those conversations in my office — the parents who wanted their daughter to succeed early on, the teachers who worried about spending all their time working to catch kids up instead of moving them forward. Their voices stay with me to this day.
Alaska cannot afford to fall further behind in education. We cannot accept being near the bottom nationally in reading and graduation rates. We cannot afford to lose talented teachers because we lack stability and vision. What we can do, and what I commit to doing as your governor, is to bring families, teachers, and communities together to build the strong public education system our children deserve.
The historic veto override was an important and necessary step, and I thank the Legislature for uniting in a bipartisan way to accomplish that. There is more work to be done. I will be the governor who builds upon that and brings ideas together to ensure that every Alaska child has the opportunity to succeed.
Tom Begich is a former minority leader of the Alaska state Senate and the executive director of the Nicholas J. and Pegge Begich Public Service Fund. He recently filed a letter of Intent for Governor of Alaska. His views here are his own and do not represent the fund.
