Representatives from Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s office toured the central Kenai Peninsula this week to promote his omnibus education package. The visits brought staffers face-to-face with peninsula students, educators and community members, who sometimes pushed back on the governor’s proposals
Todd Smoldon’s official job title is regional director of the governor’s office in the Mat-Su Valley. But as he told Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly members Tuesday, he spends a lot of time on one specific topic.
“I've been answering emails to the governor's office for the last three years on education issues,” he said. “So if you email the governor's office, it's going to come to me, and chances are I will be the one answering.”
The meeting was just one stop on Smoldon’s central peninsula itinerary, which also took him and the governor’s Kenai Peninsula staffer Jill Schaefer to a joint chamber of commerce luncheon, to a meeting with students at Soldotna High School and to the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District office.
It was originally supposed to be state Education Commissioner Deena Bishop’s visit. But she was called to Juneau for legislative business, and Smoldon stepped in. He gave multiple presentations about Dunleavy’s omnibus education package. The bill – introduced in both chambers as House Bill 76 and Senate Bill 82 – was unveiled about a month ago.
Smoldon described public education as a product that he says fewer and fewer people are willing to buy. Smoldon says that drop in demand is due to a lack in transparency.
“A lack of transparency in budgeting, a lack of transparency in curriculum, a lack of transparency in what's happening sometimes in the classroom,” he said. “Does that mean every school, every teacher, everywhere? No. In fact, it's probably very, very minor, but when you have a perception that these things are happening, it creates customers – in quotes – who are not satisfied with the product.”
Dunleavy’s bill includes a lot of his hallmark education priorities:
- More state oversight of charter schools,
- Lump-sum teacher retention bonuses, and
- Raising state funding for correspondence students to match brick-and-mortar students
But public education advocates were quick to point out a key omission – an increase to the base amount of money school districts get per student. That’s called the base student allocation, or BSA.
Districts around the state have called on lawmakers to increase and inflation-proof that amount. Other than a half-percent increase two years ago, the amount has been flat for almost a decade. The state has OK’d money outside the BSA in recent years, but some districts say one-time money doesn’t provide the long-term certainty they need to make informed budget decisions. Last year, lawmakers got an education package across the finish line that included more money and some gubernatorial priorities, but Dunleavy vetoed the bill. Lawmakers failed to override that veto by one vote.
“The governor has stated publicly many times that he supports an increase in funding for schools and an increase in education funding but he does not want just an increase to the BSA without any reforms that will be directed to outcomes that will support teachers better in the classroom and that will give parents more transparency and more, you know, public education options,” Smoldon said.
Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Peter Micciche says the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District already does many of the things Dunleavy wants – open school enrollment, supporting charter schools and successfully implementing the Alaska Reads Act. And he says the borough can’t afford to continue footing the bill for whatever money the state doesn’t provide.
“Our kids shouldn't be paying the price on the basic cost of running an educational system with a state that has a constitutional requirement,” he said. “You can throw that around all you want to on what that means, but we need some help. And we're supportive of those other values that the governor has.”
Superintendent Clayton Holland gave a quarterly school district update at the same assembly meeting. He used some of his time to push back against rhetoric about public schools, which he describes as being “constantly under attack.”
“We have kids achieving great things,” he said. “We have three kids at MIT. We have all numerous other resounding academic successes. But I keep hearing that we fail our kids. So I tell you this, with also a caveat of – we're doing all this with limited resources, right? This has been dwindling down for the last two decades to where we are now.”
Smoldon said his presentation isn’t intended to target a specific school district.
The morning after Tuesday’s assembly meeting, Smoldon gave the same presentation to a joint meeting of the Kenai and Soldotna chambers of commerce. After opening the room to questions, Chris Van Slyke voiced his frustration over continued uncertainty over Dunleavy’s plans.
“The problem is that we're not getting anywhere,” he said. “And he's been asked this multiple times, and it really feels like, ‘If I, Mike Dunleavy, don't get everything I want, no one's going to get what they want.’ That's what we're kind of getting tired of and that's what I think needs to be communicated.”
Smoldon told the crowd the conversation shouldn’t just be about money, pointing to local standardized testing scores.
“There's a lot of different priorities around education, not just the BSA,” he said. “Proficiency should be a priority. And the ninth graders at SoHi – only 15% of them are proficient at math right now. So I mean, we got to have more of a conversation than just funding, and that's what I presented today.”
Lawmakers are still taking closed-door meetings with Dunleavy to try and hash out an agreement on education funding. In the meantime, the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is scheduled to meet Mar. 3 in Homer to continue reviewing its plans to make up a projected $17 million budget deficit next year.
