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In late February and early March several members have
been in Alaska’s capital city working the hallways and
committee rooms to help ensure early and forward funding
of K-12 education.
On February 25 the NEA-Alaska Legislative Fly-In group
was in the gallery when the House passed the K-12
education package, and on March 3 it was the Board of
Directors’ turn to pack the Senate Gallery and witness
the earliest funding of K-12 in Alaska’s history.
Our members advocated for Governor Palin’s Base Student
Allocation (BSA) number to increase the BSA by $200 per
student. While this portion was not successful, the
other components added about $50 million new dollars to
K-12 for the next school year and charted a course for
slightly larger increases in 2009 and 2010.
That is the good news. Here is the bad news:
The lion’s share of the new money comes through
increased funding of intensive needs students ($41.3
million). Currently, the state currently provides about
$27,000 for an intensive needs student although costs
for these students average $75,000. With this bill the
state will provide about $49,000 per student next year.
A great step forward for these deserving students, to be
certain. But this still leaves districts to fund the
remainder out of the student dollar. In FY 11 the
funding will just about equal today’s costs for the
intensive needs student.
Is it all over for education funding during this
session? Not quite. There are several funding vehicles
available to the legislature to put more money into K-12
schools. While it may be “one-time money,” it would at
least get the state closer to Governor Palin’s vision
and plan for more than inflationary increases to
Alaska’s schools. Dr. Martin Luther King said “the time
is always right to do what’s right.” There are still 40
days remaining in the session to do the right thing by
Alaska’s children.
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