After slashing oil taxes, lawmakers propose amending state constitution to address school funding shortage
In its early days, public education in Alaska was uneven at best.
A jumble of home schooling and correspondence schooling covered remote areas. Territorial schools, similar to the public schools Alaska operates today, were open in some towns. So were segregated boarding and day schools, which the federal government used to indoctrinate Alaska Native children.
Smoothing out the tangled school system was a priority for Alaska’s constitutional delegates as they prepared to make the jump from territory to state in the late 1950s.
The delegates wanted to provide broad access to free, functional schools, paid for with public money.
Since Alaska became a state, its school system has grown larger and more complicated to assess, operate and fund. The one constant is the constitution and its declaration that “no money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”
This winter, Republican lawmakers doubled down on a campaign to move foward on an amendment to remove that restriction from Alaska’s constitution. It was a drastic move that came at a critical time for schools. Districts are scrambling to fill holes in their upcoming budgets created by fluctuating funding from the state created primarily by a cut in oil taxes.
Oil production — the driver of Alaska’s economy — is slowing down, and tax revenue is drying up after lawmakers caved to pressure from the oil industry last year to stimulate development by cutting taxes.
The oil tax cuts — now known as the oil giveaway by opponents — dominated Alaska’s last legislative session. But right now, education is what has sent Alaska’s legislators into overtime. Instead of traveling home to their far-flung constituencies, lawmakers are still locked up at the Capitol, debating how — and how much — to fund education.
Hazy voucher outlook
The constitutional amendment was one proposal among many meant to expand educational options for Alaskan kids.
There were bills that would add more charter schools, let private contractors run those schools and expand technical Strapped for cash, Alaska politicians aim to open door for school vouchers | Al Jazeera America:
