Education
Alaska Common Ground’s focus on education has primarily been around funding at the state level, especially in recent years as the issue has become a more pressing topic during legislative sessions. We hope to engage more in the coming years in this critical policy area.
Alaska’s Base Student Allocation (BSA), the funding formula used by the State Legislature to determine funding for school districts each year has remained flat since 2017, even as inflation has risen drastically. Each year, the legislature takes up debates on how to fund Alaska’s schools, whether it’s raising the BSA, one-time funding boosts, or combinations of both. At the end of the day, this year-by-year approach has made it difficult for school districts to plan their staffing and programs. Like the rest of the country, teacher shortages remain a challenge in Alaska, and turnover in the field is high. Policy debates on this issue center largely around teacher pay and retirement and benefits.
Alaska Common Ground is eager to engage in policy dialogues around education and its funding in Alaska to help ensure that our schools are places where students thrive, that educators want to stay, and that families continue to want to raise their children here. We also recognize the connection to the fiscal work we have been doing for decades and believe that Alaskans need to be informed about the nuances of education funding at the state, local, and federal levels.