STUDENTS FIRST

It is time that all competing interests put our childrens education first.

Alaska’s education system is broken, and it is not because of a lack of funding. It is because the system has been hijacked by special interests seemingly more concerned with protecting their paychecks than educating our kids. At the heart of this problem is the Base Student Allocation, the BSA, which groups like the Alaska Council of School Administrators and NEA-Alaska are fighting tooth and nail to increase, without any real conversation about accountability, outcomes, or reform.

Here is the uncomfortable truth: school districts take public money, give some of it to the ACSA for membership dues, and then the ACSA turns around and lobbies Juneau for even more public money. Their lobbying efforts usually include an expensive conference in Juneau where school administrators gather, often bringing students (children of constituent schools) to lobby legislators for more money. This seems to be a perfect closed loop system of taxpayer dollars being used to demand more taxpayer dollars.

Some will argue that the Alaska Council of School Administrators (ACSA) and NEA-Alaska are, or should be, on opposite sides of the table during contract negotiations. But the reality is far different. Many administrators are former union members themselves, and their loyalties often remain with the same political interests of the union and fellow teachers. Both sides are playing the same game: fighting to grow their budgets, grow their power, and protect their own paychecks. The negotiations may be staged as adversarial, as they should be, but at the end of the day, both sides win when they are on the same side - and the students and Alaskans and local taxpayers lose.

The most important fact is simply this: the only real loser, the biggest loser, in this Kabuki Dance is the Alaska student; trapped in a broken model that rewards failure with more money.

Right now, the Anchorage School District is negotiating a new contract with the Anchorage Education Association, the local affiliate of NEA-Alaska. The union’s opening position demanded, among other things, an increase in health care contributions by the District to the Public Education Health Trust (PEHT), a trust that NEA-Alaska itself helped establish and continues to control. PEHT is a nonprofit, but it is not subject to the same transparency standards as state-run programs like AlaskaCare. Worse, reports have shown PEHT’s premiums are often higher and its benefits lower than comparable plans, yet teachers are locked into it by union contract negotiations, while any attempt to offer alternatives is blocked.

On top of that, the union is demanding a 15% salary increase for Anchorage teachers over the next three years despite the fact that Anchorage teachers are already among the highest paid in the nation. The average teacher salary in Anchorage is around $85,000, with many earning well over $100,000, for nine months of work. Meanwhile, student enrollment is declining, budgets are strained, and test scores remain among the worst in the country. Our teachers deserve to be paid all they can get. But there must be a fiscal tension between available money (what the district can afford) and pay for employee. This kind of huge opening demand is not about helping students; it is about growing the system for the system’s sake.

Governor Dunleavy and some legislators have tried to put real solutions on the table, such as bonuses outside the CBA to help recruit and retain teachers, especially in rural Alaska. Representative Sarah Vance offered a simple, smart health care reform plan through House Bill 21, to let schools opt into the AlaskaCare system, saving money and improving benefits. These ideas were rejected, not because they would not help, but because they would not grow the bureaucracy; would not provide a bigger pot for contract negotiators, from the NEA as well as NEA-associated school administrators, to draw from. While many teachers were interested in both programs, the NEA rejected them because they would not pad union-controlled health trusts or lock in permanent budget increases. The system fought back, because the system is protecting itself, not protecting students.

Public Education Health Trust is a prime example. PEHT collects hundreds of millions of dollars in premiums every year from Alaska’s teachers and school districts. It hides behind nonprofit status to avoid real transparency while offering less competitive benefits compared to AlaskaCare. Yet NEA-Alaska fought tooth and nail to block reforms that could have saved teachers thousands of dollars per year and arguably delivered better healthcare. That tells you everything you need to know.

We need to call this what it is: a conflict of interest. It may not be illegal, but it is unethical. It may not be crime, but it is slime. When the same people are lobbying for bigger budgets and negotiating the contracts those budgets pay for, the public should be alarmed. When real solutions are rejected because they threaten the power structures in place, the public should be outraged.

It is time for change. We need to demand transparency in education funding. We need to stop funding the system for the system’s sake and start funding solutions that actually help students. We need to tie every dollar to outcomes. And we need to break the cycle of public dollars being used to lobby for even more public dollars.

Alaskans deserve better than this. Our kids deserve better than this. It is time to stop listening to the same tired voices that have driven Alaska’s schools into the ditch. It is time to put students first, not administrators, not union bosses, not bureaucrats… STUDENTS FIRST!

The people of Alaska are watching. And we are not going to be silent anymore.

We are going to fight for our kids. We are going to demand better. And we are going to take our schools back, no matter how loud the special interests scream.

Because the future of Alaska does not belong to the NEA. It belongs to our children.