Student Learning Outcomes Must Be Tied to School Funding
Are Legislators Listening?
I testified under “public testimony” to the Senate Education Committee a couple of weeks ago – which was quite unconventional for a legislator to do so (but it’s also quite unconventional for a Senate Minority member such as myself not to have any standing committee assignments due to the Senate Majority’s prerogative).
I followed my testimony up to the committee with a speech on the Senate floor two days later on the same topic: district accountability and student learning outcomes must be tied to school funding.
It turns out, my words did not fall on deaf ears.
Conversations are now happening in the Capitol building, in the various caucuses, in both chambers, among Education Committee members in both bodies. Educators quickly began weighing in as well.
I guess I created quite a stir.
Those pushing for an increase in school funding are realizing that an increase in funding will not pass the legislature unless an accountability/student learning improvement component is included.
Allow me to inject here that the argument that the Alaska Reads Act addresses this component falls apart when legislators and the public realize that it will be our current three and four-year-olds that will reap that benefit in 14-15 years.
It also falls apart when Alaskans realize we stripped the “teeth” out of the Alaska Reads Act legislation. Pressure from NEA-Alaska resulted in the strong promotion policy (that requires students to master objectives before progressing to the next grade level) being removed. It was this promotion policy that caused states like Florida and Mississippi to make great gains with student achievement. The Alaska Reads Act will certainly benefit our students, but it will not be by leaps and bounds like the other states mentioned have experienced.
The legislative process and time will tell what the school funding bill will look like.
What I do know is that if we care about our students and our teachers, we will ensure dollars go to classroom instruction and not for administrative purposes.
Research shows that dollars directed to classroom instruction and tied to performance metrics will result in improved student outcomes. Dollars directed to districts in general do not.
Right now, only 53% of school district budgets statewide go to classroom instruction. We are 49th in the state in this category, with Washington, D.C. at 50th. We can do better. For the sake of our children, we must do better.
