Gov. Mike Dunleavy mentioned a recent Rutgers study that found that Alaska has the second most adequately funded school system in the US during his March 15 press conference. It’s probably worthy of discussing that study in greater detail, since very few in the media seem curious enough to ask a follow-up question on the subject.
The study, that was a combined effort from Rutgers University in New Jersey and The University of Miami, didn’t look at how much states were spending but at how adequately different state school systems were funded, based on 125 different factors including cost of living difference between states and the wealth of a state. Here’s an excerpt from the study’s executive summary:
“Good school finance systems compensate for factors states cannot control (e.g., student poverty, labor costs) using levers that they can control (e.g., driving funding to districts that need it most). We have devised a framework that evaluates states based largely on how well they accomplish this balance. We assess each state’s funding while accounting directly for the students and communities served by its public schools.
Advertisement
“This is important because how much a given district or state spends on its schools, by itself, is a rather blunt measure of how well those schools are funded. For example, high-poverty districts require more resources to achieve a given outcome goal—e.g., a particular average score on a standardized test—than do more affluent districts. In other words, education costs vary depending on student populations, labor markets, and other factors. That is a fundamental principle of school finance.”
In the study, states were ranked and were assigned a score on a scale of 1 to 100 for funding adequacy. Alaska scored 95 out of 100, slightly behind Wyoming (97 points) and ahead of New Hampshire (86 points), Maine (85 points) and New York (83points).
The least adequately funded states were Florida with a score of 12 out of 100. Next were North Carolina (13 points) and Nevada (14 points).
It’s interesting that despite being dead last in funding adequacy, Florida produces some of the best student outcomes in the US: In 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores Florida was #1 in the US for both reading and math scores for low-income 4th grade kids. Florida was also 3rd in 4th grade reading and 7th in 4th grade math for kids from upper/middle income families. Alaska was 51st, 48th, 50th and 49th respectively in the same categories.
But who cares about 4th grade scores? What really matters is the quality of the high school graduates a system produces, right? Probably the best indicator of the quality of kids graduating a system is the percentage of students who graduate who have passed and Advanced Placement (AP) test with a score of 3 or higher. In 2022, 28.8% of Florida high school graduates passed at least one AP test with a 3 or higher – the 3rd highest rate in the nation. Alaska was 45th in the US in that statistic, with just 11.9%.
Advertisement
One limitation of the Rutgers study is that only includes state and local funding of K-12. Alaska is #1 by a wide margin in the amount of federal funding we receive at $3,343 per student. That’s 85% above the US average of $1,808 and 16% above the #2 state (North Dakota). Florida was 28th in the nation in per student funding from the federal government at $1,681, despite having a much higher poverty rate and much higher percentage of students who speak English less the “very well” than Alaska.
According to the Rutgers study, Alaskans generously commit a larger part of our overall economy to K12 education than the vast majority of states — on a state and local basis. That’s from researchers in New Jesey and Florida who have no agenda to make Alaska look good or bad in this regard.
Some will say that the governor cherry picked that particular study. I don’t think so. I’ve searched for nationwide adequacy studies that come to a different conclusion than Rutgers — and I can’t find any.
Anchorage School District did pay for a local adequacy funding study from a well-known firm that charges hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to conduct adequacy studies. I’m wondering how much repeat business that firm would get if they didn’t come to the conclusions the clients were looking for before the study was launched.
We’re far overdue to figure out how we refocus our generous contributions to K12 into acceptable outcomes for our kids. Record increases in state K12 funding, without meaningful reform, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Insanity.
Advertisement
Bob Griffin is a member of the Alaska State Board of Education, and is writing on his own behalf.
By Alaska Division of Forestry & Fire Protectionon
The Starry fire picked up today and the Fairbanks Area initial attack helicopter dropped buckets of water during the heat of the day.
Despite the brief uptick in fire activity, the fire remained at 575 acres and resources were able to get hose completely around the fire.
Pioneer Peak Hotshots Forrest Boynton and Trapper Gephart, cut saw line around the west side of the Starry Fire. – Sam Allen, DFFP
Crews on the East and South side off the fire swept 200 foot outside of the fire’s edge, and found no heats. A grid is planned for tomorrow on the North side of the fire.
Advertisement
The City of Anderson is still at evacuation level, “Go.”
The Denali Borough has issued a ‘Ready’ evacuation order for “North 40” further west and across the Nenana River from Anderson, Alaska because of two other wildland fires in the wider area. The “North 40” includes residents north of Lightning Avenue and between the Teklanika River and the Nenana River.
The Type 3 Incident Management Team running the Starry Fire is prepared and planning to take on other wildfires in the area should it become necessary to engage.
‘Ready’ is the first step in the “Ready. Set. Go.” Statewide evacuation planning. Residents are encouraged to prepare necessary items such as pets, medication and important documents and monitor evacuation updates.
Firefighters completed a dozer line around the fire yesterday, they were helped in part by a burn scar from the 2013 Clear Air Force Base Fire, which helped slow the fire down.
Firefighters from Elmendorf Air Force Base helped secure a two-acre slop-over on the south side of the Starry Fire. – Sam Allen, DFFP
“The dozer line is not a scalpel,” Pioneer Peak Hotshot Sup. Kris Baumgartner. Fire activity could pick up and through embers across the line.
Advertisement
Two federal contract crews, Moose Heart and Clearwater, are expected to arrive Tuesday.
‹ DFFP responding to a new fire east of Delta
Categories: Active Wildland Fire, AK Fire Info, Alaska DNR – Division of Forestry & Fire Protection (DFFP)
Sign up for Task & Purpose Today to get the latest in military news each morning.
Advertisement
A Coast Guard search and rescue helicopter crashed Monday morning during a training flight in Alaska.
A Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter had four people onboard when it went down near Harbor Mountain in Sitka, a town in the Alexander Archipelago in southern Alaska several dozen miles south of Juneau. The Jayhawk and its aircrew are assigned to Coast Guard Air Station Sitka.
The crash happened Monday morning at around 10:07 a.m. local time, the Coast Guard said. It took nearly an hour for rescue crews to arrive on the scene. Rescue. However, no serious injuries were reported, a spokesperson for the Coast Guard Arctic District told Task & Purpose. All four crew members were taken by Sitka Fire and Rescue teams to Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center in Sitka.
The cause of the crash isn’t known, and in a post on X, the Coast Guard Arctic District said that a “formal investigation will be conducted to determine the circumstances surrounding the event.”
Top Stories This Week
The Coast Guard Arctic District covers not only Alaska but the waters around it, including the Prince William Sound and waters in the Pacific.
Advertisement
Given Alaska’s remote conditions, local and military aircraft are often used to provide emergency search and rescue operations. Both the Coast Guard and National Guard regularly dispatch helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to help people stranded or in crisis at sea.
In April, helicopters from Coast Guard Air Station Sitka and the National Guard conducted a mass casualty drill near the town, as part of what the Coast Guard called “a large joint exercise involving multiple government agencies and local organizations.”
Task & Purpose Video
Each week on Tuesdays and Fridays our team will bring you analysis of military tech, tactics, and doctrine.
Maureen Longworth and Lin Davis smile for a photo at their home on Douglas Island on Thursday, June 18, 2026. (Photo by Clarise Larson/KTOO)
It’s Pride Month and Juneau joins other communities nationwide in celebrating LGBTQ+ people.
One couple in Juneau, Maureen Longworth and Lin Davis, have dedicated their lives to advocating for LGBTQ+ rights. They met on a late-night dog walk at the Oakland Rose Garden in California in 1987. That was nearly 40 years ago, though Longworth remembers it clear as day.
“I had just gotten off work and was walking my dog, but it was like near midnight, I think, and bumped into Lin walking her dogs,” Longworth said.
A lot has happened since that first walk. The pair moved to Juneau in 1992 and now live on Douglas Island, retired with their dog, Reilly Wryly Raven. It’s been more than two decades since the pair joined a lawsuit that would change LGBTQ+ rights for state and municipal workers in Alaska.
Advertisement
It started because Longworth needed intensive dental work, and her employer wouldn’t cover it. Davis worked for the state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development at the time, where straight married people could share employment benefits – like health insurance – with their partners.
Davis was denied the same benefits for her partner.
“We had to pay for it out of pocket, but my coworkers out at the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, they would have automatically had their marriage partners covered,” she said.
The women couldn’t legally get married in Alaska back then — Alaska was actually the first state to ban gay marriage through a constitutional amendment in 1998. And, though they’d gotten married in other states and held a ceremony with friends and family, it wasn’t recognized by Alaska.
So, in 1999, they, alongside eight other gay and lesbian couples and the Alaska Civil Liberties Union, sued the state government and the Municipality of Anchorage.
Advertisement
The lawsuit demanded equal benefits for domestic partnerships. It was filed right after the state amended its constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman.
Longworth said it felt necessary to take a stance.
“There was no protection for people to take care of their families,” she said.
In 2005 — six years later — they won. The Alaska Supreme Court ruled that denying spousal benefits for gay couples was an equal protection violation. It meant that local governments and the state were required to make employment benefits accessible to people in domestic partnerships.
It was unbelievable. We started screaming, and I was screaming at work, and telling all my coworkers,” Davis said.
Advertisement
“You called me, and I was in the library garage downtown, and I just started crying. We just couldn’t even believe it,” Longworth said.
Since then, the pair have spent decades continuing to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights in Juneau and Alaska, even after Davis was diagnosed with leukemia a year and a half ago. They do that in part by unapologetically sharing their relationship with the world.
“We come out to people like six times a day, just sharing what this is, as wife and wife, going through a pretty fatal diagnosis,” Davis said.
Davis said fighting for LGBTQ+ rights opened the door for them to live their lives openly and joyfully.
“In Hamlet, there’s that line, ‘to thine own self be true.’ So that’s what we’re all about. To thine own self be true,” she said. “Go forward, be brave. You may have to be brave every day, but steady forward.”
Advertisement
“You can see why I married her. Isn’t that the kind of person you’d want to live with?” Longworth said, laughing.
And they commend and appreciate the young LGBTQ+ people who are taking up the torch — to advocate for their community and live bravely.
 100vw, 600px”/><figcaption class=)
Firefighters from Elmendorf Air Force Base helped secure a two-acre slop-over on the south side of the Starry Fire. – Sam Allen, DFFP
