Opinion: Alaska should take a page from Mississippi. Let’s spend a bigger share of our state budget on education.

The ADN published an opinion piece on Sunday, March 9 by Win Gruening (”Alaskans need to decide what’s more important — unchecked school funding or improved student achievement”). In it, he took others to task for their positions on school funding. I agree that framing proposals to increase the BSA in terms of how it will affect the PFD is a false choice. He goes on to make it sound like the 14% increase in funding over the past 10 years is more than adequate since it resulted in the highest per-pupil spending in the country. He then goes on to make an argument that there is something wrong with our education system since Alaska spends the most per student yet is ranked 51st of 53 U.S. jurisdictions in reading and math at the 4th-grade level and 47th of 53 in eighth-grade math. He then makes the case that in Oregon and Washington, per-pupil spending went up and scores dropped 10-15 points below where they were 10 years ago.

He then uses Mississippi as an example that shows low per-pupil spending, 44th in the nation, in K-12, works so well that they lead the nation in fourth-grade reading scores for low-income students while upper/middle-income fourth graders ranked second in the nation for reading scores. He concludes by saying that it isn’t how much money you spend or how many teachers you have it is what you teach. If only it were that simple it would be nice.

There are a lot of fun facts that were omitted from his argument and I would like to fill them in here. Comparing absolute expenditures between Mississippi and Alaska is ridiculous. Alaska’s cost of living is sixth-highest in the nation, Mississippi’s is 50th, the cost of food in Alaska is the highest in the nation, Mississippi’s is 43rd. The cost of health care in Alaska ranks highest in the nation, Mississippi is 37th. Transportation cost in Alaska is 3rd highest in the nation, Mississippi is 45th. When one considers that the primary expense for any school district is personnel to operate the schools it is no wonder Mississippi would spend less per student. The cost of living makes it easier to provide a salary and benefits that afford teachers and staff a decent standard of living than we could ever achieve here for the same money.

If one wants to make a relevant comparison between the two states, how about looking at what percentage of the total state budget goes to K-12 education? The reason the anti-BSA increase folks don’t want to do this is that Alaska is embarrassingly stingy with support for K-12 education. The national average is 20.5% of the state budget going for K-12 education, while Alaska allocated only 15% in 2023 (data from Urban Institute and KFF.org respectively). Mississippi allocates a whopping 23% of state budget for K-12 education. Just imagine what the student-to-teacher ratio could be if Alaska matched Mississippi in terms of the percentage of the state budget going to K-12 education.

The author finishes up with the same old saw; commonsense reforms, consolidation of schools, etc. What he totally ignores is that the research on K-12 education clearly shows that student-to-teacher ratios do matter. Salary and benefits do matter. In fact, Mississippi has a 13% teacher turnover rate (elevate K-12) while Alaska has a 21-24% turnover rate over the last ten years. The lower turnover rate is probably related to the quality of life afforded in the local economy and other issues like the student-teacher ratio. Alaska is in the top ten highest student-teacher ratios along with high turnover making the teachers’ jobs harder, we are losing experienced teachers all the time, and also increasing the likelihood of lower performing students.

While I do not agree with many of Mr. Gruening’s points, I do agree with him that the state of Alaska should take a page out of Mississippi’s book. Specifically, increase spending on K-12 education from 15% of the state budget to at least 23% of the state budget and let the leaders of our K-12 districts do their jobs.

Frank Jeffries is a retired professor emeritus of management at the College of Business and Public Policy, University of Alaska Anchorage. He has 30 years of management and consulting experience.

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