Alaska

Over half of Alaska students fall under proficient test scores

Published

2 hours ago

December 18, 2024

Over half of Alaska students fall under proficient test scores

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Over half of Alaska’s students do not make the proficiency benchmark in English Language Arts and mathematics. That’s based on test results from the Alaska System of Academic Readiness (AK Star) for the 2023-24 school year.

“We’re underperforming because we’re not meeting the standards set out, you know, by the State of Alaska, which was designed for Alaskan educators,” Deena Bishop, with the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development, said.

During the last school year, around 68,000 students underperformed on the testing for both subjects. Similar numbers were also seen the year prior.

In the Anchorage School District, in both English Language Arts and Mathematics, only 35.5% of its students hit at least proficiency. Those low test scores ranged from 3rd grade to 9th grade.

“The 3rd graders in this report, they were kindergartners who started on Zoom,” Kelly Lessens, on the Anchorage School Board, said during the Nov. 19, school board meeting. “If you talk to a 4th-grade teacher this year, they’ll say, a lot of those kiddos are still missing foundational content.”

COVID-19 is just one indicator people noted had an impact on youth education.

“Test scores have been coming down since COVID,” Corey Aist, the President of the Anchorage Education Association, said. “COVID set a very bad precedent for attendance and expectations. Not only expectations for our students and families but for our community.”

According to Bishop, COVID-19 created bad practices but she claims it shouldn’t be an excuse anymore.

“We need to focus on learning, focus on the children that we have, and move forward,” Bishop said. “We need to engage kids, have them come to school, provide high-quality education, support our teachers in doing so and changes will be made. Student learning will increase.”

Bishop was unable to pinpoint a specific reason why test scores remain low across the state. Moving forward, she said investment in early education is the tactic they’re doing to increase student performance. Bishop noted that her department is not trying to raise test scores but to improve student learning. For that, she said, investment is key.

“You’ve seen investments made into public education coupled with strong policy,” Bishop said. “Let’s find a way to have courses, where kids are engaged…investing in career and technical, investing in reading.”

But for Aist, there is a list of things that he said have an impact on student test scores. Ranging from class sizes, staffing numbers, and an increase in students needing special accommodations.

“You can’t talk about test scores without first talking about the learning environments in which those test scores are taken. We have a staffing crisis,” Aist said. “We should do more research on what is actually happening there, to counter, to talk about, to speak to the test scores in better context.”

Aist says funding is needed to create a competitive atmosphere to keep staffing. It’s all a part of investing in education and the community.

“Education is an investment in our communities, in our state, and in our future population, and without that, we continue to drop down below. And the funding that was proposed in the budget is completely inadequate to compete and retain our educators. They are going to continue to leave…its a spiral downhill. We need to do more,” Aist said.

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Alaska

Alaska's three electors cast their votes for Donald Trump at Anchorage ceremony

Published

9 hours ago

December 17, 2024

Press Room

Alaska's three electors cast their votes for Donald Trump at Anchorage ceremony

Alaska’s three presidential electors — from left, Ron Johnson, Eileen Becker and Rick Whitbeck — sign certificates as they cast their votes for President-elect Donald Trump at the Dena’ina Center in Anchorage on Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024. (Photo courtesy of Alaska Division of Elections)

Alaska’s three presidential electors cast their votes for Donald Trump Tuesday at a ceremony in Anchorage.

The three electors, selected by the Alaska Republican Party, were Rick Whitbeck, Ron Johnson and Eileen Becker. Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who oversees elections, introduced them during the brief gathering at the Dena’ina Center.

“Our three electoral votes are modest, but they symbolize the votes and the aspiration and the voice of all Alaskans, from the biggest communities to the smallest villages and most remote places that we have in Alaska,” she said. “These votes remind us that every state, every individual, has a stake in the direction of our nation.”

Though the electors typically cast their votes in Juneau, they met in Anchorage this year to make travel easier, according to the Division of Elections.

The electors signed certificates that will be shipped to Washington, D.C. where they’ll be counted by the next Congress on Jan. 6. The count will be overseen by Trump’s opponent in the presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Similar scenes took place across the country Tuesday as 535 other electors voted for their state’s chosen candidate. Trump defeated Harris with 312 electoral votes after winning all seven swing states in the Nov. 5 election.

Trump returns to office Jan. 20.

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Alaska

3 Doors Down added to concert lineup for 2025 Alaska State Fair

Published

17 hours ago

December 17, 2024

Press Room

3 Doors Down added to concert lineup for 2025 Alaska State Fair

By Anchorage Daily News

Updated: 1 hour ago Published: 1 hour ago

Brad Arnold of the band 3 Doors Down performs during Patriots Fest on Saturday, May 18, 2024, in Aurora, Ill. (Photo by Rob Grabowski/Invision/AP)

Grammy-nominated 3 Doors Down will perform at the 2025 Alaska State Fair, the fair announced Tuesday.

The Mississippi-rooted band that broke out with hits like “Kryptonite” is scheduled to perform Friday, Aug. 29 at 7 p.m. Tickets go on sale Wednesday at 10 a.m. at alaskastatefair.org and are $59 for lawn and $79 for reserved standing.

With its debut record “The BetterLife,” the band found mainstream success in 2000 and three years later earned a Grammy nomination in the Best Rock Performance By a Duo or Group With Vocal category with the song “When I’m Gone.”

3 Doors Down joins already announced acts Rainbow Kitten Surprise (Aug. 16,) “Weird Al” Yankovic (Aug. 17), Chris Tomlin (Aug. 18), Billy Currington (Aug. 23) and Foreigner (Aug. 30) on the 2025 fair lineup.

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Alaska

Sponsor restarts process to repeal Alaska ranked-choice voting on 2026 ballot

Published

1 day ago

December 17, 2024

Press Room

Sponsor restarts process to repeal Alaska ranked-choice voting on 2026 ballot

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Ballot Measure 2, an initiative to repeal Alaska’s open primary and ranked-choice voting system, narrowly failed in the recent election cycle, but the sponsor of the measure is not ready to give up just yet.

After a recount revealed the ballot measure failed by 743 votes, instead of the 737 originally counted, sponsor Phil Izon submitted the paperwork on Monday to get back on the ballot for 2026.

At the Absentee and Petition Office in Anchorage, Izon started the process again by submitting an initiative petition with the signatures of 214 qualified registered voters to serve as sponsors; only 100 are required.

“We have a pretty good amount of people that are really motivated … and they ultimately didn’t like the fact that we lost by small percentages,” Izon said.

Within 60 calendar days after receipt, the office of Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom will notify the sponsor if the application is denied or certified.

After that, the signature-gathering process begins to get on the ballot officially.

Izon said the spirit of the ballot measure is the same, but some fundamental differences need to be made to the ballot language.

He said some voters found the ballot language confusing and thought a “no” vote was for repeal.

Instead, they should have been voting “yes,” Izon said.

The ballot initiative to implement ranked-choice voting and open primaries was approved by Alaskan voters in 2020 and used for the first time in the 2022 election cycle.

He said as the sponsor, he doesn’t get the privilege to write the ballot measure language; state officials write it based on what the sponsor summarized in the written petition.

Izon said this time around, he hopes the language is written clearer; if it’s not, he is prepared to go to court over it.

“I believe language played a role in 2020, and I believe it played a role in 2024, so I do not want a repeat of that in 2026,” Izon said.

Ironically, the ballot measure’s sponsors say they want a repeal of the state’s current election system because they believe voters find it confusing.

In the current system, the top four primary finishers advance to the general election, and then voters rank the candidates by preferred choice. If no candidate receives a majority of votes in the first round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and the candidate’s votes are redistributed according to each voter’s second preferred choice.

Democrat Lee Hammermeister, who joined Izon on Monday as a co-sponsor and lost a recent Eagle River Senate race this November, said it’s time for Alaska to return to a traditional system.

Like many opponents of ranked-choice voting, Hammermeister points to the number of voters who don’t rank the candidates and only vote for one.

“[There are] people either not understanding it or entirely rejecting using the ranked-choice voting system,” Hammermeister said. “It just turns into something that’s very confusing, and then it just gets very convoluted, both on the voter side and then on the candidate side as well. So I like a simple system.”

Proponents of open primaries and ranked-choice voting argue that most Alaskan voters are nonpartisan and do not identify with a political party. They believe that the current system provides voters with more choices and a greater voice beyond the limitations of the political parties.

Izon said if the ballot measure fails in 2026, he might give one more try in 2028, but in the end, he thinks it might be something that the legislature will have to take up.

“I’ve been in a lot of communication with a bunch of legislators that have actually moved bills through the Senate and the House,” he said. “[I’ve] got a lot of support from those people, and I would love to see it go through that direction.”

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