$15K teacher bonuses pitched
Alaska’s governor focuses on education in legislative session
JUNEAU, Alaska — Gov. Mike Dunleavy urged lawmakers late Tuesday to pass his pilot program that would pay teachers bonuses of up to $15,000 a year, pitching it as an investment in the classroom, even as education leaders say a more significant investment in the state’s K-12 public school system is needed.
The Republican, in his State of the State speech, also discussed the need for greater opportunity in Alaska, an oil-dependent state experiencing a long-standing trend of more people leaving than moving to it, and efforts to make Alaska more attractive for businesses and families.
But education has been a dominant topic of the legislative session that began about two weeks ago, with supporters of a large increase in state aid rallying on the steps of the Capitol on Monday. Dunleavy’s speech was originally scheduled for Monday but high winds in Juneau disrupted flights, delaying the speech until Tuesday.
School leaders are seeking a $1,413 increase in the current $5,960 per-student funding allotment that districts receive, saying that is needed to offset years of inflation — and warning of additional cuts to programs and positions without a significant boost. Such an increase would boost state funding by about $360 million. But even lawmakers sympathetic to their pleas question if that amount is politically realistic in a state that has struggled with recurring budget deficits and relied heavily on revenue from oil and earnings from its oil-wealth nest-egg fund.
Dunleavy, a former teacher who vetoed half of the $175 million in one-time additional school funding passed by lawmakers last year, did not include an increase in the allotment in his latest budget proposal and said he won’t support legislation that merely increases it.
He is pushing a broader approach that includes paying bonuses of between $5,000 and $15,000 to classroom teachers as a way to retain them and promoting charter schools after a report gave Alaska charters high marks nationally. Under the proposed three-year incentive program, bonuses would range from $5,000 for teachers in more urban settings to $15,000 for those in more rural areas.
To lead, “we must break the cycle of just doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” Dunleavy said in his speech. “That means putting a focus on outcomes such as reading. It means investing in our classroom teachers rather than only a formula.”