Alaska has a significant amount of money on education, approximately 40% higher than national average for students. However, research presented by Alaska’s University of Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research on Thursday suggests that this number does not tell the full story.
Anyone who has spent time in Alaska is aware that things cost more in Alaska. Education isn’t the only exception.
But what about the cost?
Dayna DeFeo, who is the director of the UAA’s Center for Alaska Education Policy Research attempted to address the issue by presenting the help of a study that was that was last reviewed in 2022.. Her coauthors and DeFeo initially looked at the cost factor for the state which is a component of the formula for funding education that adjusts for the greater costs of living in rural and smaller communities. DeFeo along with her group adjusted the formula to reflect the fact that smaller schools cost more per pupil to operate.
“That adjustment alone has responsible for more than half the variance in Alaska budget and national median,” DeFeo told attendees.
In other words, if you consider the cost of living in like, Unalakleet or Thorne Bay and then compare it with Anchorage, Alaska spends about 20 percent more than the rest of the nation on education for its children.
However the costs in Anchorage are considerably more expensive than in other parts of the United States. Therefore, DeFeo along with her colleagues looked at the widely-used cost-of-living index released through the Council for Community and Economic Research and then used it to create an apples-to-apples comparison.
“And after we’ve done this, we found that Alaska falls in comparison to the nation’s average, by 7 percentage points in the year 2019,” DeFeo said. The team she was working with looked at the data for 2019 because of delay in reporting and other inconsistencies caused by the epidemic.
When you take into account the price of gas as well as groceries, medical expenses and school supplies, electricity, and all the other things needed to run an economy, Alaska actually spends less per pupil than other states. This gap has become more pronounced in recent years. when they first started looking at the issue with data from 2017 in 2017, Alaska’s expenditure was roughly on par with the average of the nation.
However, the per-student expenditure in Alaska increased by 3percent between 2017 and the year 2019. How did Alaska slip further in the rankings?
“What this means is other states have invested more into the public school system,” DeFeo said. “They’re doing it much better and quicker than we do.”
Where is the money for Alaska’s schools where is the money going? DeFeo highlights three major factors that are driving the rising cost. The first is the high number of schools that are small, scattered across rural areas throughout the state. Smaller schools are costly to operate than larger ones. They have a high turnover and they must pay higher salaries to recruit educators, plus they don’t make use of shared resources the way that larger districts do.
The other is health care, in addition to education, Alaska is the state with the most per-person health insurance cost within the U.S.
The third one is energy. Energy is costly in rural areas and electricity is between three and five times more when you live in rural regions than those in urban areas. In addition, DeFeo claims that schools do not receive the benefit of the states Power Cost Equalization program, which helps offset the high cost of electricity for rural residents.
DeFeo explained that the issues are a part of solving the issue of funding.
“Those items aren’t really educational policy issues but they definitely affect the way we approach education policy and impacting our spending” she added.
As education costs in general increase, DeFeo says the higher expenditure in Alaska isn’t keeping up with the rest of the country. This is an alarming indicator for the schools in Alaska.
“Alaska does not produce all the teachers it needs to hire each year, which is why we’re competing for teachers on an international sector,” she said.
She believes that higher wages along with better benefits and work conditions for school teachers and staff could prevent Alaska from getting further in the race.
“Of course, it’s not only teachers who require these competitive and high-quality tools,” DeFeo said. “Our students are in need of this and deserve it too.”
