By Jasz Garrett
Juneau, Alaska (KINY) – Last weekend, many people across the state testified against Senate Bill 140, stating it needs to include a higher base student allocation increase. Public education advocates also expressed concern about a section of the bill that would allow the state board of education to directly authorize new charter schools.
The Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (DEED) Commissioner Dr. Deena Bishop spoke with News of the North about SB 140. There are 30 charter schools in Alaska, and they are all public schools. Charter schools are started by a local group, primarily teachers and parents, who want to provide an innovative or specialized educational opportunity for students. A charter school operates under an agreement with a local school district, known as the charter.
Dr. Bishop said that it was misunderstood that SB 140 would implement “a state takeover” of charter schools. Instead, she said that the bill would increase innovation in Alaska’s charter school system.
“An understanding of the bill is actually misunderstood that charter schools would go under state control,” she said. “Actually right now, charter schools, there is a final approval for charter schools at the state level. This would just be another avenue that allows for state approval. But it wouldn’t be a state takeover of charter schools, certainly.”
Dr. Bishop said that high demand and limited supply, not socioeconomic status, is the barrier to entry that limits a family’s access to charter schools.
“The data that demonstrates that are the waiting lists for parents to have access to charter schools,” she said. “Given that, if we could encourage other teachers and parents to find innovative ways that meets student’s needs, I think that would benefit the students in our state and the state as a whole.”
She added that moving forward with the bill would create more possibilities for children to attend charter schools.
“What was brought up was transportation. Certainly right here in Southeast and Juneau, there’s transportation provided to charter schools. That is a local opportunity to work with the folks writing the charters and having the ideas to create a situation that meets the student’s needs in your area,” she said. “In Anchorage, there is food service offered and a charter school in Anchorage has food service because that was highly important in their charter. Understanding this and focusing on those types of access points that you want to have occur at your local level, as well as at the state level are key features to ensure that all kids and all parents would possibly have that as a choice.”
Under existing statutes, the State Board can approve a charter application with or without a local school board approving the charter. The proposed legislation does not change the authority of either the local or state school board, but it does provide charter applicants an additional pathway to apply for a charter school that is more streamlined and efficient, Dr. Bishop said.
She’s hopeful advancing the bill would allow for a more collaborative effort between local districts and the state.
“The charter school was mischaracterized as a state takeover, which it’s anything but. The idea is to support educators, parents, kids, in having high-quality education,” she said. “This is encouraging to that. This is hopefully empowering people to be able to work together to build the capacity of Alaska’s education system to meet the needs of its students.”
At a Juneau Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Thursday, Governor Mike Dunleavy also expressed his support for focusing on Alaska’s charter schools, referencing the first-ever state ranking of charter student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The report, titled The Nation’s Charter Report Card, identifies Alaska, Colorado, and Massachusetts as frontrunners.
Alaska leads the pack with a high performance in both math and reading, scoring 32.1% higher than the national charter school average.
“They found that Alaska’s charter schools perform way better than any other state charter schools in the country in outputs on that test,” Governor Dunleavy said. “So when people ask why is Dunleavy trying to get teachers more money or Dunleavy’s trying to go with charter schools? I’m gonna go with what’s a winner. Now that doesn’t mean we ignore our neighborhood schools. We have money in the BSA.”
Find a FAQ page on Alaska’s charter schools here.
