Differing views of education funding are setting up a late-session legislative battle between the House of Representatives and the Senate beginning this week.
The House Finance Committee, led by Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Haines, is expected this week to begin addressing the controversial issue of how much money to provide for education.
The Senate has already adopted its preferred option, increasing the per-student payments to local districts known as the base student allocation.
The House of Representatives, however, refused to increase the funding formula, but said it was open to a one-time funding bump. Thomas’ committee this week will instead look at numerous bills aimed improving education, some of which may provide more money for pupil transportation and energy costs, as well as making other education changes.
“It’s the chairman’s intent to take up all those bills and try to craft a piece of legislation that helps the education system,” said House Speaker Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski.
That’s unlikely to mean an increase in the school funding formula, because that would be hard to cut later, he said.
But an increase to the funding formula’s base student allocation is exactly what schools, and their allies in the Legislature want to see.
“What I think they should do is take a good hard look at what’s happened with inflation and fix that, and they should do that in the base,” said Rep. Beth Kerttula, D-Juneau, who also serves as House Minority Leader.
Both the Senate’s $30 million BSA increase and a similar $30 million one-time appropriation Gov. Sean Parnell said in a press release he would support fall short of inflation, Kerttula said.
And because last year the BSA was not increased but the Legislature instead passed a $20 million, one-time appropriation targeted at energy costs, this year’s increase would actually only be $10 million.
Even that may be hard to win approval for. A House Finance Education subcommittee cut the proposed budget even further, though the full Finance Committee restored slashed pre-kindergarten funding.
And Thomas told school board representatives they wouldn’t be facing the funding shortfalls they are facing if they hadn’t provided pay increases in contracts for teachers and other employees.
The Legislature faces numerous hurdles in winning more funding said Rep. Alan Dick, R-Stony River, chairman of the House Education Committee.
“Education is being scrutinized almost to the point of hostility,” he said.
Dick said the Education Committee was looking for ways to improve education, including both making students responsible for their education and more local accountability, but that adequate funding remained important while that was happening.
“We desperately need to reform our education system, but we shouldn’t choke the patient while we’re doing the operation,” he said.
• Contact reporter Pat Forgey at 523-2250 or at patrick.forgey@juneauempire.com.
Comments (17)
Add commentReform
Lets reform our education...again. My personal test scores relate to the myriad of Ph.Ds, Masters and other sheep-skin recipients accepted as experts in the field. When do we equate their involvement with pass/fail scores? Why is it our teachers and students are the only variables here? From what I have seen the 'troops' have followed the commands set forth. Perhaps we should be scrutinizing the 'generals'.
reform doesn't take decades and decades...
when you let go of your ego and do the work that needs ot be done.
There are super successful school models out there where teachers have to perform or leave. There are also very few open jobs because those schools hire well...even when they are in some of the poorest places in the country. They also do this at way less than our public schools get per pupil.
Those schools boast near 100% graduation rates and >70% go to college.
Instead of that we get teachers sitting around whining about not being able to teach what they want and then wants loads of "prep time".
If you need to prepare daily to teach a subject; you really don't have the knowledge base you need to effectively teach that subject.
Newlife, you really need to
Newlife, you really need to get a life.
NewLife was fired recently
NewLife was fired recently for drinking on the job. He's just trying to place the blame on everyone but himself.
@Do The Right Thing: are you
@Do The Right Thing: are you a teacher? It doesn't seem like it. You can have as broad a knowledge base as possible, but you'll still need to prepare your lessons if you want to teach effectively.
Ever talk to an engineer? A socially retarded scientist? They're pretty darn smart, and they know what they're talking about, but they don't know how to talk to people who don't already know much of what they do. You need to organize the information you teach, present it in different ways for different students, prevent anyone from being left behind, anticipate difficult concepts to understand, make the subject interesting, and much more.
By your logic, if a Ph.D candidate needs to prepare for his thesis defense, he must not enough about his subject.
Those schools you speak of must be private schools, which automatically exclude the subsets of the population which don't do so well academically (the poor, the academically uninclined, creationists). Open a private school up to everyone, and you'll see results mirroring that of public schools, just like what happens with charter schools.
Newlife, you accuse me of
Newlife, you accuse me of personal attacks after you slam Wally Olsen in a blatant personal attack and I call you on it? Wally is an extremely knowledgeable man, despite the fact he has many degrees. He is a wonderful teacher despite having been a university professor. You see, he is a humble but worldly man. He ventured into the world looking at the world without prejudicing it by viewing it through his personal paradym. He has experienced the world and learned through that experience. That is why he is knowledgeable. Not because he sat in classes either as a student or a professor. He has been a curious learner. If you need to understand greek to get a concept he studied greek. We all should strive to be more like that.
Then that shows just how
Then that shows just how little you know. Just because he was a professor does not make him great, nor does it make him bad. He had a job and in my opinion did a great job. You throw him under the bus for doing that job, regardless of his ability at that job. Also, it is my understanding that while employed by the U. he butted heads with the administreatio and unions a fair amount. He certainly has expressed no love for either in these blogs. But you would rather blindly characterize him as evil just because of the profession he held. I guess its ok for you to post libelous statements though. By the way, slander is verbal comments, libel is written comments. At least try to get right what you are accusing someone of.
We also found objectionable
We also found objectionable images on NewLife's computer and discovered he regularly made immature, libelous posts on websites during work hours.
@NewLife
Maybe you sip the bottle too much during work to know the difference between the written word and the spoken....
**Opinion**