Education

One of the drafters of the state constitution has weighed in on a proposed amendment to that document.

Vic Fischer appeared before the House education committee on Friday to oppose a resolution that could allow for public funding of religious schools through vouchers. He cautioned legislators against taking a casual attitude when considering constitutional changes.

“To me the basic question is, ‘Are we solving a nonexisting problem at this point?’ And the burden is on those who say we should amend the constitution,” Fischer says.

Fischer, who also served as a state senator and in the territorial legislature, also explained that the amendment prohibiting funding of religious and private schools was not seen as controversial by the delegates to the constitutional convention. He said that the language — known as a Blaine Amendment — passed unanimously.

“So it’s not as if some kind of an amendment — Blaine Amendment — had horns on it and was something awful,” Fischer added.

In addition to hearing from Fischer, the education committee took testimony on the resolution from residents across the state. Opinion was mixed: Some argued that state funding of religious schools could create more options for parents, and others said it would weaken the separation of church and state and that it could drain money from public schools.

For an amendment to the constitution to be made, it has to pass both chambers of the legislature with a two-thirds vote. After that, Alaskans have to approve the change by a majority vote.

The Juneau School District’s budget committee wants a nurse in every building for the next school year.

The district cut two nursing positions in this year’s budget, but the committee Tuesday night said those jobs should be restored.  The Marie Drake building – where the  alternative high school meets – has not had a nurse for the last four years, but has Teen Health services available.

The 17-member committee represents each of the 12 Juneau schools, education unions, and community members.

It is working through a list of suggested changes to the administration’s budget proposal.  The nurse shortage came up during last night’s public testimony.

Luann Powers is the registered nurse at Auke Bay Elementary School.

“I’m just worried.  I want to support our nurses.  I don’t have any teachers that want to give insulin or be taken away to have to do things that somebody else should be doing because that’s their specialty,” Powers said.

Jenny Malecha’s son has type 1 diabetes.  She said she spends a lot of time in the school nurse’s office and sees how important it is for every student to have a “first responder” nearby.

“As a parent of a child with diabetes, I know how important it is to have nurses in every single school and it’s not for kids with complex medical needs, it’s for all the kids,” she said.

Malecha had the same message at last year’s school budget hearings, and apparently echoes the sentiment of the community.   When committee members were polled, adding nurses was the number one priority.  It would cost the district $153,000. The administration needs to cut $1.75 million from the fiscal year 2014 budget.  That’s on top of the $4 million dollars cut from this year’s operating budget.

The list of cuts includes instructional coaches in elementary schools, which would save the district $97,060.  Instructional coaches work with individual and small groups of teachers in each grade school.

Cutting the drug testing program for high school athletes and students in extra-curricular activities would save the district $45,475; eliminating bus service for Sea Week would save $13,045.

During the annual Sea Week, children in kindergarten through sixth grade visit the National Marine Fisheries Service Auke Bay Laboratories as part of their study of the ocean. The curriculum began in Juneau in the 1970s and has been taken statewide.  The National Science Teachers’ Association has named it one of the nation’s best science education programs.

Allison Smith is second grade teacher at Auke Bay Elementary School and was part of the program when she was a kid. Smith told the budget committee that the experience motivated her to take more science classes in college.

“If we do cut busing, yes there will be some schools and PTAs that can rise to the occasion and supplement that money, there will also be schools that cannot.  And if we really want to reach every student in our district, it’s important that we keep that funding equal for all schools because we stand to create a real disparity in the quality of life experiences that students have,” Smith said.

The budget committee has agreed that changes are needed to the administration’s plan, but for every addition, members must find another place to cut.  It’s a laborious process. As co-chair Brian Holst put it:

“We have a really long way to go.  We are many hours away from a recommendation to the Board of Education,” Holst said. 

The committee plans to have that priority list at the next meeting and is still taking email comments at budgetinput@jsd.k12.ak.us. The committee will recommend a budget to the Board of Education in March.

Alaska Senate Education Committee Chairman Gary Stevens will hold hearings on school vouchers, even after Senate leaders pulled a resolution dealing with the issue out of his committee.

Senate President Charlie Huggins, a Wasilla Republican, caused a stir last week when he removed Senate Joint Resolution 9 from the Education Committee and referred it to the Judiciary and Finance Committees. The resolution would ask voters to amend Alaska’s Constitution to allow public funds to be spent on private or religious schools.

In a Senate floor speech Tuesday, Stevens said he has not encountered a more momentous education issue in his 13 years as a legislator. The Kodiak Republican said the Education Committee does not need specific legislation to consider the merits of vouchers or, as supporters call the issue, “school choice.” He promised to have experts from both sides testify before the committee at a series of hearings.

“Because we have to be ready with information, with facts, with testimony of experts when issues are on the horizon,” he said.

Stevens said he does not like the concept of vouchers because he believes they violate the separation of church and state provisions of the Alaska and U.S. Constitutions.

While Huggins and other Senate Majority leaders claimed the referral change was made because the resolution deals with amending the state constitution, it was widely seen as a move to get the bill in front of a more favorable committee.

However, Stevens said the resolution would not have been held up by the Education panel based on his personal objection.

“I have never held a bill in a committee I have chaired because I did not like it or simply because I had the power as the chairman to do that,” Stevens said. “I made it clear that if the Education Committee had a resolution of any sort, it would be carefully considered and then moved along to the next committee.”

Stevens joked that he was “Clueless in Kentucky” when Huggins pulled the resolution from his committee. That’s because he was at a Council of State Governments event in Lexington last Friday.

Huggins released a statement Tuesday saying the resolution would be heard in the Education Committee if “significant education issues arise” in other committees.

Related:

Legislators consider school voucher program

A dozen states across the country have school voucher programs. Now, some legislators are trying to bring vouchers to Alaska. The push for directing state funding to private schools has more momentum than its had in the past.

On Wednesday, legislators packed one of the Capitol’s biggest committee rooms to learn about some major ways Alaska’s education system could be changed. You had the House Education Committee, the Senate Education Committee, House Judiciary, and Senate Judiciary, and then at least a couple of legislators who just wanted to observe. As Judiciary Chair John Coghill — a Republican from Fairbanks — noted, it wasn’t ordinary to get so many legislators together to talk about a single issue.

“This is an informational meeting and it’s a little bit unusual in many respects,” Coghill says.

“School choice” has been a phrase frequently tossed around the Capitol since the session started. More and more legislators have been pushing for Alaska to institute a voucher program, and efforts are being made to amend the state Constitution to allow that to happen. Right now, the Constitution expressly prohibits direct public funding of private religious schools. Wednesday’s hearing brought together a group of voucher advocates to explain to Alaska’s legislature how the law could be changed and why, in their opinion, it should be. None of the invited presenters opposed voucher programs.

Many of the legislators in the audience seemed receptive to the idea of vouchers, asking about their mechanics and how they’ve worked in other states. But there were some concerns, too, even from legislators who had complimentary things to say about the idea of school choice. Sen. Lesil McGuire, an Anchorage Republican, asked how implementing a voucher program would affect funding for traditional public schools.

 “We have limited funding as it is, and in a state that’s funded 90 percent by oil revenues and in a decline mode, what would happen if you were able to allocate that individual resource to every family unit and allow them to vote with their feet, if they voted to choose private schools in a way that allowed the public school system to deteriorate?” McGuire asks.

In response, Kevin Chavous, a voucher advocate and former Democratic Party politician, pointed to voucher programs in states like Minnesota, where public schools are still performing adequately.

“It will help really put the external pressure on the system to do what they have been saying they want to do,” Chavous says.

Much of the push for school vouchers has comes from legislators representing Southcentral Alaska. Sen. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican from Wasilla, introduced one of the resolutions that would get the constitutional amendment process rolling, and Rep. Lynn Gattis, a Wasilla Republican, has said that school choice is one of her priorities as education chair. At a press conference, Rep. Lora Reinbold, a Republican from Eagle River, stressed that her constituents also want to send their kids to places other than traditional public schools.

“They strongly support school choice, and so that’s something that I am definitely going to be representing,” Reinbold says.

But not everyone in the legislature is pushing for education vouchers. Rep. Bob Herron, a Democrat from Bethel who caucuses with the Majority, expressed skepticism over the voucher program.

“My constituents have grave concerns about that, so I’m going to represent the people that elected me to office,” Herron says.

For the Constitution to be changed, a resolution to amend it needs two-thirds of the vote in both chambers of the legislature. After that, the amendment would go to the ballot, where a majority of Alaskan would have to vote for it.

A similar resolution to allow for vouchers was introduced in the previous legislature, but it was never taken up by the Senate Education Committee. On Friday, the Senate voted not to refer the resolution to that same committee, which removes one potential roadblock for passage.

Alaskans marked Elizabeth Peratrovich Day on Saturday, in honor of the Tlingit woman whose testimony to the territorial legislature helped pass an Anti-Discrimination Act in 1945.

A small crowd gathered at the Alaska State Museum in Juneau to hear a talk from Barbara Cadiente-Nelson, a board member of Sealaska Native Corporation and the Douglas Indian Association, as well as a member of the Alaska Native Sisterhood.

“Mrs. Peratrovich’s testimony exemplifies a Tlingit value that our words have spirit and life,” Cadiente-Nelson said. “They tear down, or they build up. Choose them wisely.”

Peratrovich and her husband Roy were leaders of the Alaska Native Sisterhood and Brotherhood in the early 1940s, a time when Native people faced discrimination in housing and from many businesses in Juneau.

Since ANB and ANS were the leading civil rights organizations of the day, the couple petitioned territorial Governor Ernest Gruening to introduce the Anti-Discrimination Act. Elizabeth Peratrovich was the last to testify before the territorial Senate voted on the bill in 1945.

In 1988, the Alaska Legislature made February 16th Elizabeth Peratrovich Day, to mark the anniversary of the date Gruening signed the act into law.

Cadiente-Nelson acknowledged progress in the nearly 70 years since the act passed, but said there remains work to do to eliminate racism against Native people.

“When I was a teacher at Juneau-Douglas High School during a painful time, the acronym KAN was written on my white board and on my desk boards – it was Kill All Natives,” Cadiente-Nelson said. “That’s just one glimpse as to the presence of this evil that sometimes knocks on our door.”

After Cadiente-Nelson’s speech, the State Museum held a special screening of the documentary “For the Rights of All: Ending Jim Crow in Alaska.” The museum currently has an exhibit honoring Peratrovich titled “Alaskan. Native. Woman. Activist.” It’s on display through March 16th.

The Juneau-Douglas City Museum also has a special exhibit this month honoring Peratrovich.

A group of Juneau Douglas High School students won the Alaska Tsunami Bowl last weekend in Seward.

The final round of the annual marine science competition pitted Team Pogonophoraphobia from JDHS against the Mat-Tsunamis from Mat Su Career & Technical High School in Wasilla.

The Juneau-Douglas team, consisting of Johnny Connolly, Johnny Elliott, Sam Kurland, Olivia Raster and Ruby Steedle, will represent Alaska at the National Ocean Sciences Bowl in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in April.

The competition consisted of both a research project, including a 20-page paper and 20-minute oral presentation, and a timed quiz style match with two teams facing off against each other.

Teams from 17 schools participated in the competition, including one from Juneau’s Thunder Mountain High School.