Alaska Education Task Force Calls for School Funding Adequacy Study

Alaska lawmakers studying the future of public school funding released a draft report on Monday calling for a comprehensive independent study before making changes to the state’s funding formula, Alaska Public Media reported.

The nine-page document comes from the Legislature’s Task Force on Education Funding, which was established as part of a political deal to secure Republican votes for a school funding increase that lawmakers passed over a veto last year. Rather than offering concrete dollar amounts or immediate revisions to how districts receive state dollars, the report focuses heavily on defining what constitutes an adequate education under the state constitution.

State data from the 2024–2025 school year shows that just about a third of students met grade-level proficiency standards in English, math and science. To address those outcomes, the draft recommends contracting with national experts to conduct an adequacy study in collaboration with the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research.

“Until we know if we’re adequately funding our schools, which that adequacy study will be able to enumerate for us, we don’t know if students have an opportunity to achieve proficiency,” said Sen. Löki Tobin, an Anchorage Democrat who co-chaired the task force. Sen. Löki Tobin

The co-chairs outlined the request in a letter detailing the request, asking lawmakers to set aside $500,000 as soon as possible. Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed a $400,000 appropriation for a similar study earlier in the year.

Beyond the adequacy study, the draft suggests creating a separate funding formula for school building maintenance, funding an energy relief program introduced this year, and averaging student enrollment counts over three years to stabilize district budgets.

The recommendations faced immediate pushback from minority members on the six-member task force. Soldotna Rep. Justin Ruffridge argued that waiting for a new study reverses the approach the panel should take.

“That is really the opposite of the route I had hoped we would go,” Ruffridge told Alaska Public Media, adding that he preferred taking the foundation formula back to basics to evaluate how dollars are spent.

Ruffridge also objected to language in the report asserting that in-person learning outperforms online and distance learning for most students. He called that portion bold and misdirected.

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“There’s room in Alaska for all three of our public education options, and we have to figure out what the right way to fund those is going to be. And correspondence has to be a part of that,” Ruffridge said. “If we’re pitting one against each other in the funding task force recommendations, we might have missed the mark.”

The task force left open enrollment recommendations out of the draft entirely, despite it being one of the core topics assigned to the group. Current state regulations allow students to enroll in home-district schools subject to capacity while permitting outside districts to charge tuition.

“We believe that the current system is adequate,” Tobin told Alaska Public Media.

The task force scheduled a 10-hour hearing scheduled for Thursday to gather public comment from across the state before submitting its final recommendations ahead of the new Legislature swearing in January.