Yesterday morning the House and Senate responded to questions about House Joint Resolution 1 and its companion legislation Senate Joint Resolution 9.
Both of the resolutions deal with the Alaskan Constitutional amendment proposed which will have impacts on education and public funding.
Most of the questions were in regard to the opposition heard from this week’s public testimony hearing.
In the House Minority conference, Representative Harriet Drummond stated that in all her time spent with the Anchorage School District she had not seen call for private or religious schools and still has many questions about the resolution.
Rep. Drummond: “All these folks seem to be dancing around the issue of what the fiscal impact is, either because they haven’t looked at it, or because they don’t want the public to know. I did my own numbers and I’d say the sponsor was a bit aggravated with me.”
Represenative Scott Kawasaki spoke about public charters schools that have received accolades from the Department of Education in Fairbanks.
Rep. Kawasaki: “I think we need to keep doing that but we can’t do that when the BSA is constantly being decreased or is not kept up with inflation. The BSA is money that our school districts can count on, its money that our school boards have said that they need in order to complete the mission of preparing students for the next generation. And so that’s why when we’re talking about some of these vouchers and taking public money for private purposes it just doesn’t work. When teachers, school boards and parents have said we’ve seen success at our schools, we want that to continue.”
During the Senate Majority conference, Majority Leader Senator John Coghill stated that he thought the amendment would get back to the constitutional focus.
Sen. Coghill: “I think there’s a funding responsibility that we’ve agreed to in the constitution and it comes down to this: the best education we can get for the students in Alaska. And so I would actually distinguish between a system and the students. The system itself is a way to get to the students and if that system needs to change then lets change it so that the students get the best education.”
Senator Cathy Giessel also supported the amendment, citing her worries about the fact that Alaska has come in “dead last” in fourth grade reading competency.