Anchorage Schools Shrink Amid Funding Crisis

0:00Anchorage school district is shrinking schools and programs, calling it right-sizing amid falling enrollment. Critics argue it's not just population trends, but years of underfunding, dubbing it the done-levy decline. Key fact, after adjusting for Alaska's high cost of living, purple spending sits 15 percent below the national average. From 2017 to 2022, national education funding rose 26 percent, while Alaska's climb just 13 percent, barely. Matching inflation. That's left district scrambling without extra cash. Test scores get weaponized against public schools, but opt out skew the data big time, only 14 percent of correspondence students even take. Them. Scores often mirror poverty levels, yet Anchorage does solid work, boosting student growth despite no universal pre-K. Governor Dunlevy vetoed bipartisan education bills, including one passing 48-11. Alaska's Reads Act lacks the full backing Mississippi gave its literacy push,

1:00no $15 million yearly or state-funded pre-K. This fuels talk of bouchers, shifting public dollars to private and religious schools, with less oversight. Wallmakers and parents urge fighting back to protect kids' futures. That wraps Anchorage News today, brought to you with AI. I'm Cory with The Story.