Representative
CHRIS TUCK

I’m Here for You

I want to hear from you,
share your thoughts, voice
your opinion. Together we
will make a difference.

Click here to visit my Website
 
Click here to write me an email

Call me anytime:
   (907) 465-2095
   Toll-Free (866) 465-2095

Visit me:
   May-December
   716 W. 4th St., Ste. 340
   Anchorage, AK 99501
   (907) 269-0242 fax

   January-April
   State Capitol Bldg. Rm. 404
   Juneau, AK 99801
   (907) 465-3810 fax

Contact Other Elected Officials:

Governor Parnell,
Anchorage Office:
907-269-7450
EMAIL: Gov. Sean Parnell
www.state.ak.us

Senator Lisa Murkowski,
Anchorage Office:
907-271-3735,
EMAIL: Sen. Lisa Murkowski

Senator Mark Begich,
Anchorage Office:
907-271-5915
EMAIL: Sen. Mark Begich

Congressman Don Young,
Anchorage Office:
907-271-5978
EMAIL: Rep. Don Young

April 8, 2014

Working to Get the Education Session Back on Track

Dear Neighbors,

Yesterday I and like-minded colleagues in the Alaska Legislature worked late into the night to protect our children’s future by offering fixes to House Bill 278, the major legislation of the year pertaining to our public education system. 

This session has been widely touted as the “education session,” and House Bill 278 originally seemed to be a step in the right direction by focusing on needed changes such as eliminating the burdensome and unfair High School Exit Exam, increasing the funding formula which is used to calculate much of the funding for our school districts, and increasing access to charter schools.

From left to right: Reps. Gara, Tuck, Guttenberg and Kito discuss education priorities at a recent press conference.  Rep. Tuck offers an amendment to House Bill 278 during a late-night floor session.

Too Much Bad, Not Enough Good

House Bill 278 was dramatically changed as various bills were rolled into it without adequate study or public comment when it moved through the House Education and Finance Committees.  Resources are still not enough and schools face a fourth straight year of teacher cuts, increased class sizes, and cancelled programs.

I have prepared the following summary of some of the major fixes my colleagues and I offered on the house floor so you will have a good idea of what problems we were able to correct and which ones will require our continued attention and effort.

Successful amendments made to House Bill 278

• Stripping out provisions which would have stretched out payments to the teachers’ retirement fund for decades rather than paying them off sooner.  This would have ultimately led to billions in additional future costs and negatively impacted our credit rating.

• Restoring a mechanism to compensate for higher costs in rural Alaska and providing for a one-time grant to schools of $30 million.

• Allowing highly skilled students to test out of certain subjects, saving schools money and students’ time and effort.

Amendments to House Bill 278 that failed

• Removing a provision giving tax breaks to private religious schools and which likely violates constitutional provisions against state funding of private schools.

• Deleting a section that would have the state set pay rates for rural school employees, essentially taking away local control from school districts.

• Providing a 10 percent boost to charter schools to help them with rent and other facilities costs, which they currently must pay themselves unlike other public schools.

• Fixing a prohibition on the Department of Education adopting federal “common core” educational standards.  State standards already reflect portions of the common core and we don’t want to prevent them from being implemented if they are good policy.

• Removing a section that would hold teachers in rural Alaska to lower tenure standards than in urban areas.

• Increasing education funding to a level that would allow schools to reverse the previous three years of teacher layoffs and increased class sizes.

I am very glad to have fixed parts of House Bill 278, but I voted against the bill overall because, as written, it is still inconsistent with this being the “education session.”  The bill forces cumbersome burdens that don’t help and doesn’t provide what we know will help.

At the very least we must reverse the previous three years of stagnant education funding which have led to teacher layoffs, increased class sizes, and the loss of valuable programs such as shop class and summer school.

Special thanks to the members of the Great Alaska Schools education advocacy group for traveling to Juneau and making a big impression on the Alaska Legislature.

I am often told that properly funding education is unsustainable in current times of budget deficits, but I see it as a matter of prioritizing spending and making wise investments in our state’s future by ensuring we have children who grow up ready to join the workforce and contribute to building Alaska.

We can do this by getting our priorities straight.  Rather than spending $30 million making improvements to a luxury office building that we don’t even own, or risking hundreds of millions of dollars backing a private toll bridge that does not pencil out financially, or giving away billions of dollars in state oil revenue in exchange for drastically declining amounts of oil in the pipeline, we need to remember that we have been entrusted with the stewardship of our state’s future and base our priorities accordingly.

I’m here for you, so please keep in touch on matters important to you and your family!

Warm regards,

      Chris Tuck
      Alaska State Representative
      District 22 - Anchorage