A new report by Mike Bronson examines the relationship between student growth and proficiency. Looking at Anchorage third grade growth and proficiency scores, the report finds that the state is not providing adequate opportunities for students to learn to state performance standards.

Classroom visits are a gift. In April, several teachers in Homer and Nome generously granted me five-to-ten minutes of their precious time to ask their students a series of questions; they chimed in occasionally to provide clarity or add their own opinion. 

Industrial Training International recently published this story about how districts are working together to provide Career and Technical Education (CTE) opportunities for students in rural Northwest Alaska…

This report is a collaborative effort between the Partnership for Equity & Education Rights (PEER) and 31 education advocacy organizations spanning 19 states. PEER is a national network of organizers, advocates, lawyers, and community leaders focused on reinvestment in public education.

While vouchers have yet to reach Alaska, it is critical to be aware of any and all potential threats to our public education.

After its presentation at the joint Senate and House Education Committee meeting on February 19, the Alaska Municipal League shared a list of Public School Mandates with the committees.

Attached is a review of State statutes, which identifies what could be considered unfunded mandates. All that means is that these are obligations of school districts that don’t have specific funding tied to them.

Public debates often get reduced to simplistic, headline-friendly narratives. In Alaska, one of the most persistent false choices is the idea that increasing public education funding — by raising the Base Student Allocation, or BSA —must come at the expense of the Permanent Fund dividend (PFD). This framing suggests that policymakers and the public must choose between supporting schools and supporting individual Alaskans…

DEED sent out a press release on Wednesday, January 29th implying that Alaska’s state test scores have dropped across the board and that increased funding to districts would not improve student performance.

This is an inaccurate portrayal of the scores and requires not only clarification but a rebuttal.

This report from Beth Zirbes and Mike Bronson examines results from Alaska’s in-state academic assessments of public school students during the 2018-2019 school year to determine how much of the charter schools’ performance might be attributable to characteristics that students bring to the schools versus the education the schools provide.

In early October 2024, the Alaska Department of Education & Early Development (DEED) released a draft proposal to change a standing regulation that would expand the definition of “local contribution.” Local contribution is the dollar amount that municipalities and organized boroughs across the state contribute to their school district…

Twenty years of data show how budget cut-backs for K-12 schools starting in 2007 predict both the loss of teachers and plunging student proficiencies in Alaska… This report by Mike Bronson, NAACP Anchorage education committee, looks at how the base student allocation (BSA) and the numbers of teachers correlate with the drop in student proficiency over recent years.

In November, Executive Director Caroline Storm and I went to Tulsa, Oklahoma for a national convening on the state of public education. Representatives from coalitions across twenty-two states joined at the PEER convening for three days of conversation and learning about public education and advocacy in the U.S. …

On November 7, 2024, the Coalition for Education Equity passed a Member Resolution calling for a raise to the Base Student Allocation (BSA). You can read the full resolution here.

Early in October, CEE Fellow Nisha Marino visited Gustavus and got to participate in a field trip for the school’s K-2 class. Here are her reflections.

As CEE’s Executive Director, I had the opportunity to travel out to Western Alaska at the end of August to engage with three member school communities at 4 different sites and meet with three district superintendents, Bethel Mayor Mark Springer, and District 38 Representative CJ McCormick.

Application deadline: April 19, 2024! The Spike Jorgensen Scholarship is awarded annually to students from Coalition for Education Equity member school districts who show strong promise in overcoming academic, personal, or societal obstacles to excel in his or her chosen area of post-secondary education.