As Alaska once again begins the tiresome annual dance in Juneau of creating a sustainable and affordable budget, especially as it comes to education, I continually loop back to a traditional Maasai greeting. The Maasai are an Indigenous nomadic people in East Africa. Rather than ask about themselves, they ask about future generations.
“And how are the children?” is the traditional way to greet others.
This is not only a selfless greeting but a sustainable one borne through thousands of years and a visceral understanding that the future of any community depends on the success of its children, not on the current wants and desires of adults. I can’t help but look at Alaska and draw distinct differences as we, once again, debate a completely unsustainable PFD (free money, but hey, boo socialism!) versus basic quality-of-life services like education, public safety, public services, infrastructure, energy and so many more.
As a veteran teacher, I work with hundreds of students and families every day and interact with educators throughout our state and country. I have never, once, met a single person who would be characterized — as Gov. Dunleavy recently put it — as, “guardians of the status quo and the guardians of the money-only monologue.” There is no educator anywhere who thinks money is the only solution to the problems that education in our state faces or one who thinks the “status quo” in education is perfect. Not. A. Single. One. As educators, we literally advocate for improvements to education every day, both large and small. If the governor has a few hours, I can happily go over the CliffsNotes and he is welcome to invite any “money-only” educators he can find.
Public services that are integral to the general quality of life of a community, such as education, public safety, etc., should not be subject to falsehoods to exert political pressure nor should those performing those vital tasks be demonized, such as our governor continues to do to teachers because we are, gasp, unionized for our own protection. Teacher unions do as much work, if not more, toward the improvement of student outcomes as any other organization involved in education. Student success is at the forefront of everything we do to promote and protect the profession from outside influences who do not have students’ best interest in mind such as privatization groups and, unfortunately, many times, our own government, even though it has a constitutional mandate to take care of our public schools.
As I have previously written, Alaskans are a smart and nimble people who are capable of debating and working on multiple things at the same time. We can fund schools to avoid near collapse while also calmly and meaningfully debating real changes to improve student outcomes. Educators and our state and local unions not only welcome those conversations but continually are advocating to have them on all levels. Educators want changes, but we want changes that are supported by research, such as free breakfast and lunch, universal pre-K, reading pedagogy, programs that have proven results in the long term, and so many more. But it is not useful to pretend charter schools or correspondence programs, which serve a fraction of students under specific circumstances, are a solution for the majority of students. Don’t get me wrong, both charter schools and correspondence play a vital role in educating Alaska’s students and deserve support. However, in a state as geographically diverse as Alaska, public schools will always remain the bedrock of our communities and deserve to be supported and celebrated while also working to improve them. This starts with fully funding them to provide a robust education for ALL students.
As the governor and Legislature dance out the specifics of this year’s school funding, both on the floor of the Capitol and in backrooms of working groups, I hope every conversation begins with “And how are the children?” and not “Give me what I want or else.”
Ben Walker is a public school teacher and NEA member working to improve student outcomes every day. He is the 2018 Alaska State Teacher of the Year and proud parent of two public school students.
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