Alaska State PTA 2017 Legislative Priorities

TOP PRIORITY: Statewide Education Funding
 

The Alaska PTA supports no further cuts to K-12 public education funding. Furthermore, we advocate:

• full funding of the existing education foundation formula;

• update the cost-of-living factor to reflect the current Consumer Price Index (CPI); and

• hold harmless any school district that would otherwise have funding reduced until actual CPI is equal to or above the current inaccurate CPI.

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ADDITIONAL PRIORITIES:
The Alaska PTA has additional issues.  All are equally important and not displayed in any particular order.  

• Lack of early learning and pre-kindergarten programs

  • We support quality early learning and family strengthening programs to ensure every child starts school ready to learn.

• High student to teacher ratio

  • We support adding teachers to improve the quality of the learning environment.

• Overwhelming mandates on teachers and support staff

  • We support legislators working with the administration to reduce mandates that force staff away from with students and their learning.

• Low teacher and staff retention

  • We support legislative words and deeds that improve education system employee morale and retention.

• Lack of after-school programs

  • We support after-school programs as opportunities for students to continue learning while parents earn a living.

• Closure of rural schools with low enrollment

  • We support equal learning opportunities for students in small, rural school districts.

• Late allocation of funds

  • We support earlier allocations to improve school planning and budgeting.

• Penalties for cost-savings

  • We support efforts to hold school districts harmless for finding efficiencies by adding a hold harmless clause to the education foundation formula.

• Address academic performance gap

  • We support efforts to help low income and minority students achieve their academic goals.