The Anchorage School District-Obama Stimulus Shell Game

When the ASD first received federal stimulus dollars from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009, we were told that this wind-fall spending would produce better results for our kids. We were also assured by the district that budget growth from this one-time injection would not impact future budgets. That's not exactly how it's panned-out for the kids or the taxpayers.

In the post-stimulus era, Anchorage school spending is much higher and test scores are lower.

A good benchmark to observe the rapid budget growth is the tracking dramatic increase in the district's general fund expenditures since 2008. Looking back to the 2007-08 school year (prior to stimulus) general fund expenditures were $465 million/year. Post-stimulus (2012-13) it's $569 million. That's an increase of $104 million since 2008, with fewer students being served.

Recap: With a decline in enrollment since 2008, school district general fund expenditures increased 22 percent while inflation was 6 percent.

With all of the drama in the mainstream media coverage of the ASD budget process, the casual observer might believe the Anchorage school budget is being slashed. That's not the case. Excluding $7.6 million in one-time federal money from the Education Jobs Bill, the budget will actually see a $1.6 million increase year-over-year. The local taxpayers' burden is affected the most by the new budget. The 2012-13 school budget includes a $3.6 million increase in general fund spending from local property taxes that will set the precedent for expected future local contributions. The only saving grace for local taxpayers is that local debt service is down $1.2 million per year because of recent school bond failures.

Another fact that the ADN and KTUU will probably overlook is that the new ASD budget format no longer reports the supplemental spending for Public Employees Retirement System and Teacher Retirement System (PERS/TRS). When this cost of educating our kids is excluded from the budget, it make district spending appear $120 million per year lower than it actually is. With PERS/TRS included, total district spending is $847 million per year; an increase of $16 million over the current year. That works out to about $17,800 per non-charter school students and $7,100 per charter school student.

As for the better student outcomes we were expecting from the stimulus -- they never materialized. In 2011, despite a multiyear period unprecedented spending growth, 63 of 80 mainstream non-charter schools actually posted lower combined math and language arts scores on the State of Alaska Standards Based Assessment (SBA) than they had in 2007-08. Three schools saw their proficiency levels drop more than 20%.

The results for the eight charter schools in the school district were much better. Four out of the eight charters saw improved scores since 2008. Two of them -- Alaska Native Cultural Charter School and Aquarian Charter School, were the two most improved schools in the district, despite the fact that both of these schools operate from facilities that would be considered significantly sub-standard for the neighborhood schools they out-performed.

The Anchorage School District is full of elaborate rationalizations for why they have grown so large, with fewer students to serve, while simultaneously becoming less effective. I guess we shouldn't be too surprised. That's what monopolies do.

Bottom-line: Compared to 2008, the post-stimulus Anchorage School District budget that goes to the Assembly on March 27th, under-reports actual spending, reduces teachers, increases overall class sizes, adds over 150 non-teaching staff positions, increases general fund spending more than three times the rate of inflation, with fewer students, who have lower test scores.