Alaskans deserve an intellectually honest report on the performance of charter schools, the makeup of the student population as compared to the general population and details on how much an expansion of charter schools will widen the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
Read MoreThere is one important lesson to draw from the Dunleavy demand to give his followers on the state school board the power to create charter schools—he is on a clear path to creating private school vouchers in Alaska, paid for with public money.
Read MoreDespite unanimous public opposition, the Dunleavy administration adopted regulations in late 2023 to allow the governor, attorney general and lieutenant governor to get free legal help from the Department of Law when ethics violations are alleged.
Rather than trying to amend the state ethics law through legislative action, they opted to sneak this past the public through a regulation change with no public hearing.
Donald Handeland’s willing participation and leading role as chairman of Dunleavy’s compensation commission coup is reason enough for the Legislature to refuse to confirm Handeland to the latest important position he has been granted by Dunleavy, membership on the State of Alaska Personnel Board, arbiter of state ethics for the executive branch.
Dunleavy appointed Handeland to the personnel board on September 18 last year, filling a vacancy created when Craig Johnson was elected to the Legislature a year earlier.
Read MoreNone of the four Regulatory Commission of Alaska commissioners attended an important hearing in Juneau on increasing funding levels for the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.
The commissioners should have been there to defend the request for additional funds, explain why one-third of the agency’s staff positions are vacant, answer questions on internal operations, respond to questions on complex rate cases and talk about what the RCA needs.
Read MoreThe Senate Resources Committee announced a confirmation hearing on right-wing talk show host Mike Porcaro for his fisheries job Wednesday, but it was canceled before the hearing.
I’m waiting to hear back from legislators on when the hearing will be rescheduled.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy gave Porcaro a $136,000 state job on the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission last year, though even Porcaro says he never applied for the job, he knows nothing about fish and there aren’t enough hours in the day for the state to get its money’s worth out of him.
Read MoreThe House Finance Committee took tentative steps to reduce forward funding for Outside attorneys for the statehood defense industry and cut two of the three new employees Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor wants to hire to handle investigative grand juries.
The decisions on amendments by Anchorage Rep. Andy Josephson, both approved 6-5, would save the state $1.8 million.
House Republicans, who wrap themselves in the state flag and are guaranteed to support any lawsuit against the federal government, will try to restore $300,000 for grand jury staff and $1.5 million in statehood defense money, even though it will not be needed in the next fiscal year.
Read MoreBarbara Tyndall, named by Gov. Mike Dunleavy to the Alaska State Board of Education, was asked at a confirmation hearing March 20 if she agreed with the three-sentence provision in the Alaska Constitution that sets the standards for public schools.
Tyndall, who taught for 20 years at North Pole Christian School, said she went to a public school, graduating in Valdez in 1967. Her five kids went to public schools and she home-schooled them at times. She said she realizes public schools are secular.
“So yeah, I agree with that,” she said to Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson about the language in the Constitution. “For now.”
“For now,” Gray-Jackson said.
Read MoreThere are not thousands of students on waiting lists in Alaska trying to get into charter schools, contrary to claims by the Dunleavy administration.
Education Commissioner Deena Bishop, who calls herself a “data nerd,” testified Wednesday that she believed there are about 2,000 students in Anchorage alone on waiting lists to get into charter schools. The real number is about 350.
Read MoreThe Alaska Industrial Development & Export Authority has developed the bad budget habit of bypassing the public and the legislative authorization process required by the Alaska Constitution and state law for capital projects.
AIDEA has done this routinely under Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who treats the corporation like a private development bank that answers only to him, operating with no oversight from the Legislature. State law says it’s not supposed to be that way.
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