Prax opposes education funding, telling people to donate to schools if they want

The weakest excuse in favor of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s education veto came from North Pole Rep. Mike Prax.

“I need to point out that we're talking about forcing people to pay things whenever we say you've got to pay for something. There are in fact other options for people that think there needs to be more funding towards education or any other state services,” the Prospector Outfitters owner said during the override debate.

“Specifically to education, those that say they want to support education can, still can, you can change your PFD application, participate in the education raffle, that all of that money goes into the education fund.”

“And of course, you can just write a check, write a check to the state, tell em’ put it into education, there it is. So you can donate as much as you want towards state-funded education, if we're really interested and sincere about doing that. So we do have options.”

“I'm objecting to forcing people to contribute more without any discussion of performance measures,” he said.

Speaking of performance measures, Prax voted to discharge the education bill from committee February 19 and later said he voted yes by mistake.

And his performance on the vetoed bill with this lamest of excuses doesn’t measure up.

Every school board meeting in Alaska deals with questions about academic performance. The daily work of teachers and administrators is focused on helping students perform. There are many ways to measure this, including standardized tests.

The opponents of public education, including the governor and many Republican legislators, seem determined to undermine the work of Alaska’s teachers and school boards with the constant repetition of the same misleading talking points. There are no Republican plans for policies that will improve “outcomes.”

I have heard Prax make his all-purpose excuse before that if a resident of Alaska wants a state service, then it is up to that person to pay for it.

Six years ago he directed this argument at me after I spoke at a League of Women Voters panel discussion on the budget. This was before Gov. Mike Dunleavy appointed Prax to the Legislature to fill the seat left vacant when Tammie Wilson quit the Legislature to take a state job with the Dunleavy administration.

I wrote about this exchange in 2021, noting that I thought it was a good discussion, although certain members of the audience, especially Prax and Lance Roberts, didn’t care to hear me advocate for a reduction in Permanent Fund dividends, new taxes and the continuation of state services, including the University of Alaska.

After the presentation at the Noel Wien Library, Prax jabbed his index finger in the air at me and began screaming. He called me a “God-damned thief,” among other things. This was out of character for Prax, normally a mild-mannered individual.

When I said that stating an opinion about public policy is not theft, he did not want to hear it. He said if I wanted more money to go to the university, it should come out of my pocket and that I should not force him to pay for it through government theft.

On another occasion, Prax said that people who want to pay for services and receive the Permanent Fund dividend are “free to go ahead and send their check back, if they want to do that, and then we can quit arguing about it.”

That’s no solution. We have a Legislature, which consists of 60 people, whose job it is to set priorities for state spending, what Prax calls “forced providing.”

One of the mandates in the Alaska Constitution is that the state must “establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children in the state.”

Prax pays little heed to this constitutional mandate as he says it is entirely up to elected officials like himself to decide “what that looks like. That’s still up to us, the Legislature.”

It’s important to note that the Prax excuse that “if you want it, pay for it yourself” is only rolled out by Prax when he opposes the item at hand.

Parents with kids in Alaska public schools, when faced with larger class sizes and reduced academic offerings, should know that Prax thinks the solution is for them to write checks to the state.

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