Opinion: Additional school funding is all about counting to 45

Published 10:30 pm Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Much of what students learn in school is math — and how much it applies to their lives.

Whether adding up what they have in their bank or digital wallet to see if they can afford what they want; or measuring the front deck to calculate how much lumber they will need for the rebuild; or trying to figure out if they have enough gas in the tank to get to Pats Lake and back without filling up at the pump.

Math is a key part of schooling, as it should be. It adds up to a better life.

And math will decide whether school districts receive the full funding approved by legislators this year.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy in June vetoed about $50 million from the legislative appropriation for K-12 schools, around 30% of the increase in the per-student base funding formula used to calculate state aid to districts.

The governor then challenged legislators to a duel, calling them into special session to start on Saturday, Aug. 2, inviting them to take their best shot at his funding veto. If education supporters can get to 45 votes, they would override the veto and the governor would have no choice but to send out the checks.

But while counting to 45 is easy — just ask any young student with a passing grade in math — assembling 45 votes out of 60 legislators is a lot harder. Politics clouds any math equation: 2 plus 2 doesn’t always equal 4 when political considerations muck up the math.

Most Republicans probably will support their governor and vote against the veto override — that’s if they bother to show up for the special session. Dunleavy has asked House Republicans to stay away from work at the start of the session so that they can better avoid public pressure to vote for schools and against the governor. He doesn’t want anyone counting to 45.

But several Republicans have publicly stated they intend to report to the office and vote for the override, including first-year legislator Rep. Jeremy Bynum, who represents Ketchikan and Wrangell.

The governor is right when he says schools need to do a better job of educating children. No one argues with that. But cutting down the first significant increase in state funding to local school districts in almost a decade is a really lousy lesson plan.

Legislators should do their math and vote for schools.

Larry Persily is a longtime Alaska journalist, with breaks for federal, state and municipal public policy work in Alaska and Washington, D.C. He lives in Anchorage and is publisher of the Wrangell Sentinel weekly newspaper.