“Closing the Education Achievement Gap” 

Dr. Ben Chavis, founder of the American Indian Model (AIM) Charter School in Oakland, California will present on the topic of motivating students, especially minority and lower income students, to achieve their maximum potential. His AIM middle school is now the #1 achieving middle school in all of California. Ninety-two percent of the students speak English as a second language, 97% qualify for free/reduced lunch, and 98% of the students are minorities. How does he do this?

Many would call his method “tough love.” Whatever it is, it seems to work, and work very well. He insists on high student expectations, personal responsibility from each student, structured classrooms, and enforced discipline. Dr. Chavis has been featured on John Stossel’s “Stupid in America” series which focused on education successes in America. Some say Dr. Chavis is not politically correct; he would say his only concern is for the kids in his schools, not the political correctness of his views and methods. He is concerned with outcomes and ensuring all his students achieve their maximum potential.

An Inspiring Story

When Dr. Chavis became the principal of the middle school, it was sometimes referred to as the zoo. Neighbors hated it because the students were out of control and wreaked havoc in the area. It was the worst middle school in Oakland. Chavis realigned the culture of the school from one of low expectations/high self esteem to one of highest expectations/maximum achievement.

Join us to hear what Dr. Chavis has to say about our education system and solutions that he has made work in his schools. It will be an outstanding evening!

Wilda Marston Theater/Loussac Library

Tuesday, January, 24, 2012

6:30-9:00PM

Earlier in November, the Alaska Policy Forum released a report card for the schools in the Anchorage School District. With that report card as a starting point, the Forum created a more improved rating system, and integrated it into a clickable map for easier navigation. If you have questions or comments about this map, feel free to email

Bob Griffin, Education Research Fellow, Alaska Policy Forum at bgriffin at alaskapolicyforum dot org  

or

David Boyle, Research Associate, Alaska Policy Forum at dboyle at alaskapolicyforum dot org.

Take me to the ASD Report Card

Anchorage, Alaska – Continuing with its efforts to advance government transparency, the Alaska Policy Forum has launched a new portal which allows citizens in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough to view the salaries of its public employees. Like the previously launched website, the data can be navigated by an intuitive flowchart, which allows taxpayers to form an image of the way their local government is structured and where current employees are focused.

View the payroll data here.

To view a list of all payroll data portals, click here.

Partner with us to make this information better. Your donation will ensure that this information is made available in the future, and in a better format. Alaska Policy Forum is doing research on how to make this information easier to access and easier to provide. We can’t continue without your support.

If you have comments or questions, please contact us at the Alaska Policy Forum by clicking the link at the top of the page.

The Alaska Policy Forum has launched a transparency website for the Municipality of Anchorage payroll. The website allows citizens to view payroll and benefit data for nearly all Municipal employees by navigating an organizational chart. The data provided lists the employee, the position title, bargaining unit, salary (includes overtime) and benefits.

“It’s important that citizens have all the information they need to make informed decisions about whether we are spending too much or too little on government services,” said Jeremy Thompson, Executive Director of the Alaska Policy Forum. “Not only should data be organized in an intuitive way, it needs to be organized in a way that depicts the structure of government. We wanted citizens to learn something about government structure when they use this tool. Transparency is a mix of useful information and a better informed consumer.”

The website is part of Alaska Policy Forum’s focus on government transparency.

To navigate the payroll data, click here.

Frequently Asked Questions.

Stay informed as this website expands! Sign up for our email updates. Click the link on the toolbar at the top of the page.

Event is free and open to the public. The director of the film, Bob Bowdon, will be present for a Q&A following the film.

Click here to download a flyer for the event.

Visit the documentary website at www.thecartelmovie.com.

As part of the effort to better understand the bill, the Alaska Policy Forum has compiled from several sources a timeline that outlines the major provisions of the legislation’s implementation. Click here to view the timeline (javascript required).

There are two bills that make up President Obama’s health care reform. The first is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the second is what’s called the Reconciliation Act. Both were passed in March of 2010.

Click here to read the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Click here to read the Reconciliation Act.

The health care law creates dozens of new bureaucracies. Click here to dowload a list compiled by the Congressional Research Service. 

The flowchart below attempts to illuminate the health care reform legislation that was passed earlier this year. It has come to symbolize the mess that emerges when government tries to solve problems that should be solved by markets.

Click here to see a larger version of this flowchart.

While true transparency is more than just making information available on the internet, websites are a good first step. The Alaska Policy Forum is attempting to fill the need for transparency by making available to the public information about contracts and public bargaining agreements with schools, local government and state government. We are constantly looking for ways to make this better and more accessible to average citizens. If you have a suggestion on how to make it better, drop us an email at transparency@alaskapolicyforum.org. If you would like to email this page to a friend, use the button at the bottom of this page.

Former crime lab director, George Taft, criticizes proposed crime lab and recommends Alaska Policy Forum report. 

April 5, 2010

Anchorage, Alaska – Another former director of the Alaska State Crime Lab has expressed his opposition to the crime lab replacement project as it has been currently proposed by the Department of Public Safety and has recommended the report released by the Alaska Policy Forum which addresses the merits of the project. George Taft is the second former crime lab director who has said the project needs to be reconsidered. Taft’s professional background includes managing the State Crime Lab in Alaska and three satellite crime labs in Texas. George Taft currently serves on the Board of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board.

“The [Alaska Policy Forum report] is a document that should be reviewed by all those making a decision on the funding for this project. It is a fair comprehensive document written by volunteers at no cost to the State,” wrote Taft in a letter to Governor Parnell. “There is no doubt that the current Crime Laboratory needs more space, but building a new 84,000 sq ft replacement is way over the top.”

Taft also addressed the future costs to maintain the facility. Though the price tag of the proposed lab is now over $100 million, nearly 20 percent of the new facility would be unfinished shell space. “Will Public Safety be paying utilities on this unused space for the next twenty years?” asked Taft in his letter. “With this large a building, will Public Safety have a future operating budget to cover the cost of these increased facilities?”

The Alaska Policy Forum released their report last month addressing the merits of the project which has a history reaching back to the previous administration. The report considers factors such as size, caseload, site, and design of the new crime lab, and concludes that the proposal does not fit the needs of the state and has the potential to take resources away from other important needs. Evidence submission to the lab was found to be “flat or declining,” with an overall workload the same as it was about 15 years ago.

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To read the full letter, click here.

To download a summary, the full report, or a fact sheet, or to read highlights, click here.

The Alaska Policy Forum is an independent 501(c)3 non-partisan, free-market think tank that seeks to hold government accountable for its fiscal policies. The Alaska Policy Forum does not take government grants. We are funded by donations from individuals just like you. Consider partnering with us. We can’t continue to produce these kinds of reports without your partnership.

Download a hardcopyhere (PDF).

Recently, the Anchorage School District (ASD) requested community input to assist the District and the School Board in managing their budget. The question under consideration was how to close an anticipated budget gap for FY 2011.

We at the Alaska Policy Forum attended two of the four community forums, at Wendler and Gruening Middle Schools, and provided input to the Superintendent and the School Board.

The ASD budget “shortages” that make up the gap constitute about two percent of the total operating budget. These shortages are not reductions in the current budget but are reductions in growth of the next fiscal year budget. If the School Board and the Superintendent are truly interested in ways to deliver a better value education product (best education for the best cost), the ASD needs to consider the following recommendations to achieve this goal:

? Conduct a comprehensive personnel study. Most of education is human resources. Since approximately 88 percent of the ASD operating budget is made up of personnel costs (salaries and benefits), reducing costs through personnel cuts cannot be avoided. A top-to-bottom manpower study of the District will provide the necessary information to determine which positions can be cut without impacting the educational mission.

Personnel cuts are usually an unpleasant topic. It is important that as many as possible understand all the facts before the cuts are made so the District can benefit from input. The District should make available a complete list of all positions in the ASD, categorizing positions by schools, functional account code, or work center. It should also make available the names of personnel assigned to these positions and a listing of unfilled, funded positions. All information should be made available in a structured, machine readable, electronic format.

These documents should be readily available now and used by ASD on a daily basis to effectively manage human resources. It is discouraging that these documents were not made available before the call for public input to address the two percent reduction of budget growth. This “faces & spaces” study will take time, but it is necessary to ensure value for education and the Anchorage community.

? Place the District checkbook online. Ensure transparency and accountability in management of the budget, by placing the ASD checkbook, in its entirety, online so citizens can see where the District spends its money. More importantly, if the District truly desires input on how to prioritize its spending and where to cut, it needs to make its spending and budget practices more transparent. An online checkbook would be an excellent first step. It would also raise its credibility and visibility to the community.

? Use the input of people in the system. ASD employees are the “boots on the ground” and are more knowledgeable of potential waste in the District. There may be employees who have ideas on how something can be done more efficiently. The administration and the School Board need to listen to these people and encourage their ideas. Create an atmosphere where people feel comfortable sharing ideas to run things better, and create incentives for identifying waste.

Formulate and implement a Fraud, Waste, & Abuse (FWA) policy to ensure more efficient operations. The focus on fraud and abuse should be in 1) procurement and contracting and 2) potential theft of District property. This would require that stringent equipment control policies be established and followed. Computer equipment has a great potential for fraud and misuse through theft/misallocation. A comprehensive FWA policy should also include full whistle-blower protection and incentives for identification of FWA. This would be a win-win for the District, its employees, and the taxpayers by ensuring that resources are effectively used and directed to the education process.

? Contract out support services to reduce costs. This could include food services, transportation, and other support services. The Department of Defense has been the lead Federal agency and has contracted out support services, such as lawn mowing, dining hall, security, etc for more than 20 years because it is cost-effective and adds to the mission by not diverting resources away from the core objective. To divert resources from the prime mission of the District (educating our youth) would be inefficient, at best. The current bargaining units could also compete for the contracts as well as private contractors. Competition brings efficiency, cost-cutting, and innovation to the table. The ASD and the community will win.

? All capital projects should be justified by an economic analysis (EA). Normally, an EA is performed when one needs to construct a new facility and wants to consider the advantages and disadvantages of leasing. An EA will ensure that a project is a well defined, valid operational requirement and is worthy to compete for funding with other projects and priorities. An EA should include full life cycle costs and all alternatives, including the alternative of doing nothing. We want to get the best return on our investment with limited resources.

However, an EA can and should also be used in other decision matrices. For example, ASD should use an EA to determine whether or not to build an artificial turf field, natural field, or none at all. When considering information technology, the School District should use an EA to determine if it should buy commercial off-the-shelf software or should develop its own. All these EAs should include the total costs: loaded personnel costs, costs over the life of the product, materials, and maintenance. Only through a thorough EA can leaders make the best informed decisions and allocate limited resources for the maximum benefit–the best education possible.

David Boyle is a research associate at the Alaska Policy Forum. He can be reached at dboyle@alaskapolicyforum.org.