Dunleavy says unless he gets his way, education bill is dead

From his perch in Anchorage, Gov. Mike Dunleavy hectored legislators and Alaskans who don’t agree with his ideas on improving education, sounding like an exasperated junior high principal addressing juveniles who refuse to do as they are told.

But he’s not a principal anymore and he doesn’t have a captive audience. He’s not even in the room. He’s in Anchorage. Next week he’ll be in Juneau, he says.

At a press conference this week, he tried to ridicule those who have other ideas on education, writing them off as special interests and blockheads.

He said he would veto the bill that nearly every legislator supported because it did not include provisions he wanted on charter schools, reading and teacher bonuses. He made it clear that he thinks school boards and school districts can’t be trusted and that only he knows what should be done.

He’s the one who cares about children and their education. Special interests and blockheads do not.

If legislators don’t do what he wants, Dunleavy said, ”then that will be it for reform in Alaska, I think for years, to be honest with you.”

So if legislators do not follow his commands, he will veto the bill and he’ll be done.

He will also take his marbles and go home.

For all his time in government, he still needs an education in how to work with other elected officials and people who don’t share his point of view.

His empty “I have all the answers” act will not get him the votes he desires. Neither will his incessant moaning and groaning. A great architect of political compromise he is not.

His plan to give bonuses to teachers has real problems. It has the makings of a boondoggle.

“There hasn’t really been a discussion about how good of an idea it is to bring in people from the Philippines and couples from the Lower 48, have them teach for three years, earn a $90,000 bonus, and then leave the state,” Sen. Bill Wielechowski told the Alaska Beacon.

That’s how much a two-teacher couple would receive in bonus pay for working three years.

Matt Buxton has this analysis.

“This latest fight is a pretty tidy encapsulation of Dunleavy’s approach to legislating as governor, where compromise has essentially become ‘Give me what I want, or else I’ll burn the house down.’ He’s not done much to win buy-in for his proposals beyond these bloviating news conferences that offer little beyond tired lines about school spending and blatantly false claims that younger people don’t want to retire with a meaningful sense of security,” Buxton wrote.

(The latter refers to Dunleavy’s claim that young people want cash now and should get it to pay off loans, etc. and aren’t worried about retirement funds.)

“His charter proposal is perhaps the worst of the bunch as it’s predicated on a study that simply found Alaska’s charters performed well compared to other charter programs in the country. It doesn’t offer insight into why those charters did well or how they compare to neighborhood schools. The governor doesn’t mention that it was written by an advocate for vouchers and charter schools.”