Bob Griffin provides half the truth on why few Alaska students score high on Advanced Placement tests

Bob Griffin, who describes himself as “kind of a numbers-driven guy,” always coats his opinions with a steady stream of percentages, rankings, jargon and raw numbers, speaking with the complete authority you would expect from any long-time Alaska Airlines 737 captain.

Griffin, a campaign supporter and close ally of Gov. Mike Dunleavy, has been nominated by the governor for a second five-year term on the state school board. He faces a Senate Education Committee confirmation hearing Monday. His appointment will be among the many decided at a joint session of the Legislature in the next few weeks.

Griffin, who makes many claims about education that are identical to those uttered by Dunleavy, is a volunteer for the Alaska Policy Forum, which calls him the “senior education research fellow.”

During his House Education Committee confirmation hearing April 17, Griffin compared Alaska schools to Florida schools, as he often does, and mentioned a recent Rutgers study about the adequacy of school funding being low in Florida and high in Alaska.

"Even though by the Rutgers study they are the least adequately funded system in the United States, as far as their fiscal effort they apply, Florida today is third in the nation in the percentage of kids who graduate high school with an AP test 3 or higher, at about 29 percent. Alaska unfortunately, we rank 45th in the nation in that category, with only about 12 percent of our kids achieving an AP 3 or higher,” Griffin said, 11 minutes into the confirmation hearing.

Griffin has had plenty of time to give an accurate picture about Advanced Placement courses and testing in Alaska, but he has failed to do so, choosing instead to mislead legislators with half-truths.

Griffin did not mention that in Florida 46.1 percent of students took one or more AP tests in 2023, while only 20.3 percent of Alaska students took one or more AP tests.

The statistics are found on this page from the College Board, which runs the AP program.

This immense percentage difference in how many students take the tests calls Griffin’s simplistic conclusion into question.

Advanced Placement courses present college-level material to high school students. Taking the AP test is the means by which college credit can be earned in advance. Some students take the AP courses without ever taking the AP tests.

The tests are given near the end of the school year and graded on a scale of 1 to 5. Students who earn a 3 may qualify for college credit, depending upon what college they attend.

One reason for the great disparity in how many students take an AP test is that Florida is among the states that subsidizes the cost of taking the tests.

Alaska is one of the states that provides no subsidy for taking AP tests, the College Board says. The tests can cost up to $101 each. (This State of Alaska education website, which is incomprehensible, claims that some Alaska test subsidies are available.)

As a member of the state school board, Griffin should be aware that the state does not promote AP exams the way that Florida does.

His misleading comments to the Legislature April 17 were not off-the-cuff remarks.

On March 17, he wrote on the Republican blog that the “best indicator of the quality of kids graduating a system” is how many high school graduates score 3 or higher on an AP test.

Griffin used that single difference in percentages of AP test scores to back up his claim that Florida schools are doing well, while Alaska’s are not. He made this same false claim February 15 in the Anchorage Daily News.

He made a similar false connection a year ago on March 15, 2023 during legislative testimony in which he had high praise for Florida, with 34 percent of students earning a 3 or higher on an AP test, while saying only 14 percent of Anchorage students did the same, offering that as a sign of failure.

On April 17, he included his misleading claims about AP tests in a document he distributed to the House Education Committee about “poorly allocated resources.”

In his confirmation hearing, he did not mention the low percentage of Alaska students taking AP tests and how much the cost of the tests and availability of AP courses play into this. In any case, it is not accurate to use the data the way that Griffin does.

And he did not mention that the authors of the Rutgers study—that said Alaska ranks second among the 50 states in providing adequate education funding—have said that the study is flawed and inaccurate in the application of its national model to Alaska.

Mark Sabbatini of the Juneau Empire reported on the authors discounting the Alaska results March 19, but Griffin did not mention that crucial change in his testimony April 17 to the House.

One of the authors of the Rutgers study, Matthew Di Carlo, said “upon careful review of our estimates, we have decided not to publish adequacy estimates for Alaska in future releases, at least until we can better account for the unique issues."

To legislators, Griffin merely repeated that Alaska ranks second in the national study for adequately funding education, comments that he repeated in written form:

This is from a document distributed to the House Education Committee April 17 by Bob Griffin, appointed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy to a second five-year term on the state school board. Griffin failed to mention in this document that the authors of the Rutgers study say their national model is flawed and is not accurate in its claims about Alaska school funding. Griffin also failed to mention that a far higher percentage of Florida students take AP classes than Alaska students, which is one big reason why a far higher percentage of Florida students earn a grade of 3 or higher on an AP exam.

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