Playing Monopoly with Alaska's School Facilities -- Rural Policy Matters, Volume 2, Number 6 (June 2000)

Alaska's legislature has passed a school construction bill that critics feel inadequately addresses the disparity between urban districts and poorer rural and Native Alaskan districts. In addition, efforts that would concentrate building contracts in the hands of urban firms have drawn fire.

Lawmakers are under pressure after last September's state supreme court ruling calling on them to rectify the funding inequity. Following the vote, Gov. Tony Knowles voiced concern that the bill will only fund $198 million of the $550 million he had called for in construction funds. Other estimates of the statewide need put the figure even higher.

The continuing tension between rural and urban was also evident when Eldon Mulder (R. Anchorage) submitted a separate but related construction bill too late in the session for discussion. Critics have voiced concerns that the legislation would funnel all construction work into one or two large, urban-based construction firms, potentially eliminating rural people entirely from the process of designing and building their own schools. Mulder defended his bill as "consolidating the way construction practices are handled -- making all entities involved run more efficiently."

Law makers might think of efficiency as appropriate to the half of Alaska's people, many of them native, who live in remote rural areas. In The Log School (see RPM Jan. 2000), Barnhardt and Dubbs discuss the role community context can play in designing, building and maintaining Alaska's rural school facilities. They argue that schools should draw as much as possible on locally available materials, expertise, and energy sources.

You can read the full text of The Log Schoolat www.ruraledu.org/docs/logschool.html