Matthew Berman

ISER researchers Matt Berman and Dayna DeFeo have released a new report updating their previous analyses of Alaska’s current per-pupil education spending. The report is available here: http://hdl.handle.net/11122/15717

Taxes for higher-income Anchorage residents would increase more than taxes for middle- and lower-income residents under a municipal sales tax initiative proposed by a coalition of Anchorage business and civic leaders. However, middle-income residents would pay three times the percentage of income as higher-income residents, and only one-fourth of the percentage paid by lower-income residents.

In this new ISER report (https://scholarworks.alaska.edu/handle/11122/14906), ISER economist Matthew Berman and CAEPR director Dayna DeFeo explore how Alaska teacher salaries compare to the national average, adjusted for cost of living differences. They also examined trends in salaries of Alaska and US teachers adjusted for inflation over the past several decades, and how the salary differentials have changed over time.

This is a list of recent publications and reports by CAEPR and ISER focused on school finance, teacher workforce issues (recruitment, retention, and turnover),and related topics. This represents only a small portion of the education-related products from CAEPR and ISER. All CAEPR/ISER reports are available on the web at Scholarworks@UA, and you can see many of our peer-reviewed journal publications on journal websites or via the UAA/APU Consortium Library.

On Thursday, December 7th, ISER hosted a Helen and Edward Gorsuch Public Policy Forum titled "Public Education Funding in Alaska: What we know, what we don't and how other states do it".

ISER Faculty Member Jennifer Schmidt partnered with Toby Schwoerer at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Jim Powell at the University of Alaska Southeast on a study of threats from climate-related hazards to homeowners in Fairbanks and Anchorage.