Alaska passed a federal check that keeps its school funding system intact

Alaska schools get a lot of federal money. The state has more federal land per square mile than almost any other place in the country — military bases, national parks, wildlife refuges, BLM land, Alaska Native trust lands — and federal law says school districts with those lands inside their boundaries get federal payments called "Impact Aid" to make up for the fact that they can't collect property taxes on land the federal government owns.

For most states, Impact Aid stacks on top of state aid. But for states that prove their school funding is fairly equal across districts, the federal government lets the state count Impact Aid in its formula — which lets the state give less in state aid to districts that already get a lot of federal money. Alaska has been one of those states for years.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Education certified that Alaska still qualifies for fiscal year 2027. The test: the gap between Alaska's high-revenue and low-revenue districts has to stay below 25 percent. This year it came in at 21.3 percent.

What this means for Alaskans: if Alaska had failed, the state would have had to give districts more aid from its own budget — at a moment when Anchorage and other Alaska communities are already wrestling with whether they can fully fund schools and general government at the same time. Certification keeps the existing system in place.

"This certification recognizes that Alaska's school funding formula continues to meet the federal standard for equalization," Commissioner Deena Bishop said. "Alaska's formula accounts for the unique challenges of educating students across a vast and diverse state, from remote rural communities to our largest cities, while supporting opportunities for all students."

A separate Alaska appeal on a prior year's certification is still pending with the U.S. Department of Education. That doesn't affect the 2027 certification.