The ADN news story, “Future of correspondence school programs in flux,” published April 16, pointed out why Judge Adolf Zeman’s decision finding that correspondence school programs violate Alaska’s constitution was just and correct. All Alaska residents should be outraged to learn that the State of Alaska has apparently been funding a program that pays many parents up to $5,360 per year for every individual child they enrolled in a correspondence school program. It is especially outrageous that the parents and legislators quoted in the news story reported — without any apparent shame — that they were using these funds to pay for such things as field trips and music and dance lessons for their children.
For most parents, any private music, art and dance lessons that they can afford to provide for their children are paid for out of their own pockets, not reimbursed by the state. And, just as likely, if parents’ incomes fall into the lower income brackets, then such enhancement programs are simply out of the reach of their children. I do not have the data, but I am willing to bet at least $5,360 that families with a single parent, or two working parents barely scraping by, have not been able to take advantage of this correspondence school boondoggle.
Beyond the fact that these funds were being used to help pay for private school tuition, including clearly unconstitutional, faith-based schools and associated programs, it results in the closure of a valuable Alaska program because of systematic abuses by the privileged. The correspondence program was started by the state to sensibly provide educational opportunities for students living remotely, outside of school district boundaries. It is the height of irony that this important program has been misused by parents who I am also willing to bet are opposed to most other government social programs that they probably describe as “handouts.” So: correspondence school payments, yes, but adequate child care funding, no?
By now we should see that the governor, our education sheep in wolf’s clothing, introduced this legislation a decade ago to allow members of the religious right to deploy government entitlements to personally benefit them and their children. The result is yet another nail in the coffin of what was once Alaska’s highly successful public education system. Judge Zeman’s decision will force a correction that is absolutely necessary in order to stop the use of our precious and inadequate state education dollars for non-public school programs that violate our constitution. The legislation creating this boondoggle should never have passed, but the majority of Alaskans should welcome the result of the present lawsuit, albeit a decade late.
— Randall Burns
Anchorage
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