The Boney Courthouse in downtown Anchorage, across the street from the larger Nesbett Courthouse, holds the Alaska Supreme Court chambers. that allows the state to distribute cash payments to the parents of homeschooled students on the grounds that it violates constitutional prohibitions against spending state money on private education.The decision has major and immediate implications for the 22,289 students enrolled in state-operated correspondence programs used by homeschooled students.
The change throws a hot potato into the halls of the Alaska Legislature, which has been struggling for months to pass education legislation. The stakes for correspondence programs and public schools in general are high. Since the 2014 law, roughly 10% of Alaska school enrollment has shifted from school buildings to correspondence programs, with the pace of the shift accelerating over the past four years.Alaska has operated correspondence programs for homeschooled students since before statehood, but only recently have those programs begun giving cash allocations to families.
The idea appears to remain widespread today. The Alaska Policy Forum, a limited-government group that once included Jodi Taylor on its policy board,filed suit against the state’s education commissioner and the state of Alaska In its section on public education, the constitution says: “No money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”
“Parents have the right to determine how their children are educated,” Zeman wrote. “However, the framers of our constitution and the subsequent case law clearly indicate that public funds are not to be spent on private educations.” “Really what was going on here was the reimbursement of state funds to pay for tuition at private schools. That was really, in a nutshell, what this case was all about,” he said. Now that cannot happen any longer, but Kendall stressed that the ruling does not affect parents retroactively.
It’s also possible that the decision could be stayed — or put on hold — until the end of the state’s fiscal year on June 30 to avoid disruptions for students in correspondence programs. Wielechowski said he would support such a stay.