By REP. KEVIN MCCABE
Alaska’s education system is broken, and families know it. Anchorage is losing roughly 1,000 students per year, dropping from 49,243 in 2010 to 42,353 in 2024.
This, as much as anything, is what is affecting their budget. Parents are fleeing a rigid, bureaucratic system in favor of options that reflect their values and their children’s needs. Mat-Su is growing because it delivers those options: Charter schools, correspondence programs, and hands-on technical education.
This is not just a demographic trend, it is a grassroots rebellion against a failing, one-size-fits-all education model.
As John Taylor Gatto explains in Weapons of Mass Instruction, the 19th-century Prussian school model was designed for obedience, not excellence. That structure still dominates Alaska’s public education system today, enforced by a single-authorizer charter model and protected by one of the most powerful political forces in our state: the National Education Association.
Samuel Blumenfeld exposed this in NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education, showing how the NEA operates not as a professional organization but as a political machine. In Alaska, the NEA has a stranglehold on public education policy, controlling school boards, lobbying legislators, funding campaigns, and opposing every meaningful reform to empower parents.
Nowhere is that more obvious than in Alaska’s single-authorizer system for charter schools. Right now, only school districts can approve charters. That means innovation depends on the approval of the same political bodies threatened by change. Schools like Fronteras Spanish Immersion have long waitlists and operate out of inadequate facilities while demand soars.
Meanwhile, a 2025 lawsuit, almost certainly influenced by NEA-backed interests, is challenging the ability of families to use correspondence allotments for private education expenses. This is a direct attack on parental rights and a deliberate effort to shut down educational alternatives.
Milton Friedman offered the right solution back in 1955 in The Role of Government in Education. The state should fund education and set standards, but it should not dictate where a child learns or how. Parents, not politicians or union bosses, should choose the school. That vision is alive in the Mat-Su Borough School District. With nearly 20,000 students, Mat-Su offers families charter schools, CTE programs, and public correspondence options. Mat-Su Central School alone serves more than 3,000 students and offers $3,000 allotments that families use for custom learning: from violin lessons to coding boot camps.
Mat-Su’s charters outperform the district average. Fronteras has 50% reading proficiency compared to 34% district-wide. In 2024, Mat-Su charter schools achieved a 92% graduation rate, far above the 78 percent state average. In 2024, 74 percent of Mat-Su voters supported a $58 million bond to expand charter school facilities. Parents are not just choosing Mat-Su, they are investing in it. Meanwhile, over 10,000 Alaskan students have moved into correspondence programs in the last 25 years. Another 5,080 have left the public system altogether to attend private schools, often paying upwards of $14,903 per year. These families are voting with their feet and their checkbooks.
Mat-Su’s success goes beyond choice. Mat-Su Career and Technical High School (CTHS) offers eight career pathways and over 40 certifications, including Microsoft, Cisco, and OSHA. Its graduation rate is 98.67%. Chronic absenteeism is just 8% , compared to 25% statewide. When education is relevant, students show up and succeed.
Nationwide, Friedman’s free-market vision is winning. Thirty-two states and Washington, D.C. now offer private choice through vouchers, ESAs, or tax-credit scholarships, serving more than one million students. From 2021 to 2025, universal voucher programs expanded from zero to thirteen states, spending $4 billion in the 2023–24 school year.
The federal Educational Choice for Children Act would add $5 billion in tax credits for scholarships. These reforms prove that competition works. In Alaska, opponents raise concerns about accountability, noting that 86 percent of correspondence students opt out of state testing. But those programs undergo curriculum reviews and financial audits every year. So, let’s not limit a great program because of a perceived lack of accountability. Let’s test the kids and find out how well they are doing…. Or maybe the NEA, the AASB, and ACSA do not want to know how well correspondence is working?
Critics claim school choice drains public resources. That is false. Charter schools and correspondence programs are tuition-free, public, and audited. The 2025 lawsuit against allotments ignores the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002), which upheld parent-directed funding models. If financial equity is the concern, Alaska can require private schools that accept allotments to have transparent admissions practices. Arizona’s voucher program showed that 75% of recipients were already in private school, so yes, Alaska should ensure access for low-income and rural families.
To move forward, Alaska must take four key steps:
- Establish a State-Level Authorizer Board
Create an independent board by 2026 to approve at least ten new charters in underserved regions like Bethel and Nome. - Protect Allotments
Defend parent-directed correspondence school funding against NEA-backed lawsuits and political attacks. - Expand the Mat-Su Model
Fund a pilot program to replicate Mat-Su’s correspondence and CTE programs in rural communities using existing grant dollars. - Enhance Equity
Provide transportation stipends and scale allotments to support low-income families with school choice statewide.
These steps will break the NEA’s stranglehold, return power to parents, and deliver a market-driven education system that works. Gatto, Blumenfeld, and Friedman warned us what happens when education is centralized, and unions control the system. Mat-Su shows us what happens when parents take the wheel.
Alaska’s children do not belong to the state, and they are not property of the union. They belong to families, and it is time we trusted those families to choose what’s best for their kids’ education.
Rep. Kevin McCabe serves in the Alaska Legislature on behalf of Big Lake.
The importance of indoctrinating children has always been central to rising dictatorships. Look at the nazi’s ‘hitler youth.’ And don’t forget that classic song by the S.F. Gay Men’s Chorus: ‘We’re coming for your kids,’ which affirms, ‘we’ll convert your children- yes we will!’
Conservatives want a real education.
Anchorage is a Liberal Pit!
“…… the 19th-century Prussian school model was designed for obedience, not excellence……..”
Well, it clearly fails to achieve either obedience or excellence.
well written and spot on..
That’s a significant kick in the whiffles of the NEA Cartel.
Great read, Kevin. A couple comments for your consideration.
Do the math and ASD lost 492 students/year over the period 2010 – 2024. You are right that overall trend is downward.
Solution? Do everything humanly possible to put control of the $$$ as close to the students as humanly possible. And yes, this means vouchers. SCOTUS already gave every single state in the union the tool to make that happen with their 2020 Espinoza v Montana Department of Revenue Opinion allowing vouchers for religious schools. All 4 of your recommendations fall instantly out of that opinion should parents simply control the $$$. Cheers –
It’s true that Anchorage’s size means its performance heavily influences state averages — but let’s be honest about when and why the enrollment decline began.
The sharp drop in ASD student numbers started during the pandemic, when the district kept students in remote learning far longer than the Mat-Su Borough School District, which reopened for in-person instruction much earlier. Families made choices. Mat-Su’s schools — with more options like CTE and correspondence — were open, flexible, and responsive. That wasn’t because of a lack of unions; it was because local leadership made different calls.
Blaming unions for declining enrollment or innovation misses the point. The Mat-Su Classified Employees Association, for example, supported in-person learning, choice, and programs that work for families. Unions don’t block change — bad leadership does, regardless of whether it’s elected officials or district administrators.
If we want real reform, we need to stop using unions as political scapegoats and start focusing on what actually works: family involvement, school accountability, and local decision-making that reflects community values — like we’ve seen in Mat-Su.
No.
Dead wrong.
The teachers Union is the greatest detriment to children’s education in this state.
GET OUT OF THE OUBLIC SCHOOLS – if you want your child to be a functioning, literate, morally based person.
The kids that might have attended were aborted.
49,243 – 42,353 = 6,890
10 (yrs) goes into 6,890 ….. 689 times.
689 is not “roughly 1000 kids per year”
Did you go to school in ANC?
We don’t have to exaggerate how screwed up liberal policies are by lying w/ numbers (the way liberals do)
Just sayin.
Perhaps there were less in earlier years and now 1,000 per year?
Great article Kevin. I found Blumenfeld’s book and Friedman’s article online for free download and look forward to reading them.
Obedience is certainly not a bad thing and America was once great applying the Prussian model. However, our schools today sow anarchy and uncertainty so I’d say the current model is from a different school of thought and nefarious in nature.
I agree that correspondence school students should be tested. We use tests to gauge whether other types of schools are working or not, correspondence schools should be no exception. If anything comes out of the upcoming special session, hopefully mandatory testing for all publicly funded schools will be included.
Why are you threatened by correspondence schools so much David?
Most children in correspondence DO test voluntarily and your know what – they test better than the gulag kids stuck in public schools.
How about testing teachers for competency, how about holding teachers accountable for their students test scores?
Wow, what an incredibly truthful and accurate assessment of how I, as a parent, feel about education. I live in the Matsu EXACTLY for the reasons mentioned in this report. The Anchorage School district, from the Superintendent on down, are absolutely corrupt, and think they know what’s best for my son. Well, I made my voice perfectly clear when I left Anchorage and moved into the Matsu Valley. I am very pleased to read that many more parents are also following parents like me that have already left Anchorage.
God Bless the Matsu!
Here, here!
Our Educational systems are in critical condition. The most expensive and poorest performance. The state has been sued and lost. They have all the answers except how to pay for failure. My aunt was head of the National Education Board, she cared about reading writing and math. Time to get to work in the classroom.
Anchorage voters are partially to blame here as well! Several years ago, I was a Project/Construction Manager for ASD. My career at that time ended there, as well as several others, because the Anchorage voters continually rejected Maintenance Fund Bonds…ie: Money needed to maintain existing schools systems as they age. So what did we have to do? For example: Continue to keep a 25 year old HVAC system working that was aged out, and continually breaking down. (They are all scheduled to be replaced after their useful life, but funding kept being rejected) Try fixing your car that you’ve let run continuously for 25 years and never get money to replace it! Same thing here! Many thanks to all the maintenance techs out there that work their backsides off trying to maintain these systems the best they can for the kids!
Being forced to leave ASD due to lack of funding left a huge void in my life. Through no fault of my own, I had failed my clients….Not the Voters, but the children of Anchorage.
To the Anchorage voters: You should be ASHAMED!
The rural kids need opt in boarding 9-12 schools. There is no way a rural village school can provide the math, science and to be frank history and English that could rival a school in Fairbanks or Anchorage or Juneau. I am not saying that the population centers are providing the best product for everyone. I am saying that they have science labs and subject specific teachers that the rural village schools cannot support. Mount Edgecombe has better results than all rural schools and most schools in population centers. The reason is that they have the teachers and more importantly parents who want the best for their kids and students who WANT to be there. The rural kids DESERVE better options than there are or can be given the resources and ability to recruit and retain subject specific teachers.
The state used to have a boarding home program where rural students were placed with a family in Anchorage (and possibly in other cities). My rural school only went to the 8th grade and so my options were correspondence, boarding home program or Mt Edgecumbe. I wound up going to high school in Anchorage and graduated from Dimond High in 1973.
Rep McCabe is probably underestimating the numbers as opposed to the comment he didn’t ‘do the math’ appropriately. Districts in Alaska have a ton of tricks to make enrollment look better than it actually is, such as keeping students on the books who haven’t shown up for school more than a couple of times in months and months. Decades ago, when Dept of Ed in Alaska turned into ‘test score bean counters’ they figured out how to ‘count’ students at the end of their Jr year of high school to fudge the retention numbers since huge majority of non-retentions occur during senior year. Until Alaskans ditch ranked choice voting which is Soros/Globalists stronghold in the 49th state we will not see reform from the likes of removing Princess Lisa to putting the teacher’s union in their place.
“ In the 1960s, The National Education Association changed its character. The NEA changed into a union. And from that point on you can see deterioration in the quality of schooling in the United States.”
-Milton Friedman
I totally agree with this article. I’m a grandparent who just had grand daughter graduate from our tech high school and I was impressed with her experience there.
Totally wrong, as it appears on this website
You know the Japanese are all educated public schools and seem to do quite well. Parents are involved and so is learning to be self motivated. We have many examples. From my experience it’s some lousy teachers that continue year after year and of course some lousy parents too.
The governor has gutted education in Alaska from primary all the way up to post secondary. Now there isn’t enough funding to go around to the splintered system of schools we now have where the “old” public schools have been vilified by conservatives, abandoned by liberals and defunded by the state in favor of funneling what money the governor will approve to charter schools and districts he likes, and that’s not Anchorage or Fairbanks. It’s very cute to blame the NEA, they have been the easy target for decades when the actual culprit has been state funding formulas or outright lack of funding. Blaming the NEA is an easy way to take no blame yourselves and just be the victim, as usual, it gets pretty tiring. I think good charter schools are great, I think trade schools are great too, they all factor into the mix but once you deconstruct public education to the extent that it’s hard to fund so much more brick and mortar infrastructure than existed before to educate the same number or in some cases LESS students. Go ahead and assign blame on unions or vouchers or the Prussian….whatever that was from 100 years ago, Are you serious??? If the core of public education is not strong and funded then spreading it even more thinly is not going to make anything better. I’m happy for MatSu but not at the expense of the rest of Alaska which you seem to be fine with. Education across Alaska needs to be funded appropriately, something Dunlevey has never been interested in, it might be better to start with the governor’s office in assigning blame than the Prussian.
Property taxes. There aren’t any local funding in large swaths of the state. Communities that tax themselves are directly subsidizing other communities that don’t. We spend A LOT per student and the results are dismal. Some of that is parent involvement. Ironically, home schoolers and parochial schools have better results for significantly less expenditure.
Kevin M, excellent article. But what about “Local Control”, ie the Education Cartel and NEA? After working on education reform for many years, I believe the biggest problem to improving K12 education in Alaska is informing parents and grandparents re the success/failures of their children’s schools.
Information is power and the Education Cartel now controls that. Many parents see a beautiful school and think that great learning is happening inside those walls. But that “beautiful” school is merely a facade, like in a western movie, to trick all in believing great learning is happening within. Informing parents/grandparents and others on how the schools are failing their children is the key to education reform.
At this time, we are preaching to the choir. Now we need to increase the size of that choir by providing on-site (schools) the reading/math scores of each individual school. A few years ago, I provided information to parents in Mt View Elementary School how poorly that school was in educating their kids. I stood outside with a “report card” on the school, an application from the district to get to a better neighborhood school, and the specific part of the No Child Left Behind federal law.
Guess what? Of the 21 parents I talked to, 17 of them got their kids out of that failing school! Information IS power. Parents want their kids to be able to read, do math, and succeed in life. They love their kids.