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..