Anchorage Daily News, Anchorage, Alaska: Letters
A letter to the editor in today’s Anchorage Daily News, the state’s largest newspaper, calls into question Alaska’s highly successful and widely respected homeschooling law. The writer states: “There are unknown numbers of Alaska children not getting any type of supervised, curriculum-based instruction.”
The writer then explains, correctly: “State school law (AS 14.30.010) states ‘all children between the ages of 7 and 16 must be enrolled in school.’ This may be in a public, private, church or correspondence school. Then, with critical implications, it finishes by stating ‘or is being educated in the child’s home by parent or legal guardian.’”
Critical implications? That Alaskan legislators many years ago saw the wisdom in trusting parents to be responsible for their own children?
The writer doesn’t see it that way. She ends her letter with this open threat to Alaskan homeschoolers: “I’ve spoken with several legislators, and they are amazed to find out about this problem. In fact, at first, they are convinced that it just can’t be true. In order to protect Alaska’s children, this law needs to be changed so all children do get an education!”
I’m drafting my own letter to the editor this evening, and I’ll share it here.
Helen
mark
david
The Daily News has a 225 word limit on their letters, so I had to make a decision between writing with my full homeschool activist armor in place or writing as simply a homeschooler who has greatly benefitted under Alaska’s law. I chose the latter:
In the late sixties, in Eagle River, I left school at the age of 14 to continue my learning at home. My parents wisely understood the concept of homeschooling even then, and today, over 40 years later, our large extended Alaskan family is still homeschooling. My always-homeschooled sister went to the University of Alaska (and made the Dean’s List); my always-homeschooled brother taught himself to fly and to rebuild classic cars; my always-homeschooled nephews went to the mideast to serve their country; my always-homeschooled children have built their own businesses, their own homes, and are now homeschooling my grandchildren. I and my husband taught ourselves skills with which we’ve run our own business for over 23 years.
Hundreds of thousands of families like ours have shown the time-proven effectiveness of homeschooling. The unparalleled growth of this approach to education testifies to its success, and Alaska’s homeschooling law serves many thousands of families who benefit from having a remarkable law which is often held up in other states as the gold standard of homeschooling. As other states strive to copy our much-admired example, why should we change what has worked so well for so long?
Alaska’s homeschooling law is not a “problem,” as August 24th’s letter writer alarmingly claims. Alaska’s homeschooling law is a legislative vote of confidence in the families of this great state!
Helen Hegener
Palmer