In January 2026, the Alaska State Legislature introduced House Bill 248 which seeks to establish a “correspondence program student assessment participation rate,” thereby attaching state correspondence funds to homeschool state assessments.

For more than 80 years – longer than statehood – Alaska parents have enjoyed the right to homeschool their children with little-to-no state oversight. Correspondence school systems have operated in cooperation with parents who have either chosen not to send their children through the public school system or simply could not do so due to the state’s unique geographic limitations, which often impede typical public-school participation.

In 1997, the state added a completely deregulated homeschool option, which did not require either notification or public-school-style assessments (CRHE, n.d.). Many families choose, however, to volunteer some oversight in exchange for some state funding through public correspondence programs. The families receive narrowly regulated funds each year and are required to meet minimal educational guidelines for the retention of that privilege. As with any state, a large portion of Alaska homeschool families choose to provide an alternative education based on a mixture of religious, moral, and academic reasons, which is why Alaska House Bill 248 is seen by many as a direct attack on the parental right to choose how to educate their children.

Because of the religious elements, as well as the general human flourishment elements of parental educational choice, both Christian law principles and general libertarian political principles rest squarely in the center of this debate.

At its core, this debate is not about testing: It’s about authority. Who gets to shape the mind and conscience of a child, the parent, or the state?

LEGAL LANDSCAPE

One of the fundamental principles of the American moral landscape is the recognition of parental rights over their children. The Founding Fathers made it clear that the parental right (and duty) to educate is central. James Madison wrote, “The duty of parents to provide for the education of their children…is a principle of natural law (Madison, 1792, p. 266). Madison is joined by others such as John Adams and Benjamin Rush in this idea; and Thomas Jefferson recognizes the most likely objection to this idea and refutes it, saying: “It is better to tolerate the rare instances of a parent refusing to let his child be educated than to shock the common feelings…by the forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father (Jefferson, 1786, p. 244).”

However, these ideas were not merely lofty philosophic musings posited by men who operated within a loose collection of states with no concept of public education, they were epistemological outworkings of a culture that recognized the importance of continuing moral standards (Grudem, 2022, p. 13). The United States Supreme Court has consistently ruled that compulsory public education is not a right of the state, or federal government. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters Justice James Clark McReynolds wrote,

The fundamental theory of liberty…excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children [and] no question is raised concerning the power of the State to reasonably regulate all schools…but it cannot…compel children to attend public schools only (268 U.S. 510, 1925, pp. 534-535).

The same sentiments can be found in cases such as Meyer v. Nebraska (262 U.S. 390, 1923), Wisconsin v. Yoder (406 U.S. 205, 1972), Troxel v. Granville (530 U.S. 57, 2000) and West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (319 U.S. 624, 1943). The Alaska Supreme Court has followed this logic in its own decisions regarding homeschool. In Breese v. Smith, Justice Roger G. Connor wrote in the majority opinion, “We believe that the right of a parent to direct the education of his children is a fundamental right [and] [t]he State may not unreasonably interfere with that right (501 P.2d 159, 1972). The American – and Alaskan – tradition holds that the education of children is a duty held by the parents of those children, and that it is protected by the general tenets of natural law, as well as the definition of liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Fourteenth Amendment.

This principle is not relegated to explicit Christian law philosophy either. Secular defenders of liberty have recognized the primacy of parental authority over state standardization. John Stuart Mill (1859) argued that “the State should not require or compel the education of children in any particular manner,” warning that uniform systems risk producing intellectual conformity rather than free citizens. Similarly, Alexis de Tocqueville (1835/1840) observed that American strength derived from decentralized social institutions – especially the family – which function independently of state control. Modern constitutional theorists such as Robert Nozick (1974) have also maintained that the state exceeds its legitimate authority when it intrudes into domains properly belonging to individuals and families.

House Bill 248 must not pass; it must not even see the floor. It should be relegated to the trash bin of Alaska history.

THE STATE AS BOTH TEACHER & CREED

At its core, this debate is not about testing: It’s about authority. Who gets to shape the mind and conscience of a child, the parent, or the state?

History gives us a very clear warning about what happens when governments answer that question incorrectly. Centralized systems have never been content simply to educate; they seek to form citizens in their own image. When the state becomes the primary educator, it inevitably begins to function less like a limited institution and much more like formal indoctrination into the state-prescribed civil religion.

Karl Marx openly rejected the idea that parents should have ultimate authority over education, arguing instead that society – meaning the state – must direct it. This may appear somewhat abstract until we observe it in practice. All of these kinds of regimes are built on the idea that they do not merely provide education, but also define truth, morality, and acceptable belief. Political philosopher Eric Voegelin called movements like this “political religions,” which replace God, family, and conscience with the authority of the state. Voegelin’s statements are not embellished, a fact that surfaces once we consult those who actually lived under this kind of rule.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a Soviet dissident, did not describe communism as just an economic system. He recognized it as a totalizing ideology that demanded not simply obedience, but belief. That’s the pattern: once the state assumes responsibility for shaping children, it refuses to stop at math and reading. It moves into values, identity, and worldview. It becomes, in effect, the final authority on what is true.

And this is exactly what the American tradition has always rejected.

From John Stuart Mill’s warning that state-controlled education becomes “a contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another,” to the Supreme Court’s declaration in Pierce v. Society of Sisters that children are not “mere creatures of the state,” the message has been consistent: education belongs first to the family. This is why even small steps toward centralized control matter. You don’t have to abolish homeschooling outright to undermine it. You just have to condition it. Standardize it. Tie it to compliance. Slowly shift authority from the parent to the system.

Once this happens, it rarely reverses without bloodshed. Just ask the residents of the Soviet Gulags, the political prisoners over other Communist regimes throughout the last 125 years, or the socially unacceptable groups who faced genocide in Nazi Germany. These groups watched as the taxes they paid were used to directly disenfranchise and marginalize them. This isn’t about left versus right. It’s about whether we still believe what Americans have long claimed to believe – that the state exists to serve families, not replace them.

House Bill 248 must not pass; it must not even see the floor. It should be relegated to the trash bin of Alaska history. However, if it does make it the floor, the committee members who put it there, and those who vote in favor of it (especially those claiming to be Conservatives) should be immediately sanctioned, censured, and primaried.

The views expressed here are those of the author. Click here to see references used in this column.

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