The situation surrounding Alaska’s home-school program — where a judge struck down broad swaths of the law after it came to light that some parents were using money from their programs to send their kids to private and religious schools — is thanks, in part, to the long-time advocacy of Board of Education member Bob Griffin.
Griffin, a longtime member of the right-wing Alaska Policy Forum, has long criticized the state’s public school system and cast doubts around its funding levels. The Alaska Policy Forum has also been one of the key popularizers of the practice of taking advantage of the home school allotments, maintaining a list of schools and programs that were easiest to tap into.
Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman’s ruling, which found the practice clearly violated the Alaska Constitution’s prohibition on state resources going to benefit private and religious schools, has thrown the entirety of Alaska’s home-school system into question with no clear answer on what’s next. It has also exposed deep philosophical divisions on public education, demonstrating that much of the “school choice” that Griffin has advocated for has created a two-tier education system that has largely benefited families with the means to cover part or all of their private and religious school tuition.
And, at least in the bipartisan Senate, his long-adversarial approach to public schools could pose a problem when his appointment is put to a vote next week.
Members of the Senate Education Committee grilled Griffin on Monday, questioning him on things like his direct advocacy for parents taking advantage of the home school allotments as private school tuition subsidies (appearing at one meeting as a state official), his role of the Board of Education passing regulations on trans female athletes, his support for a radical overhaul of how public charter schools are approved and his tendency to blur the line between his work at a right-wing advocacy group and official state business.
As Griffin typically does, his rambling answers were vague and rarely responsive. While he tried to take the edge off some of his previous positions, such as declaring his support for a $680 increase to the base student allocation, legislators didn’t seem to be moved and pointed to a long track record of his adversarial position toward public schools.
Griffin also faced strong criticism for his efforts to openly lobby legislators to vote against overriding the governor’s veto of the education bill, which failed by a single vote. There’s been talk that those lobbying efforts included explicit threats of well-funded primary challengers against Republicans who didn’t sustain the veto. While some legislators said it walked right up to the line of violating the state ethics act, Griffin saw no problem in it.
“I encouraged them to sustain the veto because I think the governor was correct,” he said, criticizing the bill as lacking educational reforms.
That educational “reform,” however, is the proposal to allow the Board of Education to create state-sanctioned charter schools with little input or oversight from the local school districts that would be charged with operating them. At the hearing, he argued that the current situation gives local school districts too much power.
That also didn’t sit well.
Sen. Tobin noted Griffin has claimed families are “voting with their feet” by going from neighborhood schools to charter schools and home-school programs, which he has used to justify focusing resources on programs that serve a relatively small and generally better-off group of students. She pointed out many of the families who have chosen the home-school path have done so because they’re looking for the kind of opportunities and extracurriculars that have been eliminated from neighborhood schools, thanks in part, to the type of anti-public school politics that Griffin has long nurtured.
“We have recent news reports that say folks have been participating in correspondence programs because there’s no longer arts and science and P.E. in their neighborhood schools,” she said, adding that the charter school proposal he supports is a direct attack on the local control that has made the system so successful. “This has happened during your five years on the state Board of Education. I hope you understand that we want folks who care about our public schools, who are advocating for our public schools, who are not talking about reconstituting power in the state board and away from our locally elected school board members. It is very disturbing to me that you think the decision should be made by the state Board of Education and not at the local level with the local communities … I have deep reservations.”
Sen. Tobin said she would vote against his confirmation and encouraged other legislators to do the same. Several other members also flagged their concerns with his appointment. Many members of the Minority House Coalition have also expressed their skepticism with Griffin at a confirmation earlier last month.
The Alaska Legislature is set to meet in a joint session next week to consider the governor’s appointments. It takes 31 total votes to approve appointments.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
