For years I have listened to the same worn-out whining from the Alaska Council of School Administrators, the Alaska Association of School Boards, and the NEA: “Alaska’s schools are broken because the legislature doesn’t give us enough money.”

But they never talk about the kids.

Now comes the 2023 Odden/Picus study in the documents of the Education Funding Task Force for November 10th meeting. It lands like a sledgehammer: $13,612 base per student, which jumps to $18,000 to $22,000 once you add federal dollars and all the “weights” they recommend for special education, rural costs, and poverty.

YGBSM! That is roughly double the current Base Student Allocation and about $1.4 billion a year on top of what we already send to school districts. Where is the money going to come from? New oil taxes? More PFD theft? Income Tax?

My first reaction was not outrage at the price tag. It was laughter. We already spend $22,315 per student, the fourth highest in the nation, yet our kids rank 48th to 50th in reading and math. ACSA cannot seem to get that through their heads. The problem has never been the amount of money. The problem is who controls it.

So here is my single condition, and I say it with all seriousness – though I know that ACSA, the NEA, and AASB will never accept it – I will vote to give every Alaska child the full Odden/Picus amount, whatever the experts say is “adequate.”

Just put it on a debit card, hand it to parents, and let the dollars follow the child.

Call it backpack funding or call it an Education Savings Account, I don’t care. I call it common sense. Because the truth is, no one knows what a child needs better than that child’s family.

The Miracle of Mississippi on a Dime

If you want proof that money is not the answer, look south. Mississippi spends just $11,000 per student, about half of what Odden and Picus claim Alaska needs, yet the state posted the largest gains in the country on national reading tests. Fourth-grade reading scores jumped twelve points in six years. They closed the Black-White gap faster than Massachusetts. How? They stopped trusting bureaucrats and started trusting parents and teachers. They focused on phonics, early intervention, tutoring, and teacher coaching, funded by reallocating existing dollars, not by doubling the budget. If Mississippi can lead the nation on half our education budget, there is no excuse for Alaska to stay at the bottom.

Arizona took it even further. Lawmakers there handed parents $7,000 to $14,000 debit cards and watched 800 new micro-schools spring up in three years. Students in those programs now outscore their public-school peers by double-digit margins. When parents are trusted to direct their own child’s education, accountability and innovation happen naturally.

What $22,000 in a Parent’s Pocket Could Do in Alaska

Give Alaska parents the same opportunity and watch what happens:

• A small village in Hooper Bay keeps its school open with 15 students and $330,000 in funding; one master teacher at $140,000, two aides, satellite internet, and heat. No more begging Juneau for permission.

• A homeschooled teen in Juneau takes dual-credit courses at UAS, private cello lessons, and an online AP calculus class for $11,000. The remaining $11,000 rolls into a 529 for college.

• A hearing-impaired child in Kenai receives specialized instruction and speech therapy five days a week, learns through tailored audio-visual lessons, and finally keeps pace with her classmates.

• A Hmong refugee family in Anchorage sends their daughter to a classical Christian academy for $12,000 and uses the remaining $10,000 for speech therapy and a neighborhood math pod.

None of the above would require a single new dollar removed from the PFD. We are already spending the money. We are just currently wasting too much of it on huge central-office empires, half-empty buildings, and consultants who fly in from Seattle to explain why Alaska kids cannot read.

The Odden/Picus Dream Delivered by Parents and the free market, not Bureaucrats

If you read the Odden/Picus report closely, nearly every recommendation is already available in the private marketplace, homeschools, or charter schools. The private sector can deliver all of it today. The only thing standing in the way is a 1970s NEA-driven monopoly that does not trust parents.

The NEA is locked in to the Prussian model of schooling where all children meet in orderly rows and react to the bell, just like Pavlov’s dogs. Alaska parents do not want that anymore.

I trust parents. And I trust the free market and our teachers. Lets trust the mom in Kotzebue who traps marten to feed her kids. Lets trust the Filipino fisherman in Kodiak who works the slime line 16 hours a day or the Air Force wife in Wasilla who moves every three years and just wants stability for her autistic son. Give them the full Odden/Picus amount and they will move mountains for their children, and support those excellent teachers who will educate their kids.

The Beautiful Part: The Old System Retires Peacefully

When money follows the child, the free market thrives and bureaucracy naturally shrinks. Districts and schools that refuse to compete will adapt or fade. Superintendents making $200,000 will return to the classroom or lose their funding. Union bosses will discover that parents, not collective bargaining agreements, set the value of a great teacher. Within five years, Alaska could look more like Arizona: thousands of new schools, teacher pay that actually rewards excellence, and rural and Native students finally receiving the targeted help the experts say they deserve. And finally, educated Alaskan kids.

My Promise to the Alphabet Soup Swamp

You want $1.4 billion more? Done.
You want $22,000 per student? Done.
You want every penny Odden and Picus say is necessary to close the achievement gap? Done.

Just stop sending it to the same people who turned the fourth-highest spending in the nation into 49th-place results for Alaskan children. Put it on a debit card. Hand it to parents. And get out of their way.

Because when the money follows the child, Alaska does not just get “adequate” schools. We get exceptional ones. And I will vote for that every time.

Originally published on Substack: https://kevinjmccabe.substack.com/p/im-thrilled-to-support-giving-every